Webpage does not mark, which text sections I have already clipped until now

[Golddouble]

In the "addon settings" -> tab general, I have checked the option "Remember selection and try to apply it next time" in "Control" area.

My expectation was now, that when I make a Markdown clip of a text in a Website and I later open the same website again, then on the Website I will have automatically a frame or a highlight over the text, I have already clipped before.

But this works not. What do I miss? Is this not what the option "Remember selection and try to apply it next time" should do?
Would appreciate some answer. Thank you.

Hint: And yes: I have also enabeled General->Control->File URL

[mika-cn]

The text of these option is not very clear. I'll try to enhance them on next version.

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What the option "Remember selection and try to apply it next time" do is:

• Remember the selection of clipped area together with current URL.
• and next time when you trigger the start clip process. MaoXian will compare the current URL with the saved one, if they have the same pattern then the saved selection will apply to current web page.
• when the selection applied, it only select the same area (with a green border rectangle)

With the help of this feature, you can avoid selecting the same area on one website multiply times.

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The "Allowing MaoXian to access file URLs" enables you to conveniently browser clipped files. because MaoXian save the clipped file in your local machine. To open a local file it's URL looks like file:///home/user/Documents/mx-wc/a-awesome-article.md on Linux and MacOS. On Windows it looks like: file://C:/home/user/Documents/mx-wc/a-awesome-article.md. And browsers won't allow browser extensions to access File URLs by default due to security reason, this is why this option exist.

It has nothing relate with the option "Remember selection and try to apply it next time"

[Golddouble]

Thank you very much for the explanations. I appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I still don't understand how this option works.

I have done the following:

1. Open website https://www.stricken.de/
2. I clip a text section and save the extract
3. I click again on "clip" on the same website, but it gives me not a green frame, when I hover with the mouse over the same area again.

Quote from mika-cn:

Above all, I don't understand what you mean by:

... then the saved selection will apply to current web page.
... when the selection applied, it only select the same area (with a green border rectangle)

[mika-cn]

Apply an selection means automatically click the target element(the remenbered one) when the clip process begin.

I forgot to mention that the selection will only be applied on first trigger of clip process after the page has loaded. To test this feature you can refresh the current web page or go to a new web page that on the same website that has same path pattern.

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The use case:

Assume you just clipped an area on web page A (https://example.blog/posts/a.html) and the next time you want to clip another web page B (https://exmaple.blog/posts/b.html)

Notice that they have same URL pattern https://example.blog/posts/*. So when you start the clip process on web page B, MaoXian will find the last saved selection (the area you confirmed when clip web page A) and automatically select it. And all you need to do is press Enter to confirm or press Esc and select another area.

[Golddouble]

OK. I have tested this with the refresh method on page https://code.org/learn
But it seems not to work.

(?)

[mika-cn]

I've test it on https://www.stricken.de/ , It did work. I can't open https://code.org/learn because of the human verification...

I'am facing the difficulties that cause by GFW. I'll reply you next time I successfully fuck GFW.

Please do not wait my reply. I need to test https://code.org/learn on my another machine to see why it didn't work.

[Golddouble]

Please do not wait my reply. I need to test https://code.org/learn on my another machine to see why it didn't work.

No need for this. I have also tested the refresh method on page https://www.stricken.de
-> But: No suggess. What am I doing wrong:

[mika-cn]

There's a bug on the last few versions. Fixed in V0.4.31. Please update your extension.

[Golddouble]

Thank you.

I have tested the new version.

I have done the following:
1. Open website https://www.stricken.de/
2. I clip a text section and save the extract
3. I refresh the site
4. I click again on Addon-> "clip" on the same website, it selects the text I have clipped before. (This seems to work now :-) )
5. I now want to select an additional text section on the same webpage. So I try to hover with my mouse over another section. But nothing happens. Is this how it is thought to be? So it is only possible to clip one time one section of a particular site?

Edit: When I inactivate the option "Remember selection and try to apply it next time" I can clip multiple text sections.

[mika-cn]

Is this how it is thought to be? So it is only possible to clip one time one section of a particular site?

Yes, only one selection area an one clipping. Multiple selection is not support.

In the selection step, we delete the elements that we don't want to save (select it by click it and press Delete to delete it) and select one area that contains all content you want to clip then confirm to clip.

In the case you describe above, the automatically selected area is not contains all content you want to clip, you press Esc to unselect it, or use arrow keys to adjust the selected area.

[Golddouble]

Not sure if we are talking about the same thing.

A) When the option Remember the selection (the clipped area) and try to automatically select it next time (If they have the same URL pattern) is NOT active I can do this:

1. Open website https://www.stricken.de/
2. I clip the text section "A" and save the extract
3. I refresh the site
4. I click again on Addon-> "clip" on the same website
5. Now, I clip the text section "B" (on the same site) and save the extract
   -> This works I was able to clip two different sections on the same webpage.

B) When the option Remember the selection (the clipped area) and try to automatically select it next time (If they have the same URL pattern) is active I try the same:

1. Open website https://www.stricken.de/
2. I clip the text section "A" and save the extract
3. I refresh the site
4. I click again on Addon-> "clip" on the same website
5. Now, I can not clip another section.

The difference is step 5) .

Edit:
OK the trick is to press two times the ESC key in step 5) . After it works.
So I think, no need to change this behaviour, because, when I not refresh the site, I run not into this. And normally, if I want to select several sections of the same webpage, I do not refresh between the two clipping actions.

Edit2:
OK. But when I have clipped several sections of the same website (of course in two steps (in two clipping sessions)), then after the refresh, MaoXian Web clipper only shows me the green frame around the latest section I have clipped and not several frames, when the option Remember the selection (the clipped area) and try to automatically select it next time (If they have the same URL pattern) is active.
But I guess, this is a limit of the addon, that can't be changed.

Very happy to have found this addon. Thank you very much!

[mika-cn]

I see, the text "Remember the selection (the clipped area) and try to automatically select it next time (If they have the same URL pattern)" is still ambiguous.

How about I change it to "Remember the selection (the clipped area) and try to automatically select it on other web pages (that have the same URL pattern) next time". Does this help you understand it?

The perpose of this feature is to reduce the duplication of selecting the same area on the same website's different web pages, Not to highlight the clipped area.

Very happy to have found this addon.

I'm glad that this browser extension did help people :)

[Golddouble]

I see. Thank you for pointing that out again.

I was too fixated on my idea that this tool could be used to highlight the already clipped areas of websites. (In the sense of: You must not clip this area, because you have already clipped it.)
But of course I have now understood the sense of this feature (and also remembered it :-) ).

Regarding the name for this option:
Yes, it is not easy to give a unique name to this option. But the more information packed into the name of the option, the better.