Im looking to do something a little out of the ordinary here. I need to watch a number on a website and have it alert if the number DOES NOT change within a certain amount of time. Likely within 10 minutes.
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this is a valid use when one expects a change to happen at a fixed interval. you can set up a system to alert you by using a “dead man’s switch” approach. this method involves regularly sending a “heartbeat” signal to a service; if the signal isn’t received in the expected interval, the service triggers an alert.
a service like dead man’s snitch can work. configure distill to call a webhook or send an email alert to dead man’s snitch. if a check-in is missed - indicating the number hasn’t changed as expected - dead man’s snitch will notify you.
what do you think?
Hello,
I need something somewhat similar but slightly different.
This is the current workflow for Distill –> On Change Triggered –> Run filters –> Send Alert
So once there is a change, Distill will run the preset filters I set and if it passes it will send an alert.
The workflow I’m looking for Distill –> Run Filters –> Send Alert
So basically each day it will check all listings regardless of whether or not the page changed, run filters and if they pass the filters send the alerts. This will allow be to be notofied of webpages where the content did not change, but it still passes my filters.
How can I do this in the simpilist way possible.
conditions are evaluated only if a change is detected. in this scenario, one possibility is to introduce an artificial change. does the page have an always changing content like current timestamp?
No. It doesn’t.
I feel like this is a pretty useful feature. Because people use Distill to track, when a webpage meets certain criteria.
And if a webpage meets a certain criteria, over an extended period customers might want to be informed multiple times not just the first time on the initial change.
I’m surprised Distill does not have this. Is there something I’m missing, because I feel like this is an important feature that I assumed would already be integrated in Distill
a workaround it to introduce an artificial change using a js selector. here is an example:
div = document.createElement('div');
div.textContent = Date.now(); // any content that can be used to trigger a change
document.body.append(div);
div;
note: js selectors work in cloud and the desktop app. browser extensions do not support executing js selectors anymore.
most users need to get alerted on a change. getting alerted without a change is a much smaller (< 1%) where a dms works. the use case here is getting alerted about a system that can potentially be down. your need to trigger the action is new one. using js can help get what you need.
i am curious what your use for this is. are you thinking of this as an alarm that keeps on triggering until stopped?