An Academic Writer's Suite- DT, BE, and Mellel

[danzac]

This has been a continual discussion that rears its head on the DT forum, the Mellel forum, and Bookends forum, and this is my latest (and last) attempt to get these three companies to work together.

<b>Mac needs a writer’s suite</b>. We need a powerful integrated package to do our research and writing. Mac needs an equivalent to PC’s Nota Bene. I recently met Mac users at a conference who are going to run Parallels specifically to use Nota Bene, and I don’t blame them. There is nothing of comparison for Mac, and I hate being jealous of a PC user. I was drooling at the Nota Bene presentation.

If I had the money, I would pay each of these programmer’s to do this- honestly! But I don’t, and I can only hope that instead the programmer’s will see the potential for making money by working together to form an integrated writer’s suite.

I believe that these 3 programs are the best in their area. Although there are alot of imitators, no one touches DEVONthink. Mellel has come to be the serious rival to Word, and already surpasses Word in very significant areas. It is a powerful processor for serious academic writers and is only going to get better (unlike Word which has fallen into a hole and doesn’t seem to know it). Bookends is the bibliographic manager to beat. Its formatting capabilities and aesthetic feel far surpass Endnote and Sente. To top it off, all of these companies offer excellent support and have very active forums and are easy on the wallet.

This post is going to be cross-posted in the three forums, along with a poll. What I would like to see is not only a vote, but I want posters to imagine that this integration will become a reality. How would you like to see them integrated? What functionality needs to happen? Hopefully it will jolt the developer’s into action. And this is my last attempt at trying to make this happen. If there is still no movement forward, well the owner of Nota Bene said he’d give me a free copy

Also, even if you do not have any ideas but nonetheless would like to see this integration, please post indicating which of these 3 programs you currently use, and your full name. I’m hoping that enough people will add their name that the companies will <i>want</i> to act on this.

So here are my suggestions for an integrated suite of DEVONthink, Mellel, and Bookends.
1) I do not want DT to be able to edit Mellel or Bookends- they do that perfectly fine on their own. But searching them simultaneously is a huge priority, especially being able to use DT’s AI.
2) The Bookends Database(s) file should be viewable from in DT, and the ability to “copy citationâ€

[nicka]

I don't know how to vote in this poll. I want a well-integrated, stable word-processor and reference manager, where the word-processor supports features necessary for academics like notes, cross-references, auto-titles, tables of contents and indices. Currently the only realistic hope seems to be Mellel and Bookends. But I don't really see the purpose of an extra database program like DevonThink. What role do you see DevonThink playing?

To put it another way: what can you do in Nota Bene that you can't do with Mellel plus Bookends (or that you won't be able to do soon once they get some kind of cite-while-you-write or unscan support)?

[danzac]

nickla,
I very much agree with you about the needs you have for Mellel and BE, I'm totally with you. Nota Bene does all of that already.

The addition of a database increases the organization of all of the other stuff you have, quotes, web-clippings, etc., ad infinitum. A database allows you to have it all in a very easy access place with sophisticated searching (far better than spotlight). So a database is about note-taking and organization of those. Imagine being able to search all your Mellel files, all your notes, and all the notes and abstracts of your BE database in one search, not several. You will begin to see connections and relationships that you may not recognize on your own.

I recently met and got to know N. T. Wright (not sure if you have heard of him). He is the bishop of Durham and a prolific author. He is a slave of Nota Bene, and not just because it is a kick-ass word processor and bib. manager. The note taking and searching is critical to his continued study and writing.

I hope this helps.

[nicka]

Thanks for the reply Danzac. I've posted a reply to your reply to my post on the Mellel forum, since there was a part I wanted to quote.

Here I'll just say that I hadn't heard of Wright. I'm afraid that I thought that the Bishop of Durham was still Jenkins, whom I rather liked, probably because he upset some of the right people by making mildly socialist remarks.
More seriously, I can see how a database of notes and other sources which are not published papers is important for anyone trying to bring together a huge and disparate subject area in a personal way. I suspect this applies more to people working in the humanities, like theologians or literary critics, than it does to most scientists.

[danzac]

I suspect this applies more to people working in the humanities, like theologians or literary critics, than it does to most scientists.

Ah yes, I imagine you are right about this.

[macsailor]

I voted "No thanks", but I have changed my mind and now would vote "I very much want an integrated writer's suite consisting of DEVONthink, Mellel, and Bookends".

[Jon]

This poll really doesn't belong on the Bookends forum, because I don't need convincing. I'd be happy to work with the DT developers, but they don't seem to think it's very important. It takes two (um, three in this case?) to tango.

Jon
Sonny Software

[danzac]

This poll really doesn't belong on the Bookends forum, because I don't need convincing. I'd be happy to work with the DT developers, but they don't seem to think it's very important. It takes two (um, three in this case?) to tango.

You have mentioned this before Jon, but DT already reads a wide range of formats and is highly scriptable. It can index external files, which is really what this comes down to I think. It can already index BE attachments. Is the possibility of creating a plugin for DT to index and view BE databases really out of reach?

[Jon]

I really don't know, and I'm not going to spend one second going over their documentation to find out. This would be a ridiculous kludge. It's really up to them.

Jon
Sonny Software

[danzac]

Fair enough!

[chaseychasem]

This would be so lovely. I'd use Nota Bene, but I'm in the middle of transitioning from the PC to the Mac and can't imagine shelling out the cash for what would be a very finite period of use. Add to that the fact that Nota Bene is, aesthetically, an absolute disaster—at least to me, and to such an extent that I find using it to be an unpleasant experience—and DEVONtechnologies' reluctance to be more cooperative is a real shame. Maybe they're planning BE-/Mellel-like applications of their own and don't want to be their own competition in the future.

[danzac]

This would be so lovely. I'd use Nota Bene, but I'm in the middle of transitioning from the PC to the Mac and can't imagine shelling out the cash for what would be a very finite period of use. Add to that the fact that Nota Bene is, aesthetically, an absolute disaster—at least to me, and to such an extent that I find using it to be an unpleasant experience—and DEVONtechnologies' reluctance to be more cooperative is a real shame. Maybe they're planning BE-/Mellel-like applications of their own and don't want to be their own competition in the future.

DEVON has indicated that they are definitely not planning a bib.management application and a word processor is equally as unlikely. There reluctance seems to stem from not wanting to exclude Endnote and Sente users of DT.

But there may be some hope on the horizon. The next phase of DT is supposed to be an open folders system, so theoretically you will be able to keep your BE attachments database in the DT folder structure and not just have them indexed. There is also some indication by DT that the next phase will utilize spotlight importers, and Jon on this forum has seemed to indicate that some sort of spotlight integration in BE may be possible once the next Mac OS/X hits. Recently the Redlers on the Mellel forum also said that they have at least begun to look into this (the exact phrase was "we have some thoughts here") see here.

So don't count this integration possibility out yet. And voice your opinion on the Mellel and DT forum as well.

[bluloo]

I have found a tentative workflow for Academic research using BE, DT and Scrivener (Mellel works as well).

I download pdfs, import them to BE's attachment folder, copy the attachments folder contents to DEVONThink and write in Scrivener.

After importing BE attachments to DT, I apply a color label to the file so I know it was imported. This label process could also be automated with Hazel or Automator.

I'd guess that the entire process could be scripted easily, if you know AS.

For example, run a script that -> copies files from BE attachments to a smart folder -> smart folders contents are imported to DE -> delete contents of smart folder.

I wonder, is there a way to add a spotlight comment to BE attachments that would serve as an alias or symlink to open the reference or file in BE, from DT (or preview etc)?

[danzac]

I hope that this workflow continues to suite your needs, but it would drive me more crazy than anything. Having to continually import the BE attachments folder in order to keep up to date would be a real hassle. Right, indexing the Attachments folder with DT and attaching the synchronize script keeps DT up to date with BE's attachment folder, but they are not editable, nor can you add notes to the folder. DT 2.0 should please us both though, as it is purportedly going to be an open folders structure so your BE attachments folder can be inside the DT folder structure permanently, i.e. no need to import or index.

As to your last line, "I wonder, is there a way to add a spotlight comment to BE attachments that would serve as an alias or symlink to open the reference or file in BE, from DT (or preview etc)?"

I think this would be really awesome. Another idea that I had recently but haven't pitched it in a dedicated forum thread is perhaps Jon providing a services menu item that would take highlighted text and search for it in the foremost BE database (i.e. take the text and place it in the search field of the list view and bring BE to the front). A services menu option is probably a little easier, and makes this kind of searching available across your Mac. And it would essentially do what you are asking in that you would just highlight the title or author of what you are looking at in DT and it would take you to the BE database.

[bluloo]

indexing the Attachments folder with DT and attaching the synchronize script keeps DT up to date with BE's attachment folder, but they are not editable, nor can you add notes to the folder.

I assume you don't need to edit the pdfs. They are not editable when directly imported to DTP either (unless you open them in Preview, make annotations and save them to the original file).

If you index the BE attachments folder, you can add notes to a pdf file in DT via the get info panel in DTP.
Further, you can create a new rtf file, in the same folder with the indexed BE attachments and link that to a target pdf in DTP.

Perhaps the DT people might create a script that would create a linked rtf file containing highlighted text from a target pdf?
That would allow quicker note taking and provide a place for lots of notes directly linked to a target file.

Also, there are folder actions included with DTPro that automatically either import or index a target folder in the Finder. You might easily attach this to your BE attachments folder for automatic syncing.

As noted previously, I was wondering if it would be possible to add metadata to the spotlight comment field of attached pdfs within BE. Perhaps a link that would open the corresponding reference in BE?

Alternatively, perhaps adding the full article reference to the comments field, in the users pre-defined bibliography format, would negate the need to link back to the BE reference or citation?

If it were possible (and not too time consuming) to add information from BE to the comments field, it might satisfy those who desire a link between the two applications (or perhaps other info-management applications to BE as well).

I am not familiar with scripting but I wonder if something like this is possible with an apple or perl script from within BE?

IMO, it should be a job for someone other than Jon. There seem to be quite a few individuals in the DEVON forum adept at scripting.

Just food for thought to work with what we currently have...

cheers