export to iPod

[rickl]

I seem to remember reading (or imagining?) that Bookends could export either whole files or individual records to the iPod. Is this possible?

[Jon]

I seem to remember reading (or imagining?) that Bookends could export either whole files or individual records to the iPod. Is this possible?

Yes, it's easy. You'll find the step-by-step instructions here:

http://www.sonnysoftware.com/ipod.html


Jon
Sonny Software

[rickl]

Not sure how I missed that. Thanks a lot.

Actually, though, it didn't work well for me, because I tend to put very lengthy notes in the notes and/or abstract fields. This meant that most of my references weren't imported at all. What I did in the end was to export several sets of references, in the reference & abstract format, to text files, then open them up and paste the contents into VoodooPad, then reexport my VoodooPad file. So now I can browse through references when I'm away together with my notes on them.

[Jon]

Not sure how I missed that. Thanks a lot.

Actually, though, it didn't work well for me, because I tend to put very lengthy notes in the notes and/or abstract fields. This meant that most of my references weren't imported at all.

Hm, I haven't tried this in a while, but in my previous tests you could have about 1000 characters in one reference on an iPod before it was truncated. Are you saying now that *nothing* shows up if the reference length is beyond the limit?

Jon
Sonny Software

[rickl]

Are you saying now that *nothing* shows up if the reference length is beyond the limit?

Well, only 7 of more than 70 references were actually exported. The ones that were on the iPod had fairly short notes and abstracts fields, so I assumed that was the reason they were successfully imported. I didn't actually go through all the ones that weren't imported and check what was wrong, so it's quite possible that something else is the real reason (e.g. Could references without an author cause a problem?; or maybe if one vCard is badly formed that could prevent all subsequent ones from being read.).

In my case, I had an alternative solution handy, but I guess this is crucial information for people who want to do it directly from Bookends.

Incidentally, I have been asked why on earth I would want to carry references around with me, but I find that checking who said what on a particular subject, or reading through my notes on a particularly important work, is one of the best uses of time at a coffee shop or during irrelevant discussions at long meetings, and prepares me to use time more effectively when I'm writing at my computer.

[frvs]

Hi Jon,

Times have changed rather swiftly. On the one hand, while the ipod touch and the iphone presently allow us to enter data directly, they cannot be used in firewire mode anymore. This changes things dramatically, right? On the other, Bookends now has some synch skills built in. So I ask: why not take one big step forward and (since Aple will allow this soon) build a portable Bookends app for the ipod touch and the iphone, which would allow direct data input on the go (in the bookstore, or the library, or wherever) and true synching with the main database on the computer? The OS is supposedly the same, after all... This way BE might frog-leap the pioneering, albeit rather frustrating, app that EN built for Palm PDAs years ago!

[Jon]

This is something I'll evaluate when more is known about the iPhone SDK. I will say, though, that a port would not be trivial at all, and not even possible until more tools become available for the iPhone (and remember, it runs on a subset of Mac OS X, not the full OS). But it's certainly something to keep an eye on.

Jon
Sonny Software

[frvs]

Super! Thanks.

[pszego]

Hi Jon,

I'm almost finished a new vcard format that works pretty well with my iPod touch (and presumably with an iPhone). It addresses issues like fields being cut off, and adds some web functionality like viewing the article and searching for other papers by the authors. I'll post it when I'm finished; probably by next week?

I'm stuck on one point: How do I stop Bookends from automatically inserting a url in the url field? It keeps inserting "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... tPlus&list..." but I'm getting it to enter a more specific search in the field so that I can access the article more directly. Any idea other than simply changing the field in every reference after importing them? (If it helps, I'm importing from Papers, but I don't think that's where the query is originating.)

Thanks,

P

[Jon]

Hi,

That string is inserted by the PubMed import filter in Bookends (see the PubMed filter, Misc tab).

But if you're importing from Papers, that uses a direct XML import routine and just takes in what Papers sends it. You might want to contact me directly for tech support on this (it may be a Paper export issue).

Jon
SOnny SOftware