Move from Sente?

[jsturgeon]

So I am about fed up with Sente and am considering a move to Bookends. But first, I have some questions that I hope I can get some feedback on.

One thing I love about Sente is the pdf markup feature and the attached notes.

I see the notecards function in Bookends, but can I highlight and/or copy and paste text from a pdf into a notecard? Can I then print out a reference with all the notes attached to it?

If I import my references and direct Bookends to the attachments, will my notes be imported as well?

My Sente library is fairly large (about 2000 references and the compressed library is 40GB). How is Bookends at handling a library that size?

Finally, I do most of my work on my iMac, but I also like to be able to work on the go using my macbook. Does Bookends allow this so that if I work on the go, the library will be updated with anything I do?

Thanks for the input!

[Jon]

So I am about fed up with Sente and am considering a move to Bookends. But first, I have some questions that I hope I can get some feedback on.

One thing I love about Sente is the pdf markup feature and the attached notes.

I see the notecards function in Bookends, but can I highlight and/or copy and paste text from a pdf into a notecard? Can I then print out a reference with all the notes attached to it?

If I import my references and direct Bookends to the attachments, will my notes be imported as well?

I won't tell you what Bookends does now, because in a few days we'll be releasing Bookends 12.2, which will have editable PDF annotations and integration with the note stream. It will do what you're asking for (and much more), except for the printing bit. Bookends will print text belonging to references, but not text from annotations in attached PDFs. Having said that, you can easily move a PDf annotation into a true Bookends notecard.

My Sente library is fairly large (about 2000 references and the compressed library is 40GB). How is Bookends at handling a library that size?

That's not a problem. I routinely work with a db of ~5000 refs, and we have users with a log more than that. PDFs are stored on the HD, not as part of the database, so their cumulative size is irrelevant.

Finally, I do most of my work on my iMac, but I also like to be able to work on the go using my macbook. Does Bookends allow this so that if I work on the go, the library will be updated with anything I do?

There is Bookends Sync that will work with references and groups (see User Guide, Help menu). Or you can use DropBox (or equivalent) for the reference database and your PDFs.

The Bookends demo is fully functional except for a 50 reference limit. Import 50 refs from Sente to Bookends and try it yourself (instructions on moving from Sente to Bookends are here:

http://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookends/t ... mport.html

Jon
Sonny Software

P.S. I just mention this so that you (and anyone else reading this) won't be surprised -- there will be a modest price increase for a new Bookends 12.2 license. It will of course be a free upgrade for current Bookends 12.x owners.

[jsturgeon]

Thank you! That is all very informative and very helpful. I've given a little import a test and it was very easy. I have to say that I really like Bookends interface.

I do have a question or two so far. On the entries that I imported with attached notes... Sente seems to have a number of different fields within a single note: Note Title, Pages, Quotation, & Comment. When imported into Bookends the only information I see is the page number and the comments. Oh there is also a date/time stamp as well.

Is there any way to get the other fields imported as well?

The various notes from a reference from Sente all seem to be grouped into a single notecard for that reference in Bookends. I can see how I could cut and paste each bit into separate notecards, but that is a daunting task at best. Is there something I am missing that would easily allow these separate notes to be imported as separate notecards?

[Jon]

On the entries that I imported with attached notes... Sente seems to have a number of different fields within a single note: Note Title, Pages, Quotation, & Comment. When imported into Bookends the only information I see is the page number and the comments. Oh there is also a date/time stamp as well.

Is there any way to get the other fields imported as well?

Please send me the export of a single such reference from Sente as EndNote XML. And tell me what the various note components are (their text). I'll look at the file to see how they're exported. It might be possible to have Bookends consolidate them into the Notes field on import.

The various notes from a reference from Sente all seem to be grouped into a single notecard for that reference in Bookends. I can see how I could cut and paste each bit into separate notecards, but that is a daunting task at best. Is there something I am missing that would easily allow these separate notes to be imported as separate notecards?

Remember that in Bookends, notecards are actually virtual -- that is, the text is all in the Notes field, and notecards are distinguished by being separated with two Returns:

notecard1

notecard2

So if now your notes are separated by a single Return, you can convert them to notecards by doing a Global Change -> Find and Replace in the Notes field, searching for single Returns and replacing them with two Returns.

Note: in Bookends operations such as this, the ¬ character -- Option-L on a US keyboard -- is used to represent a Return.

Jon
Sonny Software

[jsturgeon]

Thank you so much for your help! I just sent an email with attached Sente Reference export to the support email address.

[Sergio]

Are there any news respecting the notes items in Sente? I think that is the only thing that prevents me to return to Bookends.

[Jon]

Are note items exported as part of the EndNote XML export (export one reference with such a note to an EndNote XML file, then open it in TextEdit and see).

Jon
Sonny Software

[Sergio]

Regrettably, the xml export file does not include the notes. What a pitty!

Now I'm experimenting with a fan made plug in to export Sente notes.
The export options are
1) several rtf files (one for every note)... Copying one by one is not an option for me because have more than 5000 records and some of them have 200 notes.
2) an .opml file with a content like this

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<opml version="1.0">
<head><title>Sente Notes Export</title></head>
<body>
<outline text="Mackie 2009">
	<outline text="La interpretación de Schumpeter como un reaccionario  (@128)" _note="Quotation: Schumpeter,a reactionary monarchist,did not welcome socialism, but even less did he welcome popular democracy.2 A few chapters of his book offered a debunking redefinition of democracy, a construction intended to preserve elite domination in the unwelcome social-ist democracies of the future.
Comment: 
{Mackie 2009@128} sente:/ACADEMIA/Mackie+2009" URL="sente:/ACADEMIA/Mackie+2009"/>

	<outline text="In its stead he proposes his modern doctrine ...  (@129)" _note="Quotation: In its stead he proposes his modern doctrine of democracy,that democ-racy is only about the competition of leaders for votes. Democracy is just a method,neither valuable in itself nor tending to right action or good ends.
Comment: 
{Mackie 2009@129} sente:/ACADEMIA/Mackie+2009" URL="sente:/ACADEMIA/Mackie+2009"/>

I suppose that it could be possible to make a script to obtain a clean text to copy and paste inside notes field in bookends... but that's beyond my knowledge... Perhaps Jon or any other Bookends user can help me (and other sent users who are thinking to swing to Bookends).
Thanks in advance

[Jon]

Please contact tech support directly, with an EndNote XML file from *one* reference that contains the notes you want to import.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Sergio]

Hi Jon

Sorry to bother you again.

While I can't import my notes and quotations from Sente, I have the firm intention of working with Bookends, due to several advantages of your software (as, for example, the ability to execute full-text searches).

However, I found a new problem: Bookends seems not able to import data such as the short title, translator or the date of original publication from the Endnote-XML file generated by Sente. I think that this may be easier to solve because the information is in the export file.

Could you help me?

Thanks!

[Jon]

Sure. Please send me such an EN XML file with one reference. I'll take a look and see where Sente is putting that information. And don't forget to tell me the actual contents of those 3 fields (so I can see what label Sente gives them).

Jon
Sonny Software

[Sergio]

Hello John.
Sorry to come back to bother you about this issue again. I have seen that the new version of Bookends includes a filter to import references from Sente. I tried to use it in order free myself from the several disadvantages of sente (like the slowness, the lack of support and the impossibility to make a search inside the PDFS).
However, I see that the new filter have some problems. As far as I could see, most of these problems are related to certain categories like Book Chapter, Edited Book and Book. I give you some examples:
1. in a book or edited book record, the Book tile is imported to Bookends in the Series Title field (Book title remains empty).
2. in the cases of books or edited books records that have information about the Series Editors, the data is not imported by bookends.
3. the field city (place of publication) and original year publication remains always empty, even when there is information to import in the Sente XML file.
4. in the case of book chapters records, the book title is imported in the Series Title field.
I don’t know if it is easy to correct these problems (my knowledge of the XML language is null) but I understand that it would not be impossible to do so. I hope you can do something to correct these issues.

[Jon]

Please send me a single Sente XML export for each problem you see -- just one reference per XML file. And tell me in each case what is imported to the incorrect field. I'll take a look and fix mismatches that I see.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Sergio]

I'm sending the files in a mail. Thanks!!!!

[Jon]

Importing now works with the examples you sent. The modified code will be included in the next update.

Jon
Sonny Software