Copy part of the web page (rich text + pictures)

[quant]

When copying part of the web page from a browser (both IE and Firefox) and pasting directly to item details window, it doesn't preserve the style and pictures are missing.

At the moment I solve it in this way: I open empty word document, paste it there, and copying from there and pasting to UR preserves everything with all the pictures.

My questions:
1. do you know of a FREE document editor (or any other intermediary soft) that I could use for this?
2. or is there a completely another way to copy a part of the website with all the formatting+pictures?

Thanks

[janrif]

Originally posted by quant
[snip] My questions:
1. do you know of a FREE document editor (or any other intermediary soft) that I could use for this?
2. or is there a completely another way to copy a part of the website with all the formatting+pictures? There is a simple extension for Firefox called scrapbook does what you want.

[quant]

Originally posted by janrif
There is a simple extension for Firefox called scrapbook does what you want.

I had a look. It creates a website from the selected part of the whole website, that's nice, but unless I sth overlooked, this is not what I'd like to have. For these things, I use google notebook ...

I dont want to have an item with JUST that part of the website. I'd like to paste part of the website inside an existing item, preserving the clipped formating+pictures, sth really essential, but which doesn't work in UR (or I'm not aware of)! Thanks

[quant]

Originally posted by janrif
There is a simple extension for Firefox called scrapbook does what you want.

... but I must say that is works beautifully for what's it built. I tested it on several pages where I had previously various problems to grab part of the websites because of secured content, various CSS styles or strange javascript. Thanks!

but the original question remains ;-)

Or is it only me who feels that this is really a basic feature and should be an essential part of the UR feature list?

[janrif]

Originally posted by quant
[snip] the original question remains ;-)

Or is it only me who feels that this is really a basic feature and should be an essential part of the UR feature list? No, I agree & have been looking for such a feature for many years. I don't know what the problem is but it must be a problem otherwise it would exist. I can only hope that in a program as sophisticated as URp that one day it will exist. I hope it's soon.

[$bill]

Originally posted by quant
When copying part of the web page from a browser (both IE and Firefox) and pasting directly to item details window, it doesn't preserve the style and pictures are missing.

At the moment I solve it in this way: I open empty word document, paste it there, and copying from there and pasting to UR preserves everything with all the pictures.

My questions:
1. do you know of a FREE document editor (or any other intermediary soft) that I could use for this?
2. or is there a completely another way to copy a part of the website with all the formatting+pictures?



My quick and dirty method--To copy part of a web page with pictures- I cut/paste, paste special HTML or drag/drop onto an item which creates a new Item (type document). The layout/formating that I get in UR of course depends upon what I cut.

I use the free Nvu editor - a wysiwug html editor or Word if I want to splice several such pastes together and reformat. Using Word allows me to create an RTF UR Item.

Pick your poison--RTF is a Microsoft proprietary markup language. Version 1.9 of the specification contains the latest updates introduced by Microsoft Office Word 2007. (The spec is downloadable at 5.3 MB!) Free editors like OpenOffice support RTF at least to some version of the spec as does the RTF editor module of UR. I have resigned to the fact getting the "right" formating across applications all the time is hopeless...

Any further insight would be appreciated....

[ashwken]

Originally posted by $bill
My quick and dirty method--To copy part of a web page with pictures- I cut/paste, paste special HTML or drag/drop onto an item which creates a new Item (type document). The layout/formating that I get in UR of course depends upon what I cut.

--snip--

Pick your poison--RTF is a Microsoft proprietary markup language.

--snip--

I have resigned to the fact getting the "right" formating across applications all the time is hopeless...

Any further insight would be appreciated....

Yes, you've got to be careful when grabbing a portion of a page to grab enough so that you can be sure to get closing tags (which is always a best-guess) - this may not be as critical in UR as with other programs.

Actually, I've found it just as easy to send the entire webpage to UR as a Stored Copy - this gives you the context of the material, the originating URL as a reference, as a Stored Copy the webpage is available for viewing regardless of whether or not you have an internet connection (something to consider if distrbuting the UR database), and the webpage is available for further processing for presentation purposes in your program(s) of choice.

In this sense UR becomes a glorified File Manager.

Later,
KenA

[quant]

Originally posted by $bill
Pick your poison--RTF is a Microsoft proprietary markup language. Version 1.9 of the specification contains the latest updates introduced by Microsoft Office Word 2007. (The spec is downloadable at 5.3 MB!)

Kinook, could you please explain why did you choose RTF as a base format for item? Wouldn't for example HTML be a better solution? Thanks!


HTML is not currently editable, although it's on the list to support for a future release.

But seeing here http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=809 that HTML will be editable (although the message is 2 years old!!!), I'll probably have all my templates based on html (where it should be easier to copy/paste part of the site) so that my notes don't depend on Microsoft c..p .
Then also obviously would be very nice to have a html export of notes, rather than the current big/clumsy rft files export. In fact, the html export would be welcome irrespective of the above ...

[janrif]

Originally posted by $bill
[snip] RTF is a Microsoft proprietary markup language. Version 1.9 of the specification contains the latest updates introduced by Microsoft Office Word 2007. (The spec is downloadable at 5.3 MB!) Free editors like OpenOffice support RTF at least to some version of the spec as does the RTF editor module of UR. I have no furhter insight as I'm learning here but your post leaves me wondering why UR doesn't run the latest/best RTF editor module.

[$bill]

Originally posted by janrif
wondering why UR doesn't run the latest/best RTF editor module.

UR uses the microsoft rich edit control and does offer the latest...if you have a new MS RTF module (that you bought with say Word 200X), the option to use it is given at UR's installation...I don't know if the is the best however as newer versions have been reported to be buggy....

Originally posted by quant
Wouldn't for example HTML be a better solution?


I have often wondered about this myself.....

[$bill]

I have found that using rich-text-formating to move stuff between different OS's and software works reasonably well, most of the time, once my expectations were realigned..... :-)

This might be interesting to some....
Microsoft RTF Specification Nightmare (http://diaryproducts.net/for/geek/microsoft_rtf_specification_nightmare)

[quant]

Originally posted by $bill
[B]I have found that using rich-text-formating to move stuff between different OS's and software works reasonably well ...

thanks to some people who probably spent unreasonable amount of time decoding rft format with all its intricacies ... sorry for strong words, but the sooner microsoft goes bust the better ... even yesterday was too late ...

[janrif]

Originally posted by $bill
UR uses the microsoft rich edit control and does offer the latest...if you have a new MS RTF module (that you bought with say Word 200X), The latest is v1.9 that comes w Word 2007. I don't have 2007 so should I/can I d/l v1.9 & install it? Would it make a difference?

[$bill]

Originally posted by janrif
The latest is v1.9 that comes w Word 2007. I don't have 2007 so should I/can I d/l v1.9 & install it? Would it make a difference?

I have wasted too much time over the years trying to answer that question for myself...the spec for 1.9 is 300 pages long and after a quick check of the contents, I don't see a "we fixed this bug" list. Tables have been for me the most problematic and they seem better with newer versions. I suspect that 1.9 will fix some thing and introduce some new problems.

What do I do? If the formating is important or garbled- I clean it up in Word and possibly leave it there with a link in UR.

Remember the world needs early adopters...

[nisced]

Originally posted by quant
Kinook, could you please explain why did you choose RTF as a base format for item? Wouldn't for example HTML be a better solution? Thanks!


Sorry, I am not Kinook.

But here is my comment on this topic:

If you are a software development company (like Kinook) then you have to develop a product that reaches a huge user base. Developing software is a very complex, time consuming and an expensive task. And you have to deal with a lot of bad implementatations (I don't name examples here...).

Considering that around 80% of all PCs and laptops ever sold have MS Office installed then it is very logical that Kinook decieded to provide an rtf editor. Editing HTML is ok for geeks and power users but not for the average. Further, since UR is based on a database engine I suppose that providing an HTML editor will lead to a significant performance issue.

Please note that I am not a big supporter of Microsoft. But the reality today is that the MS Office suite has still the highest market share. And even I am risking to walk around wearing my head in the arms: The versions 2003 and 2007 are not that bad. I am using MS Office 2003 every day and don't have any issues with it.

Dominik

[quant]

Originally posted by nisced
Considering that around 80% of all PCs and laptops ever sold have MS Office installed then it is very logical that Kinook decieded to provide an rtf editor.

why reach 80% if you could reach 100%? And considering today's internet age, web documents seem more obvious choice than office documents.

Originally posted by nisced
Editing HTML is ok for geeks and power users but not for the average. Further, since UR is based on a database engine I suppose that providing an HTML editor will lead to a significant performance issue.

They had to provide rft editor, I dont think providing html editor would be 5% of that work, it's just a simple markup language. So I dont see how could html editor cause even slightest of performance issues ...


Anyway, it's fine as it is, but if they provide option to edit html inside UR, where I suppose would be easier to drag/drop directly from website (which doesnt work with rtf at the moment), then the user would be able to choose the format of items ...

[$bill]

An HTML solution is not without a lot of difficulties itself. HTML can be rendered easily enough with an embedded browser--but you probably have sometimes observed the difference in rendering between Firefox and IE...very similar to the RTF problem.
See Difficulties in achieving WYSIWYG at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_editor

Editing is a big problem...not so hard to implement if your target user population likes to input the markup tags in a text editor....but are embedded WYSIWYG HTML editors as well developed and as available as embedded RTF?
Otherwise it's the big guns...Word processors or specialized HTML editors like MS Frontpage (still installed with Office?), Nvu (nolonger developed?), Mozilla Composer, etc.

So it seems to me - User expectations are high and the technologies to met them are flawed.

[quant]

Originally posted by $bill
but you probably have sometimes observed the difference in rendering between Firefox and IE...

isn't this due to IE and M$oft not sticking to the standards? And only because IE is used by so many people that web developers have to write various hacks so that web pages looks nice in IE in the first place?


Originally posted by $bill

Editing is a big problem...not so hard to implement if your target user population likes to input the markup tags in a text editor....but are embedded WYSIWYG HTML editors as well developed and as available as embedded RTF?
Otherwise it's the big guns...Word processors or specialized HTML editors like MS Frontpage (still installed with Office?), Nvu (nolonger developed?), Mozilla Composer, etc.

So it seems to me - User expectations are high and the technologies to met them are flawed.

I dont know, I have to admit that I'm no expert here (that's why I posed this question in the first place), but know a handful of free wysiwyg html editors ... so what is exactly the problem? :-)

[$bill]

Originally posted by quant
... so what is exactly the problem? :-)

A problem that UR can't solve--A imperfect user experience moving formated (marked up) text across software and platforms....which results from non-standard standards and/or poor implementation of them by others, and/or perhaps even the malevolent intent of others.

[quant]

Originally posted by $bill
A problem that UR can't solve--A imperfect user experience moving formated (marked up) text across software and platforms....which results from non-standard standards and/or poor implementation of them by others, and/or perhaps even the malevolent intent of others.

yeah, I realize that maybe I'm expecting too much, maybe not ;-)

it's just that recently I started working with google notebook when I'm off my pc, which works beautifully with web page snippets (I mark sth inside firefox, small plus sign appears and clicking on that adds to my notes, which you can then export to google doc), so I thought it shouldn't be a big problem for Kinook to make it work inside UR if the base item format was html.

I'm still missing Kinook's point of view on all this ...

[$bill]

Originally posted by quant

it's just that recently I started working with google notebook when I'm off my pc, which works beautifully with web page snippets (I mark sth inside firefox, small plus sign appears and clicking on that adds to my notes, which you can then export to google doc), so I thought it shouldn't be a big problem for Kinook to make it work inside UR if the base item format was html.



Ah,...I understand the utility of "working with" HTML within UR and wasn't intending to argue against it. I hope I was arguing that this would introduce its own flavor of compatibility problems...I don't have a feel for the complexity or implications of implementation.


I'm still missing Kinook's point of view on all this ...


I'm interested too....though they don't often comment on suggestions....and you may be over the limit anyway..... ;-)