Basic web clipper (windows only)

heres a basic autohotkey script that uses the hotkey alt + d to get the title and url from a webpage in one go instead of having to back and forth to get both of them.

when you are back in dynalist use the same alt + d hotkey again to show the menu with the page details, then click on an item to send the text to dynalist

at the top there will be a combination of different page titles that will made into a markdown link syntax. %url% will be replaced with the actual url when you click on it

underneath will be the full url and then the page titles again but just as plain text

if any text was selected when you used alt + d then that will be added to the end of the menu. if the selected text was longer than 60 characters then it will show as >%selected text%<

installing autohotkey

go to autohotkey.com, click on “download”, then “download autohotkey Installer” and then run the .exe

download the script from this page by clicking the “download zip” button at the top right of the screen.   extract dynaclip.ahk and put it somewhere else and then double click it to run it.   you should be able to see the script running in the tray menu at this point.

right click the tray icon to get options to exit the script or if you want it to start every time windows boots up then select the “start with windows” option

2 Likes

are you usingi this mostly for research based documents?

This seems like an interesting tool

Just to paraphase is this what it does:

âœȘ 1. select text on page
âœȘ 2. ALT+D
âœȘ 3. Navigate to dynalist
âœȘ 4. ALT+D
âœȘ 5. Select paste option (1. Either URL, or the 2. Clipboard paste)

So its basically a clipboard function with some history that appends the URL too, with a preview window similar to clipboard managers?

i haven’t tried it yet

i use it for all sorts of stuff really.   i mostly just have the note title as “[title](url)” when im bookmarking websites but other times i might paste the website title as the item title and then put the url into the note part.   the odd time i might be saving a quote, and ill paste the quote into the note part and then paste the [title](url) underneath it.

thats it yea
 and if you want to paste in a few different things from the menu then you can keep using the alt+d hotkey when youre in dynalist

but if youre using a clipboard manager already then its pretty much the same thing as this, just without the option to paste the markdown link and maybe a few more key presses depending on how much you are copying

I have actually been looking for something like this when doing MLA-style research documentations (think of writing a thesis or something), so I might try it out. I have a feeling phraseexpress has a function for what you wrote out already, since its based on autohotkey too, although autohotkey is much more flexible

For the most part, when I document things (say for instance, stackoverflow comments), I just upvote the comment + screenshot link / highlight relevant information

This way I am sourcing all my documents, although indirectly.

I also know that by default, stackoverflow comments are scanned by google’s web crawler all the time and sit near the top of search queues, so I can just google whatever that screenshot said

Consequently, I have an OCR recognition tool with shareX so I can just screencap that screencap to capture the text and paste it into a google search, or I can find “things i upvoted on stackoverflow” to reference whatever it was

For nonstackoverflow sites, such as reddit, I might be on a redditaccount and save it, but 99% of the time I am going to cite the URL link itself manually into my dynalist or as a google chrome bookmark

For other blog-y sites, I just copy the URL and sometimes pinboard it

whats important is i capture the data and referenced it somehow in dynalist, if its not apparently obvious where the source is (This is important!) (Stackoverflow sources are super easy to figure out with screencaps), reddit by the post title, etc. So make sure to screencap that information if possible if citations are vital and you don’t want to log in the respective URL into dynalist

in the end it reduces clutter. Obviously I am going to trust google to re-implement my MLA style documentation, but I trust google as a search engine will do its part if I enter in the right OCR (optimal charcter recognition) parameters on the screencap

And, I will recognize CSS assets on the screencap anyways and say “yap that came from reddit, that came from stackoverflow, that came from github, that came from quora”

All image screencaps are time stamped as well, so I can search for metadata via the time I capture it and associate it with the day I took the notes in dynalist.

IF all else fails, I have chromes internet history log which I leave on awaysny


also


have you tried ditto clipboard manager?

you can find it here, and its alternatives: http://alternativeto.net/software/ditto/

It works really well hot keys + historical saves.

Sometimes, I have my shareX program copying 2-3 items at a time (local file path, imgur link, the image itself, etc)

I have my hotkeys binded as such:

  1. CTRL+V is paste my latest item on clipboard
  2. CTRL+M pastes the 2nd latest item on clipboard
  3. CTRL+ “,” pastesthe 3rd latest item on clipboard
  4. CTRL+ “.” pastes the 4th latest item on clipboard

I cannot really preview what I am going to paste ahead of time though, and when you paste something, it pushes all the other paste histories back making it a little confusing

I might try yours though since it has a context menu or look into something with a clipboard context menu

i tried clipjump a few months ago but i never got around to trying ditto in the end. they both seem really good but i just went and made my own in the end since i didnt need all the extra features.

it just does text only though, no images:
tiny clipboard.ahk

i ran your script it has a lot of errors on it for somoe reason

ah darn it anyway. i left in a few lines by accident

i updated the script on gist.   or if you want to edit the version you already have
just delete the following bit that is on line 60 and 61 and then try and run it again

if tmp_title contains –
    msg_box("text")

I was relieved to find that the Chrome extension Clip to Workflowy by rawbytz does also work on Dynalist - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clip-to-workflowy/cfifjihfoegnccifkcdomdookdckhaah?hl=en

4 Likes

i forgot to mention
 if a word is selected in dynalist when the alt+d hotkey is used then that word will show in the menu along with the other markdown links: [selected word](url)

I use this more and more now when I make citations when I document where my sources are from

I bound this to the following hotkeys, so I can create citations extremely quickly now:

ALT+C this is the keyboard shortcut I use binded on google chrome extension

ALT+V I mapped this into phraseexpress as “clipboard paste”

So now I am just on a page, ALT+C, back to dynalist, ALT+V. Its very natural for me and efficient

I use this all the time for youtube videos and citing peoples blogs / sources

Reference:

and

also other productivity tips

Buy a mechanical keyboard if you don’t have one already, and a gaming-PC rig

It massively increases productivity when you can type much faster and when you have no delay / lag when working on resource intensive programs

1 Like

I’m curious. Why can’t you use the existing CTRL-V for pasting?

FWIW, I just modified the Clip To WorkFlowy BETA and made a Clip To Dynalist version. It’s still a non-markdown, link in the note, manual paste affair, but it automates the “go to Dynalist” part.

On click it takes you to the first DL tab it finds (searching tabs left to right). If no DL tab exists it opens a new one. It also has Toggle Last Tab capability
 independent of the clipper, which you activate via a 2nd keyboard shortcut defined in chrome://extensions. So after you paste, you can activate the toggle shortcut and quickly return to your source.

It’s a very simple conversion from the WorkFlowy version. I plan to add a few more features and an options page to the WF version, so I could see a DL version having a markdown link option.

Anyway, if there is interest I can upload to the Chrome Web Store.

5 Likes

That’s great news. Yes, please upload this version.

I do use the default ctrl+V for pasting. For normal things.

I just wanted a 2nd hotkey for clipboard paste using rawbytes extension

its just easier to press ALT+C then ALT+V

my left hand pinky doesn’t have to move off the ALT button at all

Wow this sounds really awesome! I normally just click back my original tab wherever it is, sometimes its hard to find in my sea of chrome tabs

Rawbytz, I like your work in workflowy. What plans do you have with Dynalist’s upcoming API in your routines?

It will be great to have Rawbytz on board with Dynalist!

I’d definitely make use of the DL version too, if it gets uploaded to the Web Store. Thanks!

Already uploaded.
Thanks a lot, @rawbytz!
Very useful!