Tutorial by the developer, Gildas.
SingleFile is an open source browser extension compatible with several browsers including but not limited to Chrome, Firefox (Desktop and Mobile), Microsoft Edge, and Safari.
When added to a browser, the user can right-click (or CTRL+click in Mac OS) on a non-interactive section of a loaded web page and use SingleFile from the context menu. Several options are available; besides from saving the present web page SingleFile can also optionally save all tabs, be set to auto save pages when opened, batch save a list of web addresses (URLs), or create a page copy with annotation tools that may be used to add observations and comments before saving the file.
As the name suggests, the page is saved as one single HTML file, as opposed to saving a web page locally using CTRL+s. Pictures and other non-interactive content will be embedded in the resulting saged copy. Interactive content such as a YouTube video will not be saved except from the visible stills shown on the page.
The addon is first and foremost useful because it is a powerful tool for saving pages. In CDMMs tests it was possible to save copies of pages that did not save successfully in regular ctrl+s saves, e.g. news media pages with heavy scripting.
SingleFile is even able to save social media pages like Facebook (but the user will have to scroll down manually or use an autoscroll add-on in order to get more content that what is automatically loaded from the relevant URL; as well as opening full posts or replies. Full posts and replies can only be saved if they are first opened manually). Still, given how difficult it has become to preserve social media, the options of autoscrolling in several tabs and then use SingleFile to save all tabs is certainly of some interest. For very long pages some errors may occur, and the full content may not be saved unless a quick scroll up and down is done right before saving in order to verify that all content is loaded.
It should be noted that SingleFile differs from normal saving with CTRL+s in not creating a companion folder with files form the web page. Information on elements such as pictures is preserved in the HTML code and may be inspected from there, but if there is a research need to study and work with the pictures it may still be a good idea to attempt saving with ctrl+s, possiby used alongside the more powerful saves from SingleFile.
If relevant: There are several auto scrollers available for most modern browsers. As an example FoxScroller is an advanced scroller with adjustable speed for Mozilla Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/foxscroller/
The GitHub web page for SingleFile provides direct installation links for various browsers.
