Interface Overview

Structure

The A-Parser interface consists of three parts:

• Menu (left)
• Status bar (bottom)
• Current tab (right)

News

The tab is divided into two areas:

• A-Parser News (left), which include:
  • up-to-date information about updates
  • collections of recipes and articles
  • video tutorials
• Latest forum posts (right)

Quick Task

This tab allows you to run a simple task without using the editor.

Task Editor

A full-featured Task Editor. It allows for detailed parser configuration, applying filters, using regular expressions, saving the deduplication database, formatting queries and results, and has a number of other features. Read more about task configuration in the Task Editor section.

Export preset

Import preset

Tooltips

When hovering over certain fields (parser, result format, query format, etc.), tooltips appear.

Searching in dropdown lists

To use the search in a dropdown list, click on the text inside it, clear it (CTRL+A, DELETE\BACKSPACE) and start typing. If multiple matches are found, you can navigate through them using the arrows. When the item is found, press ENTER

note

Using search, you cannot select more than one item. To do this, you must manually scroll through the list and select the required items.

Parsers

In this area, you can Add parsers to be used in the task, add a Query Builder, Results Builder, change the Result format, override Parser options, select a preset, and perform a Task test

Result format

The button allows you to restore the default result format.
Click on to open a multi-line input field where line breaks are available.

Parser options

Parser settings are saved in presets – sets of saved settings.

A default preset exists for all settings – default. It cannot be changed. All changes must be saved in presets with new names.

Override options

Add override – quick overriding of settings for a parser. This option can be added directly in the Task Editor. The settings list shows the default values.

Queries

The list of queries can be specified in two ways: loaded from a file or entered in the field.

Queries from file

Queries from text

Results

In the Results field of the task editor, you can see options that regulate the recording of results to files.

Options

Additional options of task editor.

Task Queue

Demonstration of interaction with the task queue interface. Switching between active and completed tasks, navigating between pages.

Task card. The card displays basic information about the task. Task statuses in the queue and their descriptions.

• Settings
  • Parsers. This item shows the parsers involved in the task.
  • Added time of the task to the queue.
  • Queries. Queries are listed separated by commas or a relative path (from /aparser/queries/) to the queries file is specified.
  • Thread config. The name of the Threads Config used in the task.
  • Result file. The name of the results file.
• State
  • Changed time (last) of the task.
  • Completed/total queries. Total number of queries and the number of completed ones.
  • Failed queries. Count
  • Unique/total results
  • Status
  • Active threads
  • Waiting threads
  • Current/overall speed. Task execution speed in queries per minute: current shows the number of queries performed in the last minute, and total — the average value for the entire period of the task's operation.
  • Current query

note

What is the difference between pause and stopping a task? A paused task continues to occupy an active slot, while a stopped one does not. You can resume execution after both stopping and pausing.

note

How to configure the number of displayed tasks in the queue? Go to the ⚙ Settings tab, then General Settings and in the Tasks per page item, specify the desired number. Click 💾 Save for the changes to take effect.

Scheduler

The Scheduler allows you to schedule the launch of tasks that require periodic execution.

Logs viewer

Viewing the log for a specific task. A separate log is kept for each thread.

Viewing logs is mainly needed for task debugging to analyze the task execution progress and see where and when errors occur in the task. For example, if the task is not working and results are not being collected, then you need to view the task logs and see why there are no results.

note

To view task logs, you must enable the Enable log option before adding the task. If you add a task without enabling this option, viewing logs will be impossible.

Proxy Checker

Proxy checkers are managed in the Proxy Checker tab, where you can add, delete, as well as enable and disable proxy checkers. This tab also displays statistics for each proxy checker, a graph of alive proxies, and statistics on source processing.

Tools

Includes several tabs:

• Template testing – a tool for composing and checking templates
• JavaScript Editor – allows adding your own JS functions and executing them from the template engine
• Update A-Parser – checking for updates and automatic updating to the latest version
• Maintenance – stopping and restarting the parser server, as well as a debug window
• Regex Builder – allows creating and testing regular expressions

More about Tools

Settings

A-Parser contains the following groups of settings:

• Global Settings – main program settings: language, password, update parameters, number of active tasks
• Threads settings – settings for threads and deduplication methods for tasks
• Parser settings – ability to configure each individual parser
• Proxy checker settings – number of threads and all settings for the proxy checker
• Additional settings – optional settings for advanced users

More about Settings

Test parsing

This tab is intended for debugging parsers. Debug mode is available.

More about Parser Test

Status bar

The status bar contains the following elements:

1. A-Parser status. By default, it has the value No tasks. This means that A-Parser is in standby mode. As soon as at least one task is added, the status will change to Parsing.
2. Reflects the current number of tasks. From left to right: number of running tasks, total tasks (running or stopped).
3. proxy information is presented:
   1. Number of alive.
   2. Total loaded.
4. Reflects the number of active threads.
5. Appears if a new version available of A-Parser is available. When clicked, the Update A-Parser tab will open.
6. Website link.