yorkxin / copy-as-markdown

Copying Link, Image and Tab(s) as Markdown Much Easier.

Copy as Markdown for Chrome & Firefox

Do you often type Markdown code manually for a link or image, or even all tabs in a window, and feel tired? Copy as Markdown can help you!

Download

• Google Chrome: Chrome Web Store - Copy as Markdown
• Firefox: Copy as Markdown :: Add-ons for Firefox
• Microsoft Edge: Copy as Markdown - Microsoft Edge Addons

Features

Copy as Markdown is a browser extension that helps you copy the following things as Markdown to your system clipboard:

On the web page:

☑️ Selection Text as Markdown
☑️ A Link on the Page
☑️ An Image on the Page, with or without wrapping link

Exporting tabs in the current window, either all or highlighted tabs:

☑️ Current Tab as Link
☑️ List of Links
☑️ Task List (for GitHub-Flavored Markdown) ☑️ With Tab Grouping (in Chrome, Edge etc.)

Keyboard Shortcuts

You can add keyboard shortcuts for copying tab(s) as Markdown. By default, Copy as Markdown does not assign any keyboard shortcuts.

Firefox

Please refer to this Firefox Help: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/manage-extension-shortcuts-firefox

Chrome

The Keyboard Shortcuts of extensions can be found at chrome://extensions/shortcuts URL. (Paste and open the link in the Location Bar).

Known Issues

• [Chrome] When copying an image, the image code does not include the alternative text of that image. This is due to API restrictions.

Development

Here is the folder structure. The platform-specific folders are used to resolve browser inconsistencies.

src/               # Shared Source Code
  background.js
  ...
chrome/            # Chrome / Chromium files
  dist/            # ../src will be copied here
  mainfest.json
  ...
firefox/           # Firefox Manifest V2 files
  dist/            # ../src will be copied here
  mainfest.json
  background.html  # Loads ESModule
  ...
firefox-mv3/       # Firefox Manifest V3 files
  dist/            # ../src will be copied here
  mainfest.json
  ...
e2e/               # E2E Tests
compile.sh         # Copies src/**/* to <platform>/dist/

Install dependencies

npm install -g web-ext
npm install

Debugging

Since the source code is copied to platform-specific folders by compile.sh, it is recommended to use the auto-reload test script.

npm debug-chrome
npm debug-firefox
npm debug-firefox-mv3

For manual debugging without auto-reload:

• Chrome: [Window] Menu -> Extensions -> Load unpacked extension
• Firefox: [Tools] Menu -> Add-ons -> [Gear] Icon -> Debug Add-ons -> Load Temporary Add-on

Debug with Firefox XPI Package

To debug some behaviors such as Firefox restarts (for example, are context menus installed properly), it is necessary to build an XPI package and install it on Firefox. Temporary Add-Ons won't be enough because they get uninstalled after Firefox quits.

Firefox checks the signature when installing XPI. To do so,

1. Grab API keys from Firefox Add-On
2. Bump version in manifest.json. Note that AMO only accepts version numbers in X.Y.Z format where all 3 segments are numbers without zero prefixes.
3. Run:

   web-ext sign --channel=unlisted --api-key=... --api-secret=...

It'll create an XPI that is signed with your Firefox Add-Ons account. The file will also be uploaded to Add-On Developer Hub as unlisted.

Note that Firefox Add-On keeps track of all the versions that have ever been uploaded, including 'self-distributed' (channel=unlisted).

See https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/getting-started-with-web-ext/

Unit Tests

Unit tests are written in mocha, ./test/**/*.test.js.

To run, use npm test.

E2E Tests

Using Selenium (Java). Please refer to e2e/ folder.

QA

There is a qa.html that includes various edge test cases. Open it in the browser, then try Copy as Markdown with the content in it.

License

See MIT-LICENSE.txt

copy-as-markdown's Issues

Keyboard shortcut(s)

Current Tab in particular would be great. All Tabs (n) would be great too.

Not compatible with multiprocess (Firefox)

Add-on Compatibility Reporter say than multiprocess can't be enabled because some extenstion doesn't support it.

Get current tab with new API instead of tabs.getSelected()

(Same issue in yorkxin/git-io-shortener#5)

chrome.tabs.getSelected() is deprecated since Chrome 16. It might be removed sooner or later.

The methods getAllInWindow() and getSelected() have been deprecated. To get details about all tabs in the specified window, use chrome.tabs.query() with the argument {'windowId': windowID}. To get the tab that is selected in the specified window, use chrome.tabs.query() with the argument {'active': true}.

So we should use chrome.tabs.query({active: true}, function() {...} );

http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/tabs.html#method-query

copying links/page titles with embedded '[' or ']'

Copying the title of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNE2oCZH_4k page results into string like this:

[M.O.O.N. - 'Hydrogen' [Hotline Miami Soundtrack] - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNE2oCZH_4k)

Notice the unescaped angle brackets. Pasting that to, e.g., stackoverflow.com chat results into a broken link/Markdown. The angle brackets should be escaped by backslash.

Per-site link formatting

Problem

Personally I use this extension a lot for aggregating pull requests.

When copying with GitHub issues, we get string like this:

* [Web extension by chitsaou · Pull Request #48 · chitsaou/copy-as-markdown](https://github.com/chitsaou/copy-as-markdown/pull/48)

result is:

• Web extension by chitsaou · Pull Request #48 · chitsaou/copy-as-markdown

For GitHub, instead of links, we can also copy title only -- GitHub will handle link referencing automatically:

* Web extension by chitsaou · Pull Request #48 · chitsaou/copy-as-markdown

becomes

• Web extension by chitsaou · Pull Request #48 · chitsaou/copy-as-markdown

But the string itself can be reformatted to make it look better:

* #48 Web extension by @chitsaou 

becomes

• #48 Web extension by @chitsaou

Idea

Add a setting to let user customize title style per domain.

Make it per site because usually the title are same under the same domain.

For example:

/(.+) by ([\S]+) · Pull Request (#\d+) · (.+)

replaces to

$3 $1 by @$2 ($4)

Furthermore, it should be able to be imported, so users can "install a plugin" for common sites.

Convert Highlighted Tabs to Markdown

Currently it only supports "convert all tabs to markdown."

It would be great if user can select which tabs he want to convert to list of links in Markdown, by highlighting specific tabs (command-click on Mac, or control-click on Windows).

Is it possible to do this through chrome.tabs.query() ?

Feature request: Copy ordered/unordered lists from the webpage

Do you think it would be useful to allow copying a block of the webpage text to markdown?

usage: what means about option "Escape Markdown code"

Could this work with FF bookmarks?

Would it be possible to make this work with bookmarks? For example, I'd like to copy an existing FF link in my bookmark toolbar as Markdown link?

Not working in Firefox 36.0.1

It works just the last update. Firefox 36.0.1 on Ubuntu amd64 14.04LTS

Dropdown menu is all black with a dark KDE/Firefox theme

Summary

The dropdown menu is all black and illegible when used with a KDFE/Firefox dark theme.

Reproduction Steps

Expected Behavior

• Dropdown box has visible text.

Actual Behavior

• Dropdown box has invisible text because background and foreground are both black.

Reproducible Environment

• Browser (Version): Firefox 59.0.2
• Operating System (Version): Linux kernel 4.14.31-1-MANJARO
  DISTRIB_ID=ManjaroLinux
  DISTRIB_RELEASE=17.1.7
  DISTRIB_CODENAME=Hakoila
  DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Manjaro Linux"
• System Language: English en_IN
• Example Webpage (if applicable): see attached screenshot below.

Consider using Clipboard API where available (Chrome 66, Firefox 63)

Clipboard.writeText is an API specifically for writing to the clipboard. It would avoid the need to create an invisible textarea and exec a copy command on it, and in Firefox would avoid the need for a content-script (as background scripts can use that API)

Firefox version

Firefox version is now implemented on firefox branch under src-fx directory.

Features:

[x] Copy all tabs of current window as a Markdown list.
[x] Right click on anywhere of a page and copy the page title with URL as Markdown.
[x] Right click on a link and copy it as Markdown.
[x] Right click on an image and copy it as Markdown.
[ ] When copying an Image, if it is wrapped by a link, then the copied Markdown should also include that link.
[ ] Context Menu Icon.
[ ] Dynamic context menu item titles.
[ ] A dropdown menu when clicking the Copy as Markdown browser button, like Chrome version. (Requires ui/button/toggle API, available from Firefox 30)

Does not copy to clipboard in reader mode (FF Quantum)

In FF Quantum (FF 57.0), when I entered reader mode for a page, the menu items are there, but don't actually change the clipboard.

Provide an option for Auto-Copy

When the page action popup is displayed, automatically copy "link for current tab".

Direct context menu if there's only one option

What an awesome extension! I use it via a context menu and this is what I see 99% of the time as I'm generally interested only in full page titles:

This means that I need to hover over the top-level menu item, move my cursor to the right and select the single option. Would it be possible to somehow make the top-level item do the copy already if there's just a single nested item?

I realize that there are situations where there are more nested items, in which case they would stay. For example:

Appears to be removed from Firefox addons

The Firefox extension appears to be absent from addons.mozilla.org.

Move Current-Tab-Only Actions to Page Action button

And it should generate the link in Markdown format automatically.

Right-click context menu not available in Chrome

Summary

Right click context menu not available in latest version of Chrome

Reproduction Steps

• Select some text on a page
• Right click on the selection to use right-click context menue

Expected Behavior

Right-click context menu is shown

Actual Behavior

Right-click context menu not available in menu

Reproducible Environment

• Browser (Version): Google Chrome Version 72.0.3590.0 (Official Build) dev (64-bit)
• Operating System (Version): Mac OS X 10.12.6
• System Language: English
• Example Webpage (if applicable):

Extending Firefox functionality

Hi,

I'd like to copy articles and automatically include links as markdown (italics, bolds, etc. would be nice as well).

I can implement the logic myself, but could you point me in the right direction? Which files would I need to edit to create a button on right click, where do I need to put my logic and so on.

Thanks

Keyboard shortcuts (other than activating extension) don't work (OSX at least)

Used to work. Upgraded today and now they don't. Clicking the buttons themselves still works. I was wrong, the buttons don't work either :/

EDIT: It seems that the buttons work until you set up a keyboard shortcut and try to use it, then the keyboard shortcut does nothing and the buttons also cease to do anything. Uninstalling and reinstalling the extension gets you back to square one, but adding shortcuts again causes it to get stuck.

Escape characters are being included in titles

I think this is new with Version: 1.1.0, Updated: January 11, 2016. When you use it on a page with underscores or brackets (probably other chars), the backslash appears in the title when it shouldn't, e.g. a page with the title [a_b] is being copied as [\[a\_b\]](http://example.com)

Copy as Markdown not copying from addons.mozilla.org (AMO)

I recall that when AMO tightened its CSP a few months ago, a variety of extensions became non-applicable to AMO – washing machine, for example:

• https://addons-dev.allizom.org/addon/tab-scope/ (dev) can be spun in the machine
• https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/tab-scope/ can not.

Today I was surprised by Copy as Markdown (and Link Text and Location Copier) not working at AMO. Surprised because I'm an extremely frequent user of Copy as Markdown, and I must have copied titles and URLs from AMO pages on hundreds or thousands of occasions in recent months, and I don't recall performing the copies without Copy as Markdown.

Am I going mad? (Has the extension never worked with the the increased CSP at AMO?)

I'm aware of WebExtensions APIs and so on, just surprised by the non-function today.

---

Using Waterfox, if that's relevant. Recently updated to 56.2.0.31 on FreeBSD-CURRENT.

Keyboard shortcut

As allenlinli recommended, it would be good to let user specify a keyboard shortcut to copy the markdown code of current page.

As of Chrome 22, in the Extensions page, user can configure keyboard shortcuts for commands of Extensions. So I think the only thing to implement is to let Chrome know there is such a command that can be bounded with a keyboard shortcut.

Close the popup box automatically

It would be nice to close the popup automatically after a short timeout to avoid the unnecessary extra click.
The current "copied!" message could be replaced by highlighting the button.

Right-click context menu not available in Chrome

This is a follow up to #65 (comment) because I couldn't re-open that issue.

Summary

Per #65

Reproduction Steps

Per #65

Expected Behavior

Per #65

Actual Behavior

Per #65

Reproducible Environment

• Browser (Version): Google Chrome Version 78.0.3904.50 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
• Operating System (Version): macOS 10.12.6
• System Language: English
• Example Webpage (if applicable): n/a

Popup / Command does not work when background (event) page is inactive

Description

Event page will become inactive, causing Popup and Command (keyboard shortcut) not working.

Reproduce

1. Install the extension.
2. Leave it for a while until it shows Background page (Inactive)

3. Try click popup icon -> All Tabs, or hit keyboard shortcut

Expected

• It copies to clipboard
• It shows a badge on toolbar icon

Actual

• It does not show badge
• Clipboard not copied

Reason

• https://developer.chrome.com/apps/event_pages#lifetime

Copy link doesn't fetch title

I am happy user of copy-as-org-mode. But since I can't use it in Quantum. I use copy-as-markdown to my org-mode buffer than invoke my function to transform the link to org-mode.

But, I can have title.
When I use copy-as-org-mode, I often copy link in SO questions ( I can have the title, even I copy the link of the question) . But with copy-as-markdown, I get no-title.

e.g

When I copied this link

I get

[(No Title)](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/33380/cant-set-default-servers-in-erc-layer)

Expected output

[Can't set default servers in ERC layer](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/33380/cant-set-default-servers-in-erc-layer)

Firefox 58.0.2
Debian 9.2

Support keyboard shortcut for firefox

I use this extension dozen times a day. I saw in README that keybinding/shortcut only works in chrome.

Can we hope adding shortcut support for Firefox ?

Many keyboard binding extension stop working for Quantum. But I find saka works in Quantum. So I think there is still a hope :).

Use Event Page instead of a persistent Background Page

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/event_pages.html

It's available on M22.

Set Browser Action's badge when copied via context menu

http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/browserAction.html#method-setBadgeText

Feature Request: Copy Bookmark as Markdown

I would like to be able to right click and copy a bookmark from the bookmarks menu as markdown.

Copy link doesn't fetch title (on Windows)

Windows XP

Chrome 17

Reason: there is no info.selectionText because it does not select the text when right-clicking on a link.

Migrate to activeTab API (Cr26)

http://developer.chrome.com/beta/extensions/activeTab.html

[Firefox] Show a popup when clicking on browser toolbar "md" button -- like the Chrome version --

This feature requires ui/button/toggle API, available from Firefox 30.

[Suggestion] Better Copy Link Text for Firefox

Hey, I am trying to find an alternative to CoLT since that seems abandoned and I have found you addon.
Would it be possible to implement identical functionality? Like copying just the link text and even better if it can be an option on the main right click. (for example with CoLT I can right click and select Copy Link Text right away or even faster right click and press "x" on the keyboard because the developer added that shortcut)
Thanks

feature request: using shortlinks

support for short-link on the head:

<link rel='shortlink' href='...' />

Why does the newest version for Chrome require additional permissions?

Thanks for this extension! It's fantastic.

I just discovered that Chrome has disabled the extension because it now requires additional permissions. I can't tell what permissions are new but Chrome states:

It can now:

• Read your browsing history
• Modify data you copy and paste

Which of the permissions is new? Why is the new permission needed? Why is the 'browsing history' permission needed?

I'm assuming the 'copy and paste' permission is just allowing the extension to change the contents of the clipboard/pasteboard – is that correct?

Asking for "Read your browsing history" permission again!?

It looks like issue #50 has returned. What gives?

Is there any way to copy multi links at the same time ?

Thanks for this brilliant extension, it saves me a lot of time.

But I usually need to copy multi links at the same time, for example, I want to copy this project's title.

chitsaou / copy-as-markdown

The html code is like this:

<a href="/chitsaou">chitsaou</a> / <a href="/chitsaou/copy-as-markdown">copy-as-markdown</a>

Is it possible to copy this as:

[chitsaou](https://github.com/chitsaou) / [copy-as-markdown](https://github.com/chitsaou/copy-as-markdown)

Go a step further, is there any way to copy selected block to markdown directly?

Sincerely.

Copy current tab URL with text selection as link text

Hi, thank you for the extension, it already covers 90% of the use cases that I have. There's one feature that would cover the remaining 10%.

Summary

What Copy As Markdown currently lets you do is to copy the tab URL with the tab title as a markdown link.

What I'd also like to be able to do:

1. Select some text
2. Right click and choose "Copy As Markdown"
3. Get a markdown link with the selected text as the link text and the destination equal to the URL of the page.

Make list style configurable

Currently the list style used to export links is hardcoded to asterisks. I'd love to see an option to change the style:

• asterisk (i.e. "* ...", "* ...")
• dash (i.e. "- ...", "- ...")
• numbered list (i.e. "1. ...", "1. ...")

Convert web page to markdown

First of all: thank you for your work! 👍
I found your extension because I was looking for a way to convert content from a web page to markdown.

Now I saw that this isn't fully possible yet but it would be really, really nice.
I'm basically looking for the functionality given in http://heckyesmarkdown.com.

Bonus: ideally with the possibility to select content that should be converted and converting to inline images.

Thank you in advance and I hope you have a nice day!

Migrate to WebExtensions

So that code can be shared between Chrome and Firefox, and possibly browsers supporting WebExtensions in the future.

So it can continue work on Firefox since 2018: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017/

https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions

Problems:

• API incompatibilities, e.g. How to get selection text? How to write to clipboard?
  • -> Firefox does not support clipboard in background page. See Interact with the clipboard - Mozilla | MDN
• Bad code smell in current Chrome version. Should be rewritten first.
  • -> Working on web-extension branch, with Webpack. Looks good.
• [Need to confirm] There was no module and ES6 support in the current Chrome extension API. Should use Babel? Webpack?
  • -> Webpack looks good. Certain ES6 features supported

Compatibility update for newer Firefox versions

Hi

I love this extension and use it routinely. I noticed that it is marked as a "Legacy" extension for Firefox. Do you have plans to update it to be more compatible with newer Firefox versions?

Provide an option for Link copy format

i.e. Let user choose whether the link is formatted as

[Text](url)

or

[Text][id]

[id]:url

Make "Escape Markdown code" as an option

See #34

In some rare cases the Markdown code should be escaped, but mostly it is not necessary.

Before we figure out how to handle this smartly, let's make it an option in Extensions page.

[Firefox] Not available in private windows

Hello,

Thanks for your plugin which helps to spend less time when writing in Markdown. I tried it and it works well with normal windows.

However, I often use the private windows in Firefox and the "Copy as markdown" action doesn't show on right click. It appears only in normal windows.

Could you make your plugin also available in private windows?

I'm using Firefox 47.0.1 on Linux.

Use BrowserAction context menu instead of Popup

From Chrome version ?? it allows context menu being inserted into the dropdown menu of browser action (badge).

https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/contextMenus#type-ContextType

Seems good. Let me do this.

Migrate to Manifest v2

According to http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/manifestVersion.html:

Starting from Chrome 23 (Beta: Late September 2012; Stable: Early November 2012)

• The Web Store will block updates to manifest version 1 items.
• Chrome will stop packaging manifest version 1 items (or loading them for development).

M23 has been landed to Canary. Time to refactor the code.