Mobile Workflow- taking notes

Yes … unfortunately

But it would be really cool, if there could be scripting possibilies between drafts and TBX
Although you also can create txt files with drafts and watch the folder…

Thank @PaulWalters.

Of course, you‘re perfectly right as far as your Fellow-Tinderbox-user-encouragement goes to find out how easy it is to experiement with Software and find things out.

Well, I actually did just that before posting my question – since opml-Export is nice … but – as my question should have suggested (but obviously did not :crazy_face:) – not really an option here, as I was particularly interested in exporting columns among which your Text-Column is just one of them.

Now, one needs to use csv in order to export all the columns (if I am not mistaken) … and, this bringt me exactly to where I started with my initial question @PaulWalters: What script is needed to have the Notes-Section in OmniOutliner ported to, say, Paul‘s Text-Column in order to export everything as CSV ready to be imported into Tinderbox.

Does that make sense?

Cheers!

As I said here, and here, export from OmniOutliner as OPML and drag the OPML into Tinderbox. Both OO5 an Tinderbox know what to do with your notes.

This works perfectly for me, but we haven’t seen your data so there’s no way to respond to specific cases.

If you want to try writing a script to convert the OO5 display into columns, so as to do CSV export, the script would have to be written to manipulate OO5, not to manipulate Tinderbox. There is an extensive scripting dictionary for OO5, which is a good thing for working out that sort of solution.

I just experimented a bit with this. You even don’t have to call the first column “Name” in OO. Obviously the outline text is correctly recognized as the “Name” and the note as “Text”.

Things could get messy, if you start naming columns (other than the 1. one) “Name” and “Text”, because TB takes those as “Name” and “Text” and most of all, if you have a column named “Text”, there seems to be no chance to get the information of the note in OO at all. Not even as a different KA.

So at the end it’s really as simple as @PaulWalters figures out: 1. column is the “Name”, Note is the “Text”, every following column is a KA.

I’ve always found that things work best if the fist OO5 column is “Name”. The default in OO5 is “Topic”. Over the years various incarnations of Tinderbox have always done “Name” to $Name mapping right – not so “Topic” to $Name.

So, belts and suspenders. Use “Name” for column 1.

Also, if you want to map other columns to system or user attributes in your Tinderbox file, then make sure you spell the column name just as it is in your Tinderbox document. Else, unpleasant hash results.

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That all helped very much @PaulWalters and now it works for me as well.

I have an action in Drafts which sends notes destined for Tinderbox to a specific Dropbox folder. Tinderbox then watches that.

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Good approach @DrDog – and if Actions come to macOS perhaps this will also be possible outside iOS at some point.

I’ve thought about workflow a lot recently, and realized that I have to have someting compatiable with IOS as a starting point. It doesn’t have to be great but simply easily capture notes throughout the day. For that I use Apple Notes, on a webpage on my work PC, my phone, my macbook, or my ipad. And tinderbox does an excellent job of syncing to Apple Notes to use when I’m doing actual reading/ writing work.

I’ve also found that OPML is a great format in which to share files across applications. From tinderbox -> IthoughtsX, Omnioutliner, emacs, etc. Tinderbox is great for me, but to work with others I’ll output OPML into whichever tool is convenient, then output from that tool to MSWord, RTF, PPTX or whatever when someone else needs to use it after we’ve collaborated. Apple Notes becomes my input, Tinderbox my synthesizer, and various tools using OPML as my collaboration language.

You can observe that both my input (Apple Notes text, links, clips etc) and my output (OPML-languaged programs) can operate across devices and systems. I’ve found that to be critical to collaborate.

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