When I try to open internet links that I have saved, the data and cookie consent window that must be clicked before most sites these days will open, will not go away when clicked. It’s infuriating, as it means I have to open these links in other browsers, taking me away from my work station in Scrivener. Any solutions proposed?
This may be due to the very simple web browser within Scrivener. I’m afraid opening in another browser is going to be the simplest solution until/if any update is made to the internal browser. For which I have no information of any timescale.
Looking for a solution/update to this. Importing web pages into my research folders is one of the best features I love about Scrivener, and these cookie notices are messing that up. Any chance in future updates devs could develop a way to block these popups from coming up? Everyone in the world knows every website uses cookies, I find it rather insulting and frustrating to have to click these boxes everywhere I go. But the fact that they are blocking content and I can’t get around them in scrivener is a serious problem for my workflow.
Well the first piece of information to be aware of is that this isn’t a “browser” in the sense of a component that is designed to browse the Web via links and so forth. It is a web page viewer, which internally makes use of Apple’s WebArchive format for offline storage of web pages in perpetuity. You will notice that if the original site deletes the page, or if it changes frequently (Wikipedia archives for example), your copy in Scrivener won’t. That is the design intention for this feature, but it is that design goal that makes it work the way it does with regards to cookies warnings (there also aren’t any cookies because it isn’t a browser, which is why it keeps coming back).
So with that in mind, there is another way to create WebArchive files: Safari (and there are I am sure other tools as well, but everyone has that browser installed). Some pages, depending on how they have their privacy rights management encoded into the page, will modify the content of the page sufficiently so that saved copies of that page will retain that alteration. Some may not—ours for example will save from Safari as a modified copy of the page without the cookie block at the top.
That’s your approach if you want to use archived web pages store in Scrivener: save the page in Safari and drag it into the binder instead of using the convenience tool—if the page needs special treatment—or if what you want is stored behind a login, etc.
Second approach is the one I tend to use for nearly everything, and that is cut out the massive amount of fat that comes along with most modern web pages and just import the text directly. Tips on that approach can be found in this posting.
The third approach you could take is a bit more involved, but if you’re adept at editing web pages yourself then you have absolute control over page content—so long as you start with something that is less of a proprietary black box, like the .webarchive format. Firefox has a better save option in my opinion—it just downloads all of the files you need into a folder, along with the .html file. Unfortunately most Mac programs (like Scrivener) don’t work with it seamlessly. But, these files can be edited freely, since they are normal files at that point. You can strip out the GDPR stuff, even cut out junk bytes like advertisements, trackers, navigation sidebars that are useless and so on. It’s kind of the same idea as the text import, but it’s a better approach if you want some of the original formatting but not all of it. Lastly, when you’re done with customisation, open the .html file in Safari and save as .webarchive to turn it into a format Scrivener can view. You can at this point discard the editable files (or maybe .zip them up and drop them into the binder beneath the .webarchive, in case you ever want to make further modifications).
Whatever approach you take, I’m afraid the basic technology isn’t something we have any control over. Scrivener’s web page importing is basically what Safari’s Save command is, and if you go to that .webarchive file in Finder and click the Quick Look button, what you see pop up there is essentially what “Scrivener’s” web viewer is. This is all 100% Apple tech we can snap into software for free essentially.
A possibility that AmberV didn’t mention in that otherwise comprehensive post: importing Web pages as PDF. The advantage is that the page retains all its illustrations and it won’t attempt to load stuff like new ads, cookies permission, or logins. It will never change, just like a Web Archive. Links will still be active. The disadvantage is that pure text will take less space on disk, and the ads displayed when you captured the page are there forever (unless you delete them with a PDF editor later.)
If you already know how to do this, great! But for those for whom this is a new concept, here’s how:
- Bring up your Web page and select Print from the File menu, or type cmd-p.
- If you’re not using Safari, be sure to use the System print dialog. in Chrome, for example, you’ll have to click “more settings” and then scroll down to the bottom for “Use system print dialog” and click it. (If you use Safari, you can skip this step.)
- Now that you have the Mac system print dialog, click on the little PDF pop-up menu in the lower left corner and select “Save PDF to Scrivener.” The page will be imported to the Research folder in your active Scrivener project.
- If project size is an issue: instead of “Save PDF to Scrivener,” select “Save to PDF” and then import the PDF file as an alias.
Hope this helps.
These are all decent suggestions as workable alternatives. Unfortunately, they all lack the simplicity and ease that use to come with the built in web archiving abilities that safari has. So the Add from Webpage is essentially useless as a feature now as long as there is one of those cookie notices on the website 
Solution: this is what I’ve found to work. Install a Cookie-blocker extension into Safari itself, such a Stardust Cookie Cutter or Super Agent for Safari; activate the extension in Safari preferences. Then any webpage that you import directly into Scrivener using the Import Web-Page function eradicates the cookie-notice completely and the webpage imports properly into Scrivener.
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