Bookends attachments in iCloud

[mclearc]

I haven't heard anything from Bookends support so am following up on this here...

I have my Bookends attachments stored in iCloud to facilitate syncing with Bookends for iOS. All this is fine. But I'm seeing the following strange behavior.

On my mac all PDFs are set by default to open in PDF Expert. But all the PDFs stored in the iCloud folder are opening by default in Bookends (which is highly undesirable). I can only open them in PDF Expert by right clicking, etc. and choosing PDF Expert. I've tried to change this via "Get info" but I can't change the setting (and it doesn't seem to be an issue with permissions). Is this a bug, or is there some weird setting I need to turn off? If anyone knows - thanks!

[Jon]

I don't have any emails from you about this. If you sent it from the forum a few weeks ago it was never actually sent (that's been fixed).

This issue is due to to behind-the-scenes rules applied by Apple -- it assumes anything in the iCloud Bookends folder is "owned" by Bookends, and so sends Bookends the "open document" event. That's why we added a setting for "Default PDF reader" in preferences (General tab). Set it to PDF Expert.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mclearc]

Thanks Jon - I have that setting set in preferences. But it doesn't seem to have any effect on PDFs that I try and open outside Bookends (for example, opening a file via alfred has the PDF automatically open in Bookends rather than in PDF Expert).

[mclearc]

Do you know if iCloud will sync a symlinked directory? That is perhaps one way I could get around this issue.

[Jon]

Can you reproduce this with an AppleScript (instead of Alfred, which I don't have)? If so, you can send that to me and I'll see if there's a workaround.

I doubt iCloud Drive will sync symlinks, but you can try and see.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mclearc]

Well - what I mean regarding opening the PDF files with the preferences setting you suggested set is that the setting doesn't seem to matter. If I'm trying to open the PDF from the finder or from spotlight it opens with Bookends not PDF Expert.

And I'll give the symlink a try.

[mclearc]

So - iCloud will sync symlinks but due to the bizzare naming conventions involved with icloud sync I'm having trouble. The issue seems to be that I can't symlink the directory of pdf files to ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~sonnysoftware~bot/Documents in a way that Bookends will recognize. Any ideas?

[Jon]

If I double click on a PDF in the Finder (in the Bookends iCloud Drive) it opens in Preview (my Finder's default PDF reader). I'm running 10.13.6. I don't know why you're not seeing this, it has nothing to do with Bookends (meaning, it's a Finder function). The setting in Bookends, as you surmised, only affects the way the Bookends opens PDFs.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mclearc]

Sorry - perhaps I'm not being clear. If I open, via finder or spotlight, PDFs that are not part of the Bookends icloud attachments library they open in the expected default program, in my case PDF Expert. However, if I try and open a PDF via finder or Spotlight that *is* in the Bookends icloud sync directory then that automatically opens them with Bookends rather than PDF Expert. This is not a general problem, it is a problem unique to Bookends.

[mclearc]

I've managed to successfully symlink a directory to the ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~sonnysoftware~bot/Documents folder. I'm just testing this now to see if it syncs correctly with iOS. But this at least resolves the issue of opening PDFs from Bookends in the Mac default PDF viewer.

[mclearc]

Ok- unfortunately it looks like symlinks won't work with icloud. So if you discover a way to house files in the icloud documents directory while being able to (default) open them via spotlight/finder in the correct application I'd love to hear it.

[Jon]

As I wrote above, it works for me, so I don't see this problem. Maybe others can chime in.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mclearc]

Thanks Jon. I've uninstalled and reinstalled Bookends several times now. I've also deleted and recreated the Bookends sync folder in icloud. But the problem persists. This is not a problem I see with other folders in icloud (e.g. the PDF Expert folder will open files from the finder in whatever the default pdf viewer is, not just in PDF Expert). This makes me suspect that it is a bug with Bookends (though perhaps a bug with icloud as well). I'm on a late 2016 macbook pro with macos 10.13.6. Otherwise Bookends works as one would expect and syncing with multiple ios devices works too. If you have any other suggestions as to how to troubleshoot this I'd appreciate them.

[Jon]

This problem occurs when you double click on the PDF in the Finder, right? What does Bookends have to do with it?

Jon
Sonny Software

P.S. And I repeat, I don't see that behavior (on two different Macs).

[mclearc]

Well - the reason I think it has something to do with bookends is that it is only happening with files in the bookends iCloud Drive directory. It doesn’t happen with those files when they are elsewhere. It may well be mostly an iCloud problem - iCloud is buggy. But if there is any info I can send you to help troubleshoot it please let me know. I appreciate that you are apparently not seeing this issue on your computer but that doesn’t mean it is a finder issue.