Paste and highlight

tomslug · July 14, 2015, 6:34am

Ah that did it. I was assuming it wasn’t working since the pictures didn’t look exactly the same haha.

It’s late here, so I’ll post the completed macro with context tomorrow. Thanks for the help as usual.

ComplexPoint · July 14, 2015, 11:55am

( Quick thought – if the goal of the post-paste selection is to speed up applying a rich-text format afterwards, you may be able to have that done in the clipboard automatically, before the paste occurs )

tomslug · July 14, 2015, 2:01pm

Big thanks to @peternlewis and @JMichaelTX for their help on this. Here is the completed macro.
Link Text Plus.kmmacros (26.4 KB)

Why I Needed It

In Evernote, I'm frequently linking text to websites. I wanted a way of quickly copying a quote or passage from a webpage I'm reading, paste it to a note, and have that passage link back to the webpage.

The If Then Else is in there to account for if I happened to copy the page URL second.

JMichaelTX · July 14, 2015, 4:47pm

Looks good Tom.

One question. In the 3rd Action from the bottom you have:

Paste from Named Clipboard 'URL clip'

I don't see where you set the "URL clip" clipboard.
How is that done?

JMichaelTX · July 14, 2015, 4:50pm

Great idea! Do you by any chance have an AppleScript (or other) function to create a rich-text hyperlink suitable for pasting into any rich text document?

ComplexPoint · July 14, 2015, 5:53pm

Select a para or two on a web page, and try this. It puts RTF, including a hyperlink to the source, into the clipboard.

A rough indicative draft. I leave two things as an exercise for the reader : -)

Add a bit of CSS to get the font and style you want
Encode any special characters in the copied text as HTML entities

( I know you're still holding off on Yosemite, so I've sketched it in Applescript. JavaScript is probably the more obvious tool to reach for with this kind of thing.

Copy from web as linked RTF.kmmacros (26.4 KB)

on run
	tell application "Keyboard Maestro Engine"
		set lstNameTab to {}
		set lstParas to {}
		set strLinkHTML to ""
		set strParasHTML to ""
		
		-- LIST OF COPIED PARAGRAPHS
		set lstParas to paragraphs of (my EscapeChars(the clipboard as Unicode text))
		
		-- NAME AND URL OF WEB PAGE
		set lstVars to (variables where name = "nameAndURL") as list
		if length of lstVars > 0 then
			set strNameTabUrl to value of item 1 of lstVars
			set {dlm, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, tab}
			set lstNameTab to text items of strNameTabUrl
			set my text item delimiters to dlm
		end if
		
		-- NAME AND URL AS HTML LINK
		if length of lstNameTab > 1 then
			set strLinkHTML to "<a href=\"" & item 2 of lstNameTab & "\">" & item 1 of lstNameTab & "</a>"
		end if
		
		-- APPENDED TO PARAS AS 'SOURCE:'
		set end of lstParas to "Source: " & strLinkHTML
		
		-- ALL WRAPPED IN <P> TAGS
		set {dlm, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, "</p><p>"}
		set strHTML to "<p>" & (lstParas as text) & "</p>"
		set my text item delimiters to dlm
		
		-- REWRITTEN AS RTF AND COPIED TO THE CLIPBOARD
		set strCMD to "echo " & quoted form of strHTML & " | textutil -format html -convert rtf -stdin -stdout | pbcopy -Prefer rtf"
		do shell script strCMD
	end tell
end run

on EscapeChars(str)
	-- QUOTE < > & ETC
	set strEncoded to (do shell script "python -c 'import sys; from xml.sax.saxutils import quoteattr; print quoteattr(sys.argv[1])' " & ¬
		quoted form of str)
	
	-- ENCODE DIACRITICS AND SPECIAL CHARACTERS
	set lstChars to characters of strEncoded
	repeat with i from 1 to length of lstChars
		set lngCode to id of item i of lstChars
		if lngCode > 127 then set item i of lstChars to ("&#" & lngCode as string) & ";"
	end repeat
	lstChars as Unicode text
end EscapeChars

ComplexPoint · July 14, 2015, 6:02pm

PS I notice this lurking in my library. It looks slow but it may give you a start with encoding special characters for the HTML stage of the script:

on EscapeChars(str)
	-- QUOTE < > & ETC
	set strEncoded to (do shell script "python -c 'import sys; from xml.sax.saxutils import quoteattr; print quoteattr(sys.argv[1])' " & ¬
		quoted form of str)
	
	-- ENCODE DIACRITICS AND SPECIAL CHARACTERS
	set lstChars to characters of strEncoded
	repeat with i from 1 to length of lstChars
		set lngCode to id of item i of lstChars
		if lngCode > 127 then set item i of lstChars to ("&#" & lngCode as string) & ";"
	end repeat
	lstChars as Unicode text
end EscapeChars

tomslug · July 14, 2015, 6:04pm

Wow this is great! When I have some time today I’ll play around with it.

ComplexPoint · July 14, 2015, 6:09pm

Have fun. FWIW I’ve just updated the version above to slot in the EscapeChars() function.

That should, I think, deal with most of the special character issues, but inserting a CSS fragment to get the formatting you want is still an exercise for the reader : -)

UPDATE

Oops. Hubris. Just updated again. I had skipped the Applescript keyword my before the call to escapeChars().

Fixed now in the version above.

JMichaelTX · July 14, 2015, 7:10pm

Rob, you are just tooooo awesome! You never cease to amaze me.
I wasn't expecting you to go this far. Many thanks!

JMichaelTX · July 14, 2015, 7:22pm

Rob, just tested it, and it works like a charm!

I added one Action so I would know something happened.

Notification ‘Web Link Completed’
Play Sound: Hero.
Ready to paste into any rich-text document.

Now I've got to work on the CSS so I can get the style I want.

Thanks again.

duncmac · July 14, 2015, 7:43pm

Thanks Rob for creating this macro, it works great with Evernote. And thanks tomslug and JMichaelTX for your input too.

JMichaelTX · July 15, 2015, 2:43am

Rob, you have a great macro/applescript. But I want to copy, and retain, the rich text from the web page.

In your AppleScript you have:

-- LIST OF COPIED PARAGRAPHS
set lstParas to paragraphs of (my EscapeChars(the clipboard as Unicode text))

I think this converts the clipboard to plain text, correct?

This has the effect of dropping [BR] / LF in the text that is put on the clipboard at the end. Also, any links in the selected/copied text are lost.

I want to retain the formatting of the web page to be pasted later.
Can you suggest the best approach to do this?
Is it as simple as copying the clipboard to a KM variable, an then, somehow, combining that with the rich-text hyperlink?

To be clear, I'm not asking for you to do this for me, but just give me some hints on how to do it.

ComplexPoint · July 15, 2015, 3:18am

The key moment of that script is when HTML is rewritten by textutil to RTF

The first draft just gathers the plain text of the paragraphs, and wraps <p> <\p> around them.

To preserve elements of formatting, you could try feeding the original HTML source of the paragraphs (with HTML for the link appended) straight to textutil

Two routes to capturing the HTML source come to mind:

From the DOM (executing Javascript in the browser), starting with window.getSelection(), and then working through the selected nodes, getting the .outerHTML property of the parent elements.
By processing the HTML content of the clipboard object. The first step there is to convert it from a binary to a textual representation, and some code is sketched at: http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=31297

Good luck !

PS there’s also this:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=18784

JMichaelTX · July 15, 2015, 7:14am

Here's my version of ComplexPoint's macro. It's really minor changes since I took the easy way out trying to retain the full style of the selected/clipped web page text.

It's still not working as I'd like. When I combine the web clip clipboard with the Applescript hyperlink clipboard, the web clip looses its formatting.

Sorry, Rob, I haven't had time to look into your suggestions/links. I was hoping by using two different clipboards I could make it easy. Maybe not.

It's clearly a work-in-progress.

Anyway here's my version:

Macro File: Copy from web as linked RTF (Ver 1.1).kmmacros (32.3 KB)

Macro Image:

duncmac · July 15, 2015, 9:04am

I need some help adding Opera to the browsers in this macro. I’ve copied the existing If All Conditions Met Execute Actions for Chrome part and pasted it below, then changed the settings to Opera.

The problem I’m having is with AppleScript content. I copied the Chrome AppleScript code and pasted it into AppleScript editor replacing “Google Chrome” in the tell application line with “Opera”

However, when I compile it I get the following error: “Syntax Error Expected end of line but found property”

Any ideas on what I’m doing wrong anyone?

ComplexPoint · July 15, 2015, 9:24am

Expanding the disclosure triangles at the top should reveal the browser-specific stage which copies text through the menu, and captures URL and document title through Applescript.

You will need to find a couple of lines for doing that with Opera, analogous to the variants here:

gist.github.com

https://gist.github.com/vitorgalvao/5392178

get_title_and_url.applescript

-- AppleScript --

-- This example is meant as a simple starting point to show how to get the information in the simplest available way.
-- Keep in mind that when asking for a `return` after another, only the first one will be output.
-- This method is as good as its JXA counterpart.

-- Google Chrome
tell application "Google Chrome" to return title of active tab of front window
tell application "Google Chrome" to return URL of active tab of front window
-- Google Chrome Canary

This file has been truncated. show original

get_title_and_url.js

// JavaScript for Automation (JXA) //

// This example is meant as a simple starting point to show how to get the information in the simplest available way.
// Keep in mind that when asking for a value after another, only the last one one will be output.
// This method is as good as its AppleScript counterpart.

// Google Chrome
Application('Google Chrome').windows[0].activeTab.name()
Application('Google Chrome').windows[0].activeTab.url()
// Google Chrome Canary

This file has been truncated. show original

other_browsers.md

### Camino
Used to be present (see [revisions](https://gist.github.com/vitorgalvao/5392178/revisions)) but the browser itself was discontinued.

### Firefox
Absent since although it’s possible to get the window’s title, it’s not possible to get its URL (it used to be, before version `3.6`). It’s possible via hacky ways that consist of sending keystrokes, but those can be unreliable. This bug is being [tracked in Bugzilla](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=516502).

duncmac · July 15, 2015, 9:37am

Thanks Rob, reading the original of the GitHub post it looks like Opera doesn’t support AppleScript script anymore. There is no dictionary for Opera in AppleScript either.

At least I understand why it doesn’t work now.

ComplexPoint · July 17, 2015, 12:36am

In addition to following the copied text with a link to (and the name of) the web page, you could also precede it with the most recent heading title by pasting this snippet into an Execute Javascript in [ Chrome | Safari ] action, and capturing its output into a KM variable.

(function (strXPath) {
var xr = document.evaluate(
	strXPath,
	window.getSelection().anchorNode,
	null, 0, 0
);
		
return (
	n = xr.iterateNext()
) ? n.textContent : '';

}).apply(null, ['./preceding::*[self::h1 or self::h2 or self::h3 or self::h4 or self::h5 or self::h6][1]']);

ComplexPoint · July 17, 2015, 1:19am

How did you get on with preserving formatting while appending an RTF link ?

I've just taken a closer look at the Safari and Chrome clipboards – they both store RTF and HTML representations in a binary format that can be unpacked, but FWIW I notice that the Chrome clipboard has slightly fewer quirks and glitches, and is more script-accessible.

If you copy this slightly challenging moment of the page at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/category-theory/

The Chrome clipboard RTF is clean and correct, but if you paste from the Safari clipboard into TextEdit, for example, you get some noise:

FWIW Chrome's clipboard HTML also produces cleaner RTF output from textutil than Safari's, which additionally imposes one extra scripting hoop – its binary-encoded HTML is itself inside a binary WebArchive plist.

Paste and highlight

Why I Needed It

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