Thank you for all of your work, and for making it free/open-source.
Feature Request
If a portion of the page is selected/highlighted, download only that portion (plus any front/back matter in your settings).
I noticed you can edit the raw text in the extension popup and trim it there before saving. But if the part you want is in the middle it can be a lot harder to find in the plain text and tiny popup of the extension.
Would it be possible to check for selected text before the extension grabs the page content?
I had a bit of a look into it just now, and it seems simple enough to implement, but I have a few questions for you (and anyone else who wants to chime in):
Would you want the front/back templates to apply to selected text the same way as a whole page grab?
Should there be some sort of UI indicating that the extension only grabbed selected text? Is that an issue?
Should there be a button to switch to the whole article text, in case the selection was accidental? Or is it easy enough to just click to deselect and click the extension button again?
Should there be some sort of UI indicating that the extension only grabbed selected text? Is that an issue?
I think if you display the buttons in the download window instead of in settings, then you can just highlight the âSelected Textâ button to alert the user.
Thanks for the input. That makes sense.
In the meantime, Iâve also implemented something similar via context menus (not released yet), however it turns out a background script canât activate the popup, so Iâve implemented them as copy to clipboard, rather than download, which Iâm kinda torn about (I mean, âdownloadâ is in the name, after all).
When I get some time later, Iâll whip up something like your screenshot. I think that works pretty well
Context menus for downloading or copying text as markdown
Context menus for downloading a tab or all tabs in window as markdown
Keyboard shortcut (Alt+Shift+M be default) for showing popup
This resolves quite a few of the pending requests. Let me know if you have any feedback!
The Firefox version is already updated, but Chrome and Edge are both pending review due to needing âall sitesâ permission for the new âdownload all tabsâ option.
Feedback on the âDownload all tabs as Markdownâ: this feature doesnât use the preferences for front and back matter (e.g. title, author, #tags, etc). Can these options be integrated into that usage?
Correction: âDownload all tabs as Markdownâ is working, but to use the front/back matter preferences you need to first do a single page download and tick the box for âInclude front/back templateâ. After that is done it saves the preference for future batch downloads. Hope that helps anyone else that was similarly confused.
And, thanks to @death.au - this is a really awesome tool.
I did foresee something like this and added the front/back template option to the page context menu, but I guess I should add it to the tab context menu in Firefox also.
I did start playing around with this locally, but there are a few hurdles to overcome, not least of which is I need to pay for an apple developer account in order to be able to distribute the extension
I also had some issues with the download api not being available, but I found a workaround for that, and I was having some issues with the context menu options not quite working, which I need to have another look at.
I want to make it work, but having to fork out AUD$149 (per year) just to supply a completely free extension I make for fun in my spare time seems a bit steep to me, and is a big roadblock.
I would encourage you to consider listing it as a paid extension.
Having paid for a couple of safari extensions myself, I know that Iâd be willing to pay at least ÂŁ5-10 for MarkDownload Safari. The time Iâd save in my research workflow along with not having to use Chrome would be well worth it to me. And Iâd be surprised if thereâs not a strong contingent of markdown Safari users whoâd be able to cover the cost.
If you decide not to do that, would there be a way that you can share the finished code so that I can run the extension locally on my end?
I hadnât really considered making it a paid extension (because itâs free on other browsers), but thatâs something I might look into.
I still need to put aside some time to work on it a bit more and fix the outstanding issues, but I might be able to send you a copy once Iâve done that. It requires a bit of fiddling (and XCode installed) to run it at the moment, but I might be able to distribute it via a mac app. Iâll do some more digging.
Not sure why the dislike for Chrome.
Love for Safari, dislike Chromium, dislike Google?
Chrome extensions work in all Chromium browsers (Vivaldi, Brave, Opera, Edge) as well as Chrome.
Not sure who you are replying to? I donât see any dislike of Chrome in this thread, just a preference toward Safari for some particular users â which is fine.
I donât have a problem with people disliking Chrome or liking Safari, but when the reason is Google or Chrome itself then thereâs a possibility other browsers might solve the issue.
Having to collect $215 every year for an app thatâs free on any chromium browser seems quite a lot. Maybe the current legal action will change it.
I did foresee something like this and added the front/back template option to the page context menu, but I guess I should add it to the tab context menu in Firefox also.