More technical time wasting from Twitter

Submitted by arendt on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 10:50pm

All of the sudden there is this "embedded tweet" crapola.

Now, when someone "embeds" a tweet, all they embed is a URL to the tweet. If you try to roll over the text of the tweet, it automatically sends you to the tweet. But even there, you can't copy the text. You can merely copy the god damn URL of the tweet.

If I want to copy an article with five embedded tweets, I have to do it in six pieces; and I can't copy the text of the tweets. And, I have to be very careful to never touch the tweets with the scrolling cursor - because I will instantly lose what I just scrolled over.

Does anyone know how to copy only the text of an "embedded tweet"? Perhaps convert the entire web page to source text - nah, the source text just contains the tweet's URL.

I am getting really sick of all the hoops, cookies, pop ups, and other useless, timewasting, walled garden tactics on the net.

One of the reasons I like c99p is that it is pretty much plain text, barely more than a .rtf file.

BTW - I find the word "tweet" to be as infantilizing as ordering a "whopper" at BK, which I haven't done in forty years.

Thanks for any help that might be offered.

Tags:

embedded tweets

copy

Vote

Comments

Submitted by Pricknick on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 10:59pm

Don't be a twit.

That's the best I have to offer and it has served me well.
Peace

—

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Submitted by JtC on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 11:08pm

Am I missing something?

Copy/paste works OK for me on any tweet unless it's an image. Or am I misunderstanding what you're asking. What browser are you using?

Submitted by arendt on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 11:39pm

Using Firefox

@JtC

Not sure if "an image" is the same as an "embedded tweet". I've had this problem on several websites where the tweet is in a big box that contains useless info like "33 people liked this tweet" and a live link to that.

I really wouldn't mind just leaving the tweets out of the copy, but you have to avoid them completely because they replace all you've highlighted for copying with the tweets URL and nothing else.PITA.

Submitted by JtC on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 11:51pm

Can you point...

@arendt
me to the URL of the tweets that you're having a problem with?

Submitted by arendt on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 7:59am

Here's one

@JtC
Krieger: We're All "Just Manipulated Serfs On An Oligarch's Digital Plantation"

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 12:03am

Ok...

@arendt
I think I see what you're talking about. If you want to copy all of the text from a web page that has both tweets and extraneous text it wont highlight the text from both elements. If you start highlighting the extraneous text it stops as soon as you hit the tweet box. Right?

There is a way to do it but it's pretty involved.

Submitted by arendt on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 7:56am

Apologies for going to bed in the middle of the thread

@JtC

Yes. Your description is exactly what I'm talking about.

There is a way to do it but it's pretty involved.

That's what I was afraid of.

If you have this procedure already written up, please send it. If not, please don't waste your valuable time.

But, when did this problem arise? It is new to me, and I am copying articles many times a day.

Thanks for the many replies.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 1:47pm

Try this...

@arendt

I opened the tweet in Twitter and can then copy the type. You have to carefully align your mouse or it will open the tweet box, but it can be done pretty easily.

On second try,, that can only be done on certain tweets. But on the ones you can't C&P you can download the image. You could look at the Twitter thread app that will do all at once. If I find the link again I'll PM you.

—

Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Submitted by arendt on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 2:24pm

Thanks for your efforts

@snoopydawg

I guess its just going to be another place that I become a Luddite. When something as simple as cut and paste becomes some roadblock that I am forced to go to another website to use, I am done.

They are complicated the most trivial tasks, even as we are overwhelmed with genuinely complex problems.

Grrrr.

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 4:01pm

OK, are you ready?

@arendt
Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier, I had a to debug a new user redirect this morning and that took a while. I'll post this here in case someone else would like to solve this problem.

First I had to go and check that what I'm about to lay out still works, and it does.

---------------------------

To copy the text from a tweet you have to disable the script that displays the tweet box. There's a couple of different ways to do that. I use the NoScript extension for Firefox and that allows enabling/disabling of all scripts that run on a web page. You need to disable the twitter.com script. The tweet box will then close to a text box and that can be copy/pasted.

You can also disable the twitter.com script by using a private window in the browser. That can be set in Tools/Options. That will kill the script the same way that NoScript does.

-----------------------------

The method above truncates the tweet and allows it to be highlighted and copy/pasted but that may not be enough for what you're looking for. Here's the answer to that problem.

Firefox used to offer a really sweet little extension called "EasyCopy". With EasyCopy installed all you had to do to copy any web page was to highlight it and paste it into a text editor. By highlighted I mean everything, text, HTML, tweets, videos, links, images, everything that was on the source page could be copied and then pasted elsewhere and display exactly like the original source. It was a beautiful thing and very easy to use. You could lift everything from a webpage and then paste it exactly as the original appeared in one fell swoop, (I know, redundancy, but this little proggy was amazing). I stumbled upon this program a few years ago and it is a great time saver. Joe shikspack uses it to copy the articles for his Evening Blues series and wendy davis uses it to transfer her essays from her website to here.

Now the problem with this extension is this. Did you notice that I kept saying "was" in reference to it? That's because back when FireFox did a complete makeover of their platform, I think version 57 was the last of the old FireFox architecture, the old coded extensions would no longer work with the new version platform and some of the extension developers gave up on updating to FF's new platform. And EasyCopy was one of them. It doesn't work on the new version FF and the dev isn't going to update it. It's now obsolete and there's nothing out there that I know of that will do what EasyCopy did. It was a crying shame.

But, that hasn't stopped the old diehards. You can still use EasyCopy by running an old version of FireFox, anything before v.57 will work. What I do is I use two separate instances of FireFox, I use v. 55 when I have to use EasyCopy and I use the latest updated version of FF for everything else. Using old versions isn't secure so I only use the old one when I absolutely need to.

Here's how you run two versions of FireFox:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/939994

Now another big problem with EasyCopy is that it isn't offered on the FireFox extension site anymore, it's almost impossible to find it now that it's obsolete. But I found this site that has archived old versions of EasyCopy that can still be installed:

https://legacycollector.org/firefox-addons/362390/index.html

Once EasyCopy is installed it's really easy to use and as I said, it's amazing. Bur you still have to kill the twitter.com script as I outlined in the first step above to be able to highlight it. But once it's copied and pasted it will revert back to the full script enabled tweet

------------------------

Well, I told you it was involved but it does work. If you have any questions about any of this just ask.

Submitted by arendt on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 4:26pm

Thanks for all the effort!

@JtC

It looks like just using a private window gives me what I want - plaintext that can be copied.

The No Script extension looks good, and powerful. I'm going to set it up in a sandbox and see who complains/blocks me/etc.

I'm saving your response for future reference.

Thanks again.

#2.1.2.1 Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier, I had a to debug a new user redirect this morning and that took a while. I'll post this here in case someone else would like to solve this problem. First I had to go and check that what I'm about to lay out still works, and it does. --------------------------- To copy the text from a tweet you have to disable the script that displays the tweet box. There's a couple of different ways to do that. I use the NoScript extension for Firefox and that allows enabling/disabling of all scripts that run on a web page. You need to disable the twitter.com script. The tweet box will then close to a text box and that can be copy/pasted. You can also disable the twitter.com script by using a private window in the browser. That can be set in Tools/Options. That will kill the script the same way that NoScript does. ----------------------------- The method above truncates the tweet and allows it to be highlighted and copy/pasted but that may not be enough for what you're looking for. Here's the answer to that problem. Firefox used to offer a really sweet little extension called "EasyCopy". With EasyCopy installed all you had to do to copy any web page was to highlight it and paste it into a text editor. By highlighted I mean everything, text, HTML, tweets, videos, links, images, everything that was on the source page could be copied and then pasted elsewhere and display exactly like the original source. It was a beautiful thing and very easy to use. You could lift everything from a webpage and then paste it exactly as the original appeared in one fell swoop, (I know, redundancy, but this little proggy was amazing). I stumbled upon this program a few years ago and it is a great time saver. Joe shikspack uses it to copy the articles for his Evening Blues series and wendy davis uses it to transfer her essays from her website to here. Now the problem with this extension is this. Did you notice that I kept saying "was" in reference to it? That's because back when FireFox did a complete makeover of their platform, I think version 57 was the last of the old FireFox architecture, the old coded extensions would no longer work with the new version platform and some of the extension developers gave up on updating to FF's new platform. And EasyCopy was one of them. It doesn't work on the new version FF and the dev isn't going to update it. It's now obsolete and there's nothing out there that I know of that will do what EasyCopy did. It was a crying shame. But, that hasn't stopped the old diehards. You can still use EasyCopy by running an old version of FireFox, anything before v.57 will work. What I do is I use two separate instances of FireFox, I use v. 55 when I have to use EasyCopy and I use the latest updated version of FF for everything else. Using old versions isn't secure so I only use the old one when I absolutely need to. Here's how you run two versions of FireFox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/939994 Now another big problem with EasyCopy is that it isn't offered on the FireFox extension site anymore, it's almost impossible to find it now that it's obsolete. But I found this site that has archived old versions of EasyCopy that can still be installed: https://legacycollector.org/firefox-addons/362390/index.html Once EasyCopy is installed it's really easy to use and as I said, it's amazing. Bur you still have to kill the twitter.com script as I outlined in the first step above to be able to highlight it. But once it's copied and pasted it will revert back to the full script enabled tweet ------------------------ Well, I told you it was involved but it does work. If you have any questions about any of this just ask.

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 5:02pm

You definitely...

@arendt
don't want to use it to lift full sites or articles without permission. But what it excels at is grabbing a few paragraphs from an article to include in an essay you're putting together. If there are any links, tweets, videos, etc. it will copy/paste them as the original, all keeping within fair use guidelines, of course.

Notice in joe's Evening Blues, the 3 or 4 paragraphs he uses as blurbs for the article he is pointing to. Some times there are links and tweets in them also. That is very easily done with EasyCopy by simply highlighting the content you want to use and then pasting it into the essay. It really is a bloggers dream come true.

Another for instance and I think gjohnsit was using it in this manner. Let's say that you want to transfer your diaries from DKos to here, it is a very simple and fast process with EasyCopy and you wouldn't have to be logged in there to do it.

Geez, I sound like a commercial.

Submitted by arendt on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 5:15pm

Well, a commercial for a product that has been cancelled...

@JtC

I can barely maintain one version of something, much less two. I have one Apple, one Linux, and one Windows machine at home. I consider it an accomplishment to transfer files among them.

I only make these copies to have articles for future reference - might cut out a few graphs. I like them all to be in .rtf-like formats. Just enough decoration to be helpful.

If I have time, I will look into setting up an older version of Firefox on my Linux box.

Thanks again for your enthusiasm.

Submitted by Battle of Blair... on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 11:38pm

One time I imagined what the first IA

Or Internet Artifice would be. A program that interfaces with the public by the publics own input. I'd call it Goog the Twit.

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 7:19am

Twitter is absolutely useless these days.

It's akin to trying to catch fish by standing at the bottom of a waterfall looking up with your mouth open.

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by RejectingThe3rdWay on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 2:33pm

Twitter has started to ban Kamala Harris critics!

I have counted 3 so far including the man behind the DNC fraud lawsuit.

The oligarchy has spoken, stand with them or have your voice muted!

—

When I was a kid, Republicans used to red scare people, now it's the Democrats. I am getting too damn old for this crap!

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 4:35pm

Jarad Beck was probably banned for what he wrote

@RejectingThe3rdWay

about Harris regarding the time she dated Willie. Something about her being a receptacle for his appendage.

—

Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Submitted by RejectingThe3rdWay on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 4:50pm

@snoopydawg

@snoopydawg

But there are others with no objectionable stuff like his that have been banned too that are critical of Harris. Including one person whose crime was uploading videos exposing Harris for what she truly is!

—

When I was a kid, Republicans used to red scare people, now it's the Democrats. I am getting too damn old for this crap!

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 6:45pm

Yes I know that

@RejectingThe3rdWay

I posted Jerome's statement on his being banned. I thought what Jared wrote was funny, but the tweet about him being banned mentioned that tweet of his saying that about her.

—

Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?