Sonny Software

Can anyone explain whether there is a predictable delay from the time a PDF is added to the watch folder to the time it is copied into Bookends? Stated otherwise, is there a trigger other than the placement of the file itself in the watch folder? How might I troubleshoot an unpredictable watch folder?

Many Thanks

doclrb

How long are the unpredictable delays for (estimate)? How big are the PDFs? And what is the source -- drag and drop vs downloaded with a browser, for example?

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon,

Thanks for responding. The delays range from several hours to a day to not at all. The files are downloaded from library-based web sources. Most journal articles are page limited (15-20 pps) so the files are not massive.

When I drag and drop the app responds instantly. That’s fantastic.

TY

doclrb

There is no built-in delay in Bookends that would account for this. If the file download has completed Bookends should import it within a second (the UI may take a bit longer to update, but not much). Note that Bookends responds to events generated by macOS indicating that there's a new file, but it doesn't indicate if the file download is complete. If there's some OS or network issue that interferes with these notifications then Bookends may not be receiving these events. If you can get this to happen reproducibly with the same download, please send me the URL (if it isn't behind a paywall) and I'll try to reproduce this.

Jon
Sonny Software

I'm having a similar problem. WIth one article it loads up almost immediately, but now the other ones I try don't seem to be working at all. I even tried the drag and drop method but that didn't seem to work, either. Am I doing something wrong? The files seem to disappear when they go to the watch folder, but I don't know where they are going.

Thanks in advance,
Hilary

They go to your attachments folder (set in Preferences). Are you sure there's no new reference created when it's dropped into the watch folder? You have to click on All again to refresh the display (which is the intended behavior to prevent the UI from updating unexpectedly while you work).

Jon
Sonny Software

Hmm, I found it in the files but all the information (title, abstract, author) was completely different!

If the DOI can't be read properly in the PDF the wrong metadata may be imported. This can happen, for example, if the publisher formats the DOI to fit a column by inserting spaces or returns. These are "end-of-DOI" characters, meaning Bookends detects a truncated (incorrect) DOI that sometimes points to a different reference. You should do an Autocomplete Paper now on that reference and have Bookends download the correct metadata.

Jon
Sonny Software