I just discovered that applications can provide their own urls to enable other applications to link to them. For example with addressbook:// you can link to Apple's address book entries or with bookpedia:// to entries of that database.
While it would be very very nice to link to Bookends entries wouldn't it be easy to implement this, than we could use Bookends-links from within DevonThink or VoodooPad or whatever? I think the syntax "bookends://Author_Year" would be nice. Also drag and drop would be nice but is not necessary imho.
I don't understand anything about coding but this kind of application-specific urls seems to be kind of standard thing in Mac OS X so I hope this is easy to implement.
URL bookends://
Sorry, I don't know further details also except that you can see the applications on your machine which provide this kind of URLs in the URL-tab of the system preference pane RCDefaultApp which you can load for free here: http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/
I don't know but can imagine that the developers of VoodooPad (which would be a great application to interoperate with Bookends and also uses this service) or of Bookpedia etc. could give you further hints.
I don't know but can imagine that the developers of VoodooPad (which would be a great application to interoperate with Bookends and also uses this service) or of Bookpedia etc. could give you further hints.
I can't tell much about that. I think you have to define that in the application code. some kinds of numeration is needed, so that it would be e. g. bookends://345 I also can imagine that it is possible to define bookends://author_date or whatever you want.
Here's a link wich I produced with drag and drop from Bookpedia to Journler (which by the way would be another nice application to use with Bookends) and then choos to edit the link in order to see its source code
bookpedia://bruji.com/Asin=3499229196 If an Bookpedia-Entry does not contain an ASIN, links are created this way: bookpedia://bruji.com/Title=Utopia
By the way: if I insert this source code as link to VoodooPad, the link is working as expected. Drag and drop directly from Bookpedia to VoodooPad does not work. Same with Nisus Writer Express.
DEVONthink Pro: Drag and drop to RTF-files works just fine. Also drag and drop to file lists work. this results in a html-file containing the link. Also copy-paste as URL works. So the integration of Bookends and DT what many users would like to see could work also like this I can imagine.
In Pages and Keynote I can't get it to work, both seem to be unable to handle links in general, they handle them as web-links.
Drag and drop to LetterStar, Apple's TextEdit and Note-Files in Process-Entries (Jumsoft) just work as expected.
How the links work in voodoopad? I don't know. There I also just managed to link to the application. But I try to get more information.
Here's a link wich I produced with drag and drop from Bookpedia to Journler (which by the way would be another nice application to use with Bookends) and then choos to edit the link in order to see its source code
bookpedia://bruji.com/Asin=3499229196 If an Bookpedia-Entry does not contain an ASIN, links are created this way: bookpedia://bruji.com/Title=Utopia
By the way: if I insert this source code as link to VoodooPad, the link is working as expected. Drag and drop directly from Bookpedia to VoodooPad does not work. Same with Nisus Writer Express.
DEVONthink Pro: Drag and drop to RTF-files works just fine. Also drag and drop to file lists work. this results in a html-file containing the link. Also copy-paste as URL works. So the integration of Bookends and DT what many users would like to see could work also like this I can imagine.
In Pages and Keynote I can't get it to work, both seem to be unable to handle links in general, they handle them as web-links.
Drag and drop to LetterStar, Apple's TextEdit and Note-Files in Process-Entries (Jumsoft) just work as expected.
How the links work in voodoopad? I don't know. There I also just managed to link to the application. But I try to get more information.
This type of linkback would be very cool, and i am no coder either, but I have a feeling Bookends wouldn't be able to do it. You can get the URL for items like iCal items or Addressbook or Mail items, but all of these are individual files if I am not mistaken. Bookends is one integrated database (which is one of the reasons that outside spotlight currently can't search BE databases, right?).
This is why I suggested the option of being able to copy citation/formatted (unlinked) and being able to paste it elsewhere. I also suggested yesterday, I think in the writer's suite thread, that Bookends maybe could create a Services menu with a shorcut key to search for the highlighted text in the front BE database. This would essentially be the kind of linkback necessary. One could highlight the temporary citation, search it via the services menu, and there it is. But it can also be used more widely just to search for words or authors, etc.
This is why I suggested the option of being able to copy citation/formatted (unlinked) and being able to paste it elsewhere. I also suggested yesterday, I think in the writer's suite thread, that Bookends maybe could create a Services menu with a shorcut key to search for the highlighted text in the front BE database. This would essentially be the kind of linkback necessary. One could highlight the temporary citation, search it via the services menu, and there it is. But it can also be used more widely just to search for words or authors, etc.
~I swore to myself that if I ever got to walk around the room as manager people would laugh as they saw me coming and applaud as I walked away~
hm, I just looked to the Bookpedia-Database. When I see this correct, the Database itself is also one xml-file, cover-pictures are saved as individual files in an extra folder, but the database is one big file.danzac wrote:This type of linkback would be very cool, and i am no coder either, but I have a feeling Bookends wouldn't be able to do it. You can get the URL for items like iCal items or Addressbook or Mail items, but all of these are individual files if I am not mistaken. Bookends is one integrated database (which is one of the reasons that outside spotlight currently can't search BE databases, right?).
I think Bookends must act somehow as a server if it wants to provide these links. And exactly that must be kind of standard because so many application do this. But sure I havn't any idea if this is complicated to code or not. But I still hope.
maybe this helps: http://flyingmeat.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=1035
