New integration with DEVONthink Pro

[Jon]

Good news for our DEVONthink Pro users. The new 2.4 release has several features specifically designed for Bookends users. Here's a quote from their press release:

"Integration with other applications has always been a key focus of our software. We have worked with the developer of Bookends to much tighter [sic] integrate the two applications. Drag references from Bookends to DEVONthink with Command and Option held to add full rich text summaries to your database, use the enhanced smart template to create styled rich text files with data from Bookends, or import multiple references using the new batch import script," says Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann, President of DEVONtechnologies.

I enjoyed working with them on these features, and I think DTP and Bookends users will find them very useful indeed.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Wanderer]

Certainly, those are great news. I have just tried the new features, and everything seems running OK. Congratulations for all of us!


Wanderer

[DeclanOB]

I've just been thinking of how best to use this new integration. If anybody would be so kind as to explain their workflow, I would be grateful.

I have been noticing that Bookends may be a better place than Devonthink to keep reading notes, with all the labels, keywords and so on. I've already been moving my pdfs to Bookends (indexed in Devonthink).
Of course, if there's a way to move the burden of storing reading notes from Devonthink to Bookends without losing the many benefits of DTP, then it would be nice to hear about it.

I don't suppose anybody has worked out how best to work the two together to maximum benefit. I don't suppose any such person would be willing to share their brilliant insights?

Thanks,

Declan

[DeclanOB]

Perhaps I can expand a little. What I was thinking was as follows:

1. Create new reference with pdf attached (and indexed in DTP).
2. Open the pdf in Skim, and highlight, note, and mark up (these marks will be visible though not indexed in DTP). The advantage of such marking up would simply be to aid navigation of the document in future.
3. While doing the above, fill in or adapt the list of keywords in Bookends.
4. Also: write an (longer than usual) abstract in the abstract window in Bookends. Such an abstract would indicate the main arguments and structure of the document in question.
5. Also: construct a Table of Contents for the article, chapter or book in a notecard.
6. Also: Extract quotable quotes with page references in notecards.
7. As soon as the article becomes relevant to a project, put it in a Bookends group.
8. When the reading phase of the project is finished, import the references of that group into a DTP group.
9. In DTP open windows for all of these references, with their abstracts, TOCs and quotations in separate windows, and begin writing in another window, drawing the material together.
10. When that is done, bring the resulting document into scrivener, where it becomes a fragment of a larger writing project.

Now, I haven't followed this procedure as yet, so I don't know how well it would work. Presumably one could skip step 9 entirely, but that would mean that those materials wouldn't remain easily found for future projects sharing similar materials.

Will this work? Would there be any way to improve it? Is there any way of selecting what material from bookends would come into DTP in a normal import? Any other thoughts?

Thanks for any insights that anyone might have had on how to integrate these things taking best advantage of the potential of each application.

Declan

[macula]

Sounds like a very viable workflow.

The new feature is certainly welcome but somewhat belated in my case. I have already been using a customized version of the good-old "Bookends Reference" template in DTP, which actually looks better than the plain-text entry created by the new feature. The template generates a DTP rich-text note, including a hyperlink to the reference in Bookends. To make the connection between DTP and Bookends bidirectional, I simply copy-paste the "x-devonthink://…" link of the new DTP note into a dedicated field that I have created in my Bookends database.

This is a tiny bit clunkier than the new feature, and it deprives Bookends of a local mirror of my notes (which in turn would enhance my tag cloud). The significant advantage of this old-fashioned approach, however, is that there is only one note per bibliographic entry, the note residing solely in DTP, and therefore no risk of the DTP and the Bookends notes getting out of sync. Consistency of this sort is an overriding concern for me. If there were a way for DTP and Bookends to be "online" with each other—modifications on one end instantly reflected on the other end—this would not be an issue, but such syncing exceeds the scope of the new feature (and the current architecture of the two applications, it seems to me) by a large margin.

If I fail to appreciate any other advantages of the new feature, I would be glad to know.

[DeclanOB]

Yes, syncing would be what we'd really want. I had enquired about the possibility of DTP indexing the notecards, or something but that appeared not to be possible. I wonder, though, whether the underlying changes in the two apps mean that such a day is getting closer. I'm afraid I don't know what "Apple Events" are, so I can't judge.

In the meantime, the intuition I had was that if I moved the burden of notetaking away from DTP, I might be able to keep things a little more focussed. The fact that one can so easily load DTP with everything that might conceivably be useful at some future date means that it can be difficult not to get lost inside (unless, of course, one is very disciplined, as no doubt you are). In Bookends, it seems a little easier to keep things organized. The workflow I am thinking of (outlined above), would involve DTP being like a library of possibilities, and Bookends standing a little closer to ongoing projects.

Anyway, in my little experimentation (only a few days' worth), it seems like it might be so. Who knows!?

Declan

[Nhaps]

Good news for our DEVONthink Pro users. The new 2.4 release has several features specifically designed for Bookends users. Here's a quote from their press release:

"Integration with other applications has always been a key focus of our software. We have worked with the developer of Bookends to much tighter [sic] integrate the two applications. Drag references from Bookends to DEVONthink with Command and Option held to add full rich text summaries to your database, use the enhanced smart template to create styled rich text files with data from Bookends, or import multiple references using the new batch import script," says Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann, President of DEVONtechnologies.

I enjoyed working with them on these features, and I think DTP and Bookends users will find them very useful indeed.

The full press release is here

http://www.devontechnologies.com/press/ ... f95f7.html

Jon
Sonny Software

I don't know if it's my computer, but the link above to DT is broken. The Command-Option for dragging references to DT is superb (faster than Edit-Copy Hyperlink Text), but unfortunately there is a problem as only one reference can be dragged to DT at a time. That's a bummer. Same with Edit-Copy Hyperlink Text, only one reference at a time. I would like to generate a link to all references of BE in DT. This would enable searching BE refs within DT that would take me right to the desired reference in BE. Timesaver.

[Jon]

I tried to implement that originally, but it doesn't work. You can't drag multiple links because the OS can't resolve them (that is, when placed in the a DT document, only the first link would actually work, the rest would not). This is a limitation of OS X, not Bookends.

DT moved that page (or deleted it), so the link is broken. I'll remove it from my original post.

Jon
Sonny Software

[jojoba]

Is there a web page where this stuff here is a bit elaborated?

Drag references from Bookends to DEVONthink with Command and Option held to add full rich text summaries to your database, use the enhanced smart template to create styled rich text files with data from Bookends, or import multiple references using the new batch import script

When I drag references with Command and Option held, nothing happens...

Thanks.

[Jon]

Press Option-Command in Bookends before you click and drag (Bookends has to load the drag object when the drag starts, not in the middle of the drag).

Jon
Sonny Software