Citation / notes management

[nomad111]

Hi! What about introducing a notecard manament feature? It's already possible to tag notecards, so why not take it a step further?

What I'm missing is the possibility to find all quotes or notes with a specific tag. Right now, only the papers with notecards that have this tag are displayed when searching for them, not the specific notecards. It's not possible to create smart groups based on notecards either.

I'm really in need of this feature. So far as I can see, Zotero is the only mac app with this kimd of knowledge management feature, but Zotero is poor compared to all the major apps like Bookends, Sente or Papers. Citavi for Windows does it well, and Wikindx4 which is a web app. But there is no good mac app so far.

What do you think? Something to consider for a future release?

[Jon]

What I'm missing is the possibility to find all quotes or notes with a specific tag. Right now, only the papers with notecards that have this tag are displayed when searching for them, not the specific notecards. It's not possible to create smart groups based on notecards either.

I'm not sure how you're searching -- if you use the Live Search box for notecards, Bookends will show the reference and the notecards for each reference.

As far as smart groups, remember that notecards display the contents of the notes field in a structured way. For a smart group, you'd limit your searches to the notes fields (that would be the same as limiting it to notecards).

Jon
Sonny Software

[nomad111]

(I am again checking out Bookends and consider upgrading after Papers3 is a disaster)

Yes, using the search field gives me exactly what I want. It lists the papers and the notecards with the relevant tag. But I cannot save the search. A saved search returns the paper(s) with all the notecards of the paper, which means I have to dig through lots of notecards before I can find the ones that I was looking for. Any chance you can get this working again for the saved searches? Would be very helpful!

[Jon]

Hm, can you give me an enumerated list of the steps you are taking, and point out where you feel some additional feature is necessary (I'm still not grasping it)? You can save a smart search now that gets the refs you want, then in the Live Search box drill down into the notecards of those references (selecting the Notecard search option from the magnifying glass popup menu).

Jon
Sonny Software

[nomad111]

Hm okay, the thing is I'm more interested in the notecard than in the references.

Let's say I'd like to get all notecards with the tag "definition"

Case 1: Searchfiled: Search %definition, select notecards- Result: two references and the two notecards with the tag definition = Perfect!
Case 2: Saved search. Search text whole words %definition" in notes. Result: two references with all notecards that belong to the two references = Cumbersome

I wish Saved search would give the same result as the search field (Case1)

[Jon]

Right. I'm suggesting that you do this reverse order. Saved search gives you all the possible references you want (in case the tags are found in other, unwanted, references), then use the Live Search field to get at the notecards you want.

I gather you want the saved search to allow contain a notecard search (or perhaps just a notecard search). That's not possible now, but I'll keep the request in mind.

Jon
Sonny Software

[nomad111]

I gather you want the saved search to allow contain a notecard search (or perhaps just a notecard search). That's not possible now, but I'll keep the request in mind.

Exactly. Great. It would make Bookends stand out even more. For "Bookends is the only reference manager I know of with the capacity to tag individual notecards." http://macademise.wordpress.com/2014/01 ... -bookends/

[nomad111]

Hi again! Is this feature still under consideration? This would make Bookends so much more powerful. It would allow us to collect selcted notes across many different papers. Thanks!

[Jon]

No, that hasn't percolated up to the top of the list of things I want to implement (there are a lot). I'm not at all sure how the UI would work grafted on top of the smart groups feature. Did you try my suggestion -- a smart group that searches note, then narrow that down to the notecard of interest with the live search box (set to search notecards)?

Jon
Sonny Software

[nomad111]

Hi and thanks for the reply. Yes, I tried your suggestion. What I suggested was nothing on top of the smart search feature, but including searching the notecards, especially the notecards tags in the smart search, so that I can have a smart groups with the tag "inspiring_ideas" that searches the notecards for the tag inspiring_ideas, for example.

[Jon]

You can do that now (notecards are just text in the Notes field). What you can't do, though, is have Bookends only show the notecards (in the note stream on the right) that match. It shows all the notecards. So indeed the smart search UI would have to change a lot (and I don't know how that would be done). So you search for author "Nomad" and notecard text "atom". What should Bookends show? The references that match (as it does now)? Or should it show the references and make the right pane be the note stream (opening it if necessary) and restricting the notecards it shows to the once that matched "atom"? If so, how does it know to do this and not the first?

The ability to search notecards makes sense in the live search field where the UI fits. It does not fit in with the smart group UI.

I gave you a straightforward solution to your problem that Bookends can do now. You still didn't tell me why it isn't satisfactory.

Jon
Sonny Software