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Author Topic: Feature request: Copy/store/paste the highlighted text and any related metadata.  (Read 5424 times)

IainB

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There's a post here: Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful:
Quote URL Text_1.0.9b (title, url, quote, date)
multicopy_1.1 (list of Ctrl-c clips)
Scrapbook_1.5.6
Web Of Trust
firefox_18.0.1 in live linux puppy-precise_5.4.3 from DVD-RW in amd64 box

I went and took a look at the Firefox add-on site for Quote URL Text_1.0.9b, and installed the add-on, restarted Firefox, and set the add-on's parameters to suit my peculiar needs.
The add-on Quote URL Text_1.0.9b copies the highlighted text and its source url, and other metadata into the Clipboard text field - which also goes as text into the CHS database (so it's all clips saved by this method that have this data, not just the last copied clip).

To check its functionality, I went back to that Firefox add-on site, and selected the text as emboldened per the quote below, and copied it with the Ctrl+Shift+C hotkeys necessary for the add-on to capture the text and metadata.
The following is a paste (Ctrl+V) of the result:
QuoteURLText :: Add-ons for Firefox
https://addons.mozil.../addon/quoteurltext/
Wed Mar 06 2013 12:11:33 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
QuoteURLText 1.0.9b
by Jay Palat
Quote URL text will copy selected text to the clipboard including Page Title, Location and copy date.

(The emboldened text is all that was selected/highlighted and copied from the webpage, the rest of the text in the quote is metadata.)

This is an incredibly useful feature, and something that I have needed for ages. I can get something like it with a conventional copy-and-paste (of the last clip copied) into OneNote, which pastes the same text above thusly: (it picks up the HTML/RTF formatting also)

CHS - QuoteURLText paste example in OneNote.png

At the time of capture, CHS has access to the entire Clipboard contents - including the same text and metadata that QuoteURLText pushes into the Clipboard text field.
I know that CHS picks up some of that metadata and stores it in other fields in its database, but that metadata in that form is relatively inaccessible - or only partly accessible - e.g., in limited fashion through "Additional actions on last clip" or as a CHS Paste Template, but I am unsure as to whether that will be enough for what I want to be able to do.

What I would like to be able to do is this:
1. Effectively make the add-on QuoteURLText redundant, by incorporating its features into CHS, such that the features would work in any brand of browser, regardless.
2. Have an option in CHS to enable/disable the capture of any text selected in a web browser, in exactly the same way as QuoteURLText does.
3. When this feature is enabled and without necessitating the use of special hotkeys, CHS would by default examine the metadata for the last clip in the Clipboard buffer and automatically detect/determine whether it contained browser metadata. If it did, then the contents (text) of the clip field in CHS would be updated with the metadata as text. Thus, a subsequent paste would paste the updated contents - e.g., as per the paste after using QuoteURLText, above.
4. The new CHS feature, as well as being enabled/disabled as a default, would present options as to the order of metadata text in the paste of clip text saved.
5. Ideally, the metadata could include anything necessary so as to store in, and paste from saved clips all the metadata to perform a paste as in OneNote (see above) - which picks up the HTML/RTF and formatting also.

Could this feature be provided in CHS?

Hope this all makes sense.

mouser

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Ian,

Give me a week or so to finish the marathon of work i've been doing on my Screenshot Captor tool and I will be able to focus on this and talk to you about it.

dcwul62

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Yes.. !  

I very much support this idea. Actually this is something that I have been missing in CHS - but as I had another add-on in place, it wasn't high on my CHS-wishlist.

@ian: I guess you mean something like this??

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Clipboard Help+Spell-Suggestion-Firefox add-on-06102013 070701.png
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Note: I . .  have Clipboard Help+Spell stored entirely within a encrypted container (Bestcrypt), with a link to the desktop.
After booting my PC, I open the container and then -manually- launch whatever is needed.
The CHS database is located within the encrypted container, i.e. the contents of CHS is not visible when launching CHS whilst the cntr still 'closed' .
In the *rare* occassion that I launch FF befóre opening the container, I assume that then the add on is greyed out?

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« Last Edit: October 06, 2013, 12:49 AM by dcwul62 »

IainB

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@dcwul62: No, I don't think I meant quite what I think you seem to be talking about!   :)
What I wrote was very specific, and entailed making the/any Firefox-related clipping add-on redundant, and for all of the clip functionality and options for meta-data capture to remain within CHS.

I suspect it might be in the "too hard" basket to actually implement, though if the feature were made available in CHS I suspect a large number of CHS users might be blown away by it when they woke up to its potential.
That's kinda like I am when I explore/discover some of the amazing functionality in MS OneNote - in fact, I have even mulled over somehow getting this CHS functionality into OneNote with (say) an AHK macro. The drawback to that is that it would probably make CHS redundant for me, and would be using OneNote awkwardly and in a manner it was not really designed to be used in - i.e., a kludge.

dcwul62

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Oh - sorry for the confusion.
I guess what you are asking for may indeed be a bit difficult to implement.
Assume one of the things you are asking for may be covered  "Clip to OneNote" add-on?
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