Autocomplete on iOS?

[amazonmatt]

Am I doing this right? I think that the Bookends autocomplete engine is splendid. I had left Bookends for Paperpile, but it's lack of iOS solution is annoying.

And I love that Bookends recognizes that we want to *cite*, not just read papers, in iOS. But, we also search the web often in iOS, and it's really handy to have the papers Autocomplete there. It's happening serverside, so why not via iOS. It's rather clunky to go back to my mac just to get the metadata right. In fact, I hate it.

[Jon]

This is something we'd like to implement on iOS, too.

Jon
Sonny Software

[pruppert]

Came here to ask this same question. Renaming the PDF file with match data like on the Mac would also be nice to have along with auto matching on iOS.

[midas]

+1

And, if possible I'd +100 for this feature.

[amazonmatt]

This is ridiculous actually. My workflow is broken, because most of my article reading and discover is on iOS. Most of my writing is on OSX. Having to go and individually highlight the article, highlight the title, copy and paste to goole scholar in the desktop app, and hit import and then wait...it's annoying. And Mendeley does it. I love Bookends, but I'm considering moving along to something appropriate for how we work in 2017.

[midas]

As a user, I agree. It is annoying.

But, I empathize with the developer. It's tough to be able to develop for two different environments (iOS and macOS) and keep up with the yearly updates to both operating systems. Not to mention that every end user differs in how they strike a balance between the two platforms. It would drive me nuts

I find that many very good app developers have products that just can't keep up on one platform or the other. It's probably easier to port an app that was first developed for iOS over to macOS. Going the other way is rough, I'd imagine. Unfortunately, most 'deep' users that do more than just check email, surf safari, or tweet probably find themselves trying to use apps that were orignially developed for macOS and are trying to lay a foundation in iOS. And, most of these kinds of apps are usually behind the curve.

Having said that, Bookends on iOS has improved leaps and bounds from the original version. So, I'm very optimistic that this app will be top notch, given a little more time.

[midas]

A potential solution is to save PDFs to a Dropbox folder (using Files on iOS). This folder should be one that is "watched" by Bookends. If one leaves Bookends running on macOS, the PDFs will be taken in and auto-completed. Via sync, Bookends for iOS will be updated.

Of course, this is not going to work well for PDFs that fail to properly autocomplete on macOS. This happens once in a while, and that will require some user-intervention at his/her Mac.

This procedure also require folder-watching to behave consistently on Bookends on macOS, and for Bookends to sync the database when it is altered or updated. I cannot comment on these factors (have not tested).

Will this work, as a short-term alternative to the lack of auto-complete on Bookends for iOS?

[Serge]

Autocomplete is the next feature we would like to implement, some of the parts were implemented already, like import reference if you enter the doi or isbn, other requires a bit more time. We really hope to have this feature in early 2018.

[midas]

That's great! Looking forward to it.

[amazonmatt]

Auto fill using the + symbol and the DOI is brilliant. I wish that you would emphasize this as a solution.

I love that I can discover, read, and cite all in a single application, on ios!

Sure, it is a few more steps than it could be. But it more or less solves my problem. I’m really excited about this! Thank you guys so much!

Do you recommend Scriviner or Ulyesses for maximum iPad integration?

[Jon]

I'm not in a position to comment on that, but perhaps others can?

Jon
Sonny Software

[FredS]

So in iOS, If I don't have the DOI and only a PDF, after uploading a PDF, is manually adding the citation info the only way to update the citation information?

Thanks.

[FredS]

A potential solution is to save PDFs to a Dropbox folder (using Files on iOS). This folder should be one that is "watched" by Bookends. If one leaves Bookends running on macOS, the PDFs will be taken in and auto-completed. Via sync, Bookends for iOS will be updated.

Of course, this is not going to work well for PDFs that fail to properly autocomplete on macOS. This happens once in a while, and that will require some user-intervention at his/her Mac.

This procedure also require folder-watching to behave consistently on Bookends on macOS, and for Bookends to sync the database when it is altered or updated. I cannot comment on these factors (have not tested).

Will this work, as a short-term alternative to the lack of auto-complete on Bookends for iOS?

This is a brilliant workaround. On the Mac I created a Group called Watchfolder, and in the Watch folder configuration I tell the app to copy the file to this group. When I start BE on the Mac, I guess I have to remember to check the Watchfolder group. I wonder if there's a way on iOS to save directly to a folder (is there a way to add a folder to the menu on the bottom of iOS?). Too bad the Watchfolder group in BE doesn't tell me how many files are inside (like a number on the right side of the icon would be nice).

UniClip.png (157.03 KiB) Viewed 10698 times

[Jon]

I don't understand why you do a Copy instead of a Move (if you're the only one who needs access to the file you don't need to leave it in the watch folder, let Bookends move it to the attachments folder for you).

I also don't understand why you need a watch group in this case, unless you want to keep track of all the PDFs that have been added in this way. Otherwise just let them go to All.

Jon
Sonny Software

[FredS]

Im using copy, instead of move so that I can use the watch folder to audit to make sure I don't miss any files. Part of it may be just starting to trust and learn BE.

The PDF's I would put in the watch folder would probably not have a DOI or immediate reference, so I want to quickly put it in the Watch Folder and send it to the Watch Folder Group so that I can later add the reference info and then move it to ALL. Otherwise, I have a PDF mixed in with all the others, and it doesn't have a complete reference.

Is there a better way?