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Monitors

A monitor watches one web page for you. When the page changes in a way that matches what you described, BrowseWiz saves a summary in History and alerts you. The free plan allows 1 monitor, and a paid plan allows up to 30.

You create, edit, pause, resume and delete monitors in the "Monitors" section of the scheduled tasks drawer. Open the drawer with the clock button in the top menu.

The count next to "Monitors" shows how many monitors you have out of your plan's limit. Paused monitors count too. If you have more monitors than your plan allows, for example after a downgrade, only your oldest monitors, as many as the limit, are checked. The others stay listed and can be deleted, and their status line shows "Paused: over your plan's limit". Once you delete monitors down to the limit, the remaining ones are checked again.

Create a monitor​

  1. In the Monitors section, click "New monitor".
  2. Fill in the form:
    • Page URL: the page to watch. It is filled in with the URL of your active tab. It must start with http:// or https://.
    • Notify me when…: describe what to watch for, for example that a new post about a topic appears.
    • Name (optional): if you leave it empty, the name is the page's host.
  3. Click "Add". "Cancel" closes the form without saving.

The form refuses:

  • a URL that is not valid: "Enter a page URL that starts with http:// or https://."
  • an empty description: "Describe what to watch for."
  • a monitor over your plan's limit: "You can have up to 1 monitor. Delete it to add another." on the free plan, or "You can have up to 30 monitors. Delete one to add another." on a paid plan.

If saving fails, the form shows "Could not save the monitor."

Edit a monitor​

Click the pencil on the monitor's row ("Edit monitor"). The row is replaced by a form with:

  • Notify me when…: filled in with the current description, with the cursor in it;
  • Name (optional): filled in with the current name;
  • the page's host, which you cannot change. To watch a different page, create a new monitor.

Click "Save" to keep your changes, or "Cancel" (or press Esc) to bring the row back unchanged. Esc closes only the form, not the drawer. Only one monitor can be edited at a time.

The form refuses an empty description with "Describe what to watch for." If you clear the name, the name becomes the page's host. If saving fails, the form shows "Could not save the monitor."

The next check uses the new description. Until then, the status line keeps showing the last match, if any.

Pause and resume​

Click the pause button on the monitor's row ("Pause monitor"). A paused monitor is not checked and its status line shows "Paused". Click the circled play button ("Resume monitor") to start checking it again.

  • A paused monitor still counts toward the count next to "Monitors" and toward your plan's limit. To free a slot, delete it.
  • When you resume a monitor, it is checked right away. The check compares the page with the page as it was before you paused, so changes made while the monitor was paused can still alert you.
  • Pause and resume work on every plan. They do not open the monitor's match or ask for any permission.

Tab access​

To check a page, BrowseWiz opens it in a new background tab in the BrowseWiz Tabs group and closes the tab afterwards. This needs the tab access permission.

When you click "Add" and the permission is not granted yet, Chrome asks for it. The monitor is saved whether you grant or decline. Without tab access, the monitor shows "Paused: tab access required". Click "Grant tab access" under its status line to open Chrome's permission prompt again. As soon as you grant tab access, from here or anywhere else, paused monitors start checking again.

How monitors work​

  • BrowseWiz checks each monitor about every 5 minutes. With more than 5 monitors on one site, each is checked about every N minutes, where N is the number of monitors on that site, so a site gets about one visit a minute at most. Paused monitors are not counted. BrowseWiz spaces out its visits to the same site and backs off if a site seems to block the checks, so you are not flagged as a bot.
  • The first check stores the page as the starting point ("Watching since …"). It never alerts you.
  • Later checks compare the page with the last one. If nothing changed, nothing more happens. If something changed, BrowseWiz makes a single request to a BrowseWiz model to decide whether the changes match what you described.
  • Checks stop while a monitor is paused, while you are signed out, and for monitors over your plan's limit.

Match alerts​

When the changes match, BrowseWiz adds an item to History titled with the monitor's name. It shows a bold headline, a summary that links the matching items, and the page's URL. You are alerted like for a finished scheduled task: a notice in the side panel, a pill on the page, or a system notification, titled "Monitor: " followed by the monitor's name, with the headline as its text. Clicking the alert opens the History item. See Run alerts for how BrowseWiz picks the alert.

The "Notify me when a task finishes" switch does not apply to monitors. To stop a monitor's alerts, pause or delete it.

A check that ends without a match, or fails, creates no History item and shows no alert. Only the monitor's status line changes.

Status line​

Each monitor row shows its name, the page's host, a status line and three buttons, in this order: a pause button ("Pause monitor") or, on a paused monitor, a circled play button ("Resume monitor"), a pencil ("Edit monitor"), and an X ("Delete monitor"). The status line shows the first of these that applies:

  • "Paused" while you have paused the monitor.
  • "Backing off until …" while the site is in backoff.
  • After a skipped or failed check:
    • "Paused: over your plan's limit"
    • "Waiting for a browser window"
    • "Paused: sign-in required"
    • "Paused: tab access required"
    • "Check failed: the page took too long to load"
    • "Check failed: the site blocked the check"
    • "Check failed: unexpected reply from the model"
    • "Check failed: something went wrong"
  • "Last match … ago" followed by the match's headline, when the latest check matched.
  • "Watching since …" when the latest check stored the starting point.
  • "Last checked … ago" otherwise.

A monitor that has not been checked yet shows no status line.

Open a monitor's latest match​

A row with a match opens the monitor's latest match in History. Click the row, or Tab to it and press Enter. The drawer closes and the History item opens, as when you click a match alert. A row without a match does nothing when clicked. Clicking the pencil, the pause or play button, the X or "Grant tab access" on a row does not open the match.

In History, items that came from a monitor show a monitor icon. If the match was deleted from History first, the side panel opens and shows "This task run is no longer in your history."

Delete a monitor​

Click the X on the monitor's row. The monitor is deleted at once, with no confirmation, and no further check of it starts.

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