While on desktop, I use the web clipper to save contents extensively. But on my iPad, I can only clip as weblink or use a shortcut/script to clip an article--however, all the images are linked externally and if the webpage disappears in the future, I will lose all of them.
I can see two solutions:
(1) Have a plugin on desktop to check all externally linked images and download them. I believe there is such a plugin for Obsidian. What is the chance of porting/replicating it for Joplin?
(2) Make it possible to copy and paste formatted content with images directly into the Joplin editor on iOS, similar to Apple Notes.
This feature is important to me, as I can't install/run Joplin on my work computer so I need to use my iPad, if I rely on Joplin as my main note app.
Web Clipper is needed for both Android, iOS and iPadOS for sure. Mobile version of Firefox supports third party extentions. So maybe web clipper could be used with the mobile firefox...
Does it? Last time I checked it supported only a fixed set of "trusted" extensions and installing anything custom required using the nightly version or something like this.
Copy/pasting into Joplin after having rendered a website with the ToMarkdown addon for Safari on iOS works quite well. You'll have to take an extra step, however, by copying over the URL as well.
I'll never ever go back, but in this respect (clipping on mobile platforms) Evernote is far superior to Joplin - and to OneNote as well.
A YouTube streamer I follow mentioned that Firefox Mobile would have support for thousands of extensions with a major update, similar to its desktop version. Therefore, this situation could be an opportunity for the Joplin extension. Of course, adding a search box for notebooks to the extension is also necessary. I have opened a topic on the forum for this purpose:
That's the good thing about the ToMarkdown extension for Safari on iOS: (almost) every content of a web page is converted to Markdown (text and pictures alike) and can then be transferred to Joplin by copy/paste.
The application works great on desktop, and it has a search box. But the lack of an option to import web pages into Joplin in "markdown" format only can be considered a drawback. The "clip simplified page" feature in Joplin's "Web Clipper" is also very functional and is missed.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work on mobile because it's not available on the Play Store. I tried downloading the extension for Android via Firefox Nightly, but it didn't work on mobile either. The extension only works on mobile with the Kiwi browser. However, I don't use Kiwi because I prefer Firefox.
The text works except for images. The Joplin desktop web clipper turns images on a page into local images, while ToMarkdown keeps them as external links. The risk is that once the page is removed on the website in the future, the images will disappear too.
If only we have a plugin like the Obsidian plugin called "Media Sync" which scans the vault and download all externally linked images. Then I can periodically run that on the desktop.
I think I've tried this on desktop, but it downloads texts but keeps images as external links. The risk is that once the page is removed on the website in the future, the images will disappear too. The Joplin desktop web clipper turns images on a page into local images. I think the bottleneck is how to get images into Joplin on iOS.
If only we have a plugin like the Obsidian plugin called "Media Sync" which scans the vault and download all externally linked images. Then I can periodically run that on the desktop.
On iOS in the United States, the only browser that supports extensions is Safari. Perhaps this will change for EMEA now that Apple was forced to allow non-Webkit-based browsers with iOS 17.4. Yes, I'm jealous that EMEA has better consumer privacy protections!!! You're so lucky!
For Android, the only browser I know of that supports extensions is Firefox.
iOS
My solution on iOS involves using the toMarkdown extension, which you can read more about here:
Search GitHub for "toMarkdown" (w/o quotes)
Search the Apple AppStore for "toMarkdown" (w/o quotes)
It is a simple extension that, once clicked, displays the web page you are currently viewing in Markdown. With one tap anywhere on the page, all the text is selected, allowing you to copy and then paste into Joplin.
Images are supported in that they link to the original source images, but do not download a local copy. I'm new to Joplin, but perhaps like Obsidian there is a plugin to save a local copy of images and re-link the embedded images to the locally saved one.
Android
My solution on Android involves using the MarkDownload - Markdown Web Clipper extension, which you can read more about here:
Search the Firefox Android Extionsions site for "MarkDownload - Markdown Web Clipper" (w/o quotes)
The UI does not seem to be optimized for mobile, but you should be able to either copy and paste the markdown or download it. To get the download to work, I did have to tweak a few settings in the extension.