Tech: copying text from Facebook posts

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 02:44 PM

I think what you call auto-login is a combination of 'form history', which remembers the content of input fields, and 'password remembering'. Both are stored in the profile; if you get Firefox and TenFourFox to use different profiles then each will operate independantly in that respect. (Modern versions if Firefox can sync both between devices.) If you backup the profile (e.g. xxxxxxx.default) it will backup all that.

Mudcat just uses a cookie to remain signed in - a technology that hasn't changed since the 1980's. But Firefox will also remember the signon password if you want.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 02:10 PM

I almost certainly have documentation for that, and will be able to recover bookmarks I make from now on anyway. But I've no idea how auto-login got buggered (not on Mudcat, though) or what to do about it.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 02:07 PM

Jake: he's using an obsolete, but working, Mac. See my post here:
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=162795#3877361

As a Mac user, do you know how to set up a launcher - as in my last post? He needs to pass a command line option to the browser.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 01:12 PM

Time Machine doesn't work on my OS, and your OS and Safari version won't work on my hardware.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 12:47 PM

Jack Campin said ....
"Facebook has managed to make it impossible for me to copy text from posts made there.

I presume there's a workaround, but saving the page source doesn't work for me either (somehow they have buggered things up so you can't save what you're reading in a form any other software can make sense of).

Ideas? I'm using Safari on MacOS 10.4.11, if that makes a difference."
*******************************************

I'm using Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6 and my browser is Safari 11.0 (12604.1.38.1.7)

Whilst I don't make much use of Facebook I have just checked and there is no problem for me. I can highlight text in a face book post, COPY it & PASTE it directly into the message box.

No work around or alternative browser required.

As for the problems with losing the bookmarks.

You're using a Mac, can you go into the TIME MACHINE to recover them?? or otherwise return to a situation before the troublesome browsers were installed??

Jake

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 07:40 AM

I think so but it's years since I tried. There are probably other Mac apps that could take a command line flag if you knew it was possible and what it did - this isn't something developers like to publicize.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 07:12 AM

On Linux I set up a 'launcher' - which is an icon with an associated command. ISTR I can do that in Windows too, but it's called a shortcut. Is there a Mac equivalent?

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 05:45 AM

On a Mac I would need to start it from the Terminal to use any command line flag.

The thing has also blown away my ability to auto-login on some (but not all) forums. I can't see any way to change that.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 03:55 AM

More detail in the FAQ

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Oct 17 - 02:58 AM

If you're running two versions of Firefox - and TenFourFox is a version of Firefox - then you must use a different profile for each. You must also be careful to start the one that does not use the default profile with a '-P profilename' argument.

If, for example, your old Firefox is using the default profile and you start TFF without specifying its profile, TFF will probably use - and possibly update - the default profile. That may make it corrupt next time you use it for another version of Firefox. I've had this happen - profiles are not generally backwards-compatible.

To guard against mishap, backup the profiles. You can also, of course, backup just the bookmarks.

Mozillazine has technical articles on profiles, not always up to date.
e.g. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_new_default_profile

Caveat - I don't know Macs and I've never used TenFourFox so any of the above may not be true in your case. But I often run multiple versions of Firefox and it's been the same for years. There;s probably a support forum somewhere if you need advice:
TenFourFox_development

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Oct 17 - 05:16 PM

I don't use farcebook and hoep to never have to. But with any Mac, you can takeascreenshot of what you want by hitting Command-Shift-4 and clicking anddragging across the piece you want. You'll get a jpg on your desltop called Screenshot (date/time) which you can rename.

On ipad ot phone pressboth the home and the sleep buttons to take a screenshot.

It is easy to convert to a pdf or text.

It's called "Picture 1" (or some other number if you've done it before) and there is no way to OCR it back into text. A bitmap image is useless.

TenFourFox just fucked my bookmarks again, throwing away hours of changes. It's garbage.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Sep 17 - 02:40 AM

I think the OP wants to place text in the clipboard. I do it all the time because it is so easy to mistype otherwise. And some peoples' posts are wordy, to put it mildly.

I did find Fakebook to be troublesome, maybe the FireFox update has addressed that. But I have noticed that my Excel/Word/Outlook macros have emptied the clipboard in ways I have yet to investigate. This came in about two Micro$oft updates ago.

PS Although there are about 180 JavaScript files in Farcebook I would bet there is a huge mountain of PHP (or equivalent) on their servers. If only to trawl for factoids about your profile and IMNSHO it ain't clever enough by a huge margin. But annoyingly too snoopy for my tastes.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: GUEST,Lou Judson
Date: 18 Sep 17 - 01:49 AM

I don't use farcebook and hoep to never have to. But with any Mac, you can takeascreenshot of what you want by hitting Command-Shift-4 and clicking anddragging across the piece you want. You'll get a jpg on your desltop called Screenshot (date/time) which you can rename.

On ipad ot phone pressboth the home and the sleep buttons to take a screenshot.

It is easy to convert to a pdf or text.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 17 Sep 17 - 08:36 AM

Jason Xion Wang wrote: Try updating the system to 10.12.6

He's running a PowerPC (PPC) Mac. Later Macs, from 2006, have Intel processors. MacOS 10.4 is the latest version that will run on PPC.

The last version of Firefox to run on MacOS 10.4 is 3.6.28, released in 2012. TenFourFox is an unofficial (non-Mozilla) version of Firefox which is kept more-or-less up to date with essential changes and fixes. It's almost certainly the only up-to-date browser that runs on a PPC Mac. But, as JC observed, it's slow - especially, I expect, on Javascript-heavy sites.

Javascript has been updated quite a bit since MacOS 10.4 and whatever version of its native browser, Safari, works on it - particularly with the standardization of EcmaScript 6 (ES6) in 2015. FaceBook is entirely built with Javascript. Which is why it - and an increasing number of sites - won't work with old browsers.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: GUEST,Mac
Date: 17 Sep 17 - 08:07 AM

Another workaround might be Print>Open PDF in Preview or Save As PDF and copy from that.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jason Xion Wang
Date: 17 Sep 17 - 07:20 AM

Try updating the system to 10.12.6... Will solve the problem

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Sep 17 - 04:23 AM

I am pretty sure that Microsoft OneNote has a clipping tool that will recognise text.

DtG

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 17 Sep 17 - 02:15 AM

Have you looked for bookmark backups in your profile?
Firefox_profile
It depends what version of of Fx you were using. If 3.6.x they are json files which you should be able to import.

Otherwise, restore the whole profile from a backup, and set up a new profile for TFF with the profile manager.

Take a copy of the profiles' containing directory first.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Sep 17 - 08:25 PM

And I have just discovered TenFourFox has erased all my old Firefox bookmarks, with no warning that it would touch the older application's data. I have no way to get them back. They go back ten years.

For the few times I want that functionality, it would have added up to less wasted time if I'd just decided to type quoted text off screenshots.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Sep 17 - 05:36 AM

TenFourFox is VERY slow. I might go back to Safari for FB except for when I really want the copying to work.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Sep 17 - 03:23 AM

Yea - Fakebook FF 55.0.3 - messaging. Fakebook have added a delay. Right Click - you have to be very quick and I haven't manage it. But ctrl C seems to work.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 06:09 PM

FireFox 55.0.3 - Ctrl C & right click copy works.

I have had problems in Messaging and trying to copy. But FF has updated since I last tried. (BT Hotspot is running at Dial-Up speed - less actually)

Fakebook has about 180 JavaScript files and I would bet a lot of it was JScript. Which is where it disrupts these things.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 05:27 PM

What version of Fx were you using? It has saved bookmarks automatically in html for years - in its profile. 'About:troubleshooting' or similar in Help should locate the profile. TFF will have created a new profile.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 05:10 PM

...and it works! Facebook runs ok and I can copy text from it. Many thanks, DaveRo.

No easy way to import my previous Firefox bookmarks, though (and I have a LOT of them). Incentive to save them as HTML and weed them out.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 04:24 PM

Finally managed to download it (and I don't know what I did differently from last time to make it work). Will report back...

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 03:03 PM

Using the G3 link downloaded a 55MB zip file, which extracted to a 146MB 'app' file.

Which is not much use on this Android tablet.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 02:54 PM

Lightshot takes anything that appears on the screen as a picture which can be then OCRd (I use Abby fine reader)
There are freebie versions of lightshot, usually more cumbersome until you get the hang of them
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 02:38 PM

I can't figure out how to download TenFourFox. Sourceforge sends me round and round in circles following links that never produce an actual working file. (I got one .zip file which was only 1.8Mb, obviously far too small to be the full app, and nothing was extractable from it).

Come to think of it, Sourceforge has never given me anything useful. It seems to be an ego massage service for developers who can't be bothered creating finished working products.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 02:11 PM

"Guest" @ 19.57 was me.
My FB problems began with Safari on OS X 10.4.11. Used Firefox successfully for a while.
Necessity for Skype led to upgrading from a G4 machine to a Macbook (2008 vintage) for which Safari on 10.6 brought back Facebook as before. A few months ago Facebook changed format, losing access to Comment and Share facilities (and copy/paste). Move to a different Macbook with 10.7.5 didn't initially solve the problem, but finding a suitable (but now unsupported) version of Firefox has brought Facebook back to a usable state.
Unfortunately Skype is no longer supported under any of these regimes, so I will have to see if I can upgrade to a more up-to-date OS X, possibly on a desktop machine.
Ross

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 10:14 AM

Jack Campin wrote: I use Firefox for preference but it doesn't support FB.

If it's a PPC, have you tried TenFourFox

I know nothing about it other than what I've read on the_developer's_blog

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 15 Sep 17 - 02:33 AM

This is a bit messy.
I can't make a blicky for this but by adding 'view-source:' in front of the url I got this page in code\text.

view-source:https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=240593459792928&id=100015268264230&_ft_=top_level_post_id.240593459792928%3Atl_objid.240593459792928%3Athrowback_story_fbid.240593459792928%3Athid.100015268264230%3A306061129499414%3A2%3A1483257600%3A1514793599%3A-7706924267450027062&__tn__=-R

Then did a search for one word in the text I wanted, then a copy and paste to get

I've thought this for a while. Govt wants to replace EU membership with lots of "itty bitty" side deals and agreements that mirror "membership of the EU". They then want to use £60billion of tax payers money just so they can be outside the EU and avoid this.., the EU directive on

There is some funny text in there like #039 but Mudcat converts it back.


https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=240593459792928&id=100015268264230&_ft_=top_level_post_id.240593459792928%3Atl_obj

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:57 PM

I started having trouble with Facebook on Safari a few months back, format changed to widescreen version which I presumed was for tablets (only the central column of FB was displayed, no access to sidebars etc - the only benefit I could see was that all adverts also disappeared).
I found workarounds for sharing, comments etc but copying/pasting became impossible as you have found.
Eventually found an older version of Firefox which seems to work for me (48.0.2 on Mac OS X 10.7.5). All facilities back to normal. Safari version was 6.1.6
Hope that's some use.
Ross

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 09:29 PM

If you can figure out how to open it as text only maybe that will scrape out some of the files that are trying to load that might be messing up your viewing.

Quora question from 2015 with two answers.

Here's a C|Net post about viewing sites text only from 2011.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 08:34 PM

I use Firefox for preference but it doesn't support FB. My machine is about two years older than Facebook itself. I have tried both Opera and SeaMonkey but they were too flaky to put up with. I use no security software whatever, beyond what the router's firewall provides. If it was a security/filtering issue I'd be seeing it with other websites - only FB displays this phenomenon.

There has to be something different about the way FB displays plain text.

BTW I have encountered something analogous under Windows XP Pro, where copy/paste between websites in different tabs was sometimes blocked (not consistently). That probably was a security issue - the machine belonged to my employer, whose IT department are both paranoid and stupid.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 08:12 PM

Could your virus or Internet security software be hampering this feature? I know sometimes Kaspersky tells me it isn't blocking the screen capture features in my computer (though why it would want to I don't know?). Is Safari the only browser you're able to use? Have you tried some of the other kind of oddball ones like Opera or SeaMonkey?

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 08:07 PM

Doesn't make any sense to me either. I did try some of the Share options and they all seemed to be dead ends. So did pasting the URL of the posting into Google Translate - I just got bounced into a Facebook login.

It would be handy to know what FB are actually doing, since I don't hit this problem with Google+, Gmail, Twitter, Tumblr, Mudcat, Reddit, Wordpress, XMB, YouTube, EBay, umpteen special-purpose forums or any newspaper sites.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 08:06 PM

On smartfone FB, sometimes I also can't copy. My workaround of choice is a screenshot with intro text. I document items likely to disappear that way as well, so that I have a record of whatever comment I made that may be 'disappeared' when a post is removed.

~S~

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 07:40 PM

I have a Mac with Safari, and will check it out - tomorrow at the latest. With any luck, somebody will be able to get to it faster than that.

I found this (pertaining to an iPad) in Facebook "Help Community": "Just hit Share first, then Copy URL, and that will automatically bring you to Safari, then paste the URL for the FB posting in Safari, and once the clear text appears on Safari you can then hit your finger on the text and it will bring up the usual Copy option."

I can't try it now to figure out what he's talking about, though, and it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it will to you.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 06:48 PM

But I thought MacOS was so much superior to Windows???

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 06:42 PM

It's NOT a choice. It's the only browser that works at all with FB on this machine. I have no other options whatever.

Nothing ever highlights. Selection of text is impossible, let alone copying. It's as if what I'm seeing is a bitmap image. I could screen-grab it as that, but then I'd just have to retype it to make text out of it again.

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 06:04 PM

Yeah, copy-paste works fine on Chrome in my chromebook. I think it's a function of your Web browser choice, Jack.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 05:46 PM

Windows, /Firefox. I just highlight/copy and paste 'em wherever. The only obstacle I can see is if I try to start the highlighting on a clickable link, like the links for people's profiles.

What is it doing when you try to copy the text?

Subject: Tech: copying text from Facebook posts
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 05:38 PM

Facebook has managed to make it impossible for me to copy text from posts made there.

I presume there's a workaround, but saving the page source doesn't work for me either (somehow they have buggered things up so you can't save what you're reading in a form any other software can make sense of).

Ideas? I'm using Safari on MacOS 10.4.11, if that makes a difference.