Tinderbox and DEVONthink Pro

@andreas
It’s just the best for me.
How did you set up the workflow between Daylite and DEVONthink (Tinderbox)?

Exchange calendar and email mostly.

Success; I did what Mark said and it works fine now.
It also works if the Tinderbox file is stored in the iCloud Drive (nicht Store).
And it works with all three kinds of DEVONthink notes.
Thank you very much, Mark

201809042

Any progress on your end, @pat, on having image-links in a markdown-written note in Tinderbox linking to an image stored in Devonthink and being rendered in Preview in Tinderbox?

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2018-09-18_18-47-44

Ah, this is not something I’m pursuing. Frankly I’m not sure how it works in DEVONthink – it was just an idea that I had one day and was pleased to see that it works. But as you’ve observed, x-devonthink-item image links don’t work anywhere else.

I suppose it would be possible to look up the underlying file and replace the link with the file path on export. The problem is, it could get out of sync if DEVONthink moves the file internally, in which case you’d have to run the export again.

That said, the point for me is to have them render in DEVONthink. So I am fine with being a broken image link in Tinderbox, as long as it renders properly in DT.

I don’t think it’s impossible, I just haven’t figured out a way to make it work (and I stopped looking a while ago).

I understand and I think I’ll do the same. Having the image rendered in Devonthink should work and has, of course, the advantage of a never broken link.

This even more so when using “open a new file in a new Tab”.

Thank you @pat

I just caught the discussion on this forum re: the “bi-directional sync” between DEVONthink Pro and Tinderbox…

I realize this discussion mostly involved syncing through connect Tinderbox to a DEVONthink group, though I’m not sure that’s the best approach for my purposes. I’ve got projects stored in various DEVONthink groups, and then select material that I use that’s stored in certain subgroups.

I’m mostly interested in dragging and dropping select test from DEVONthink files (.rtf’s .eml’s .pdf’s) into Tinderbox for discrete notes. I originally planned to just drag selections from these DEVONthink-stored files into Tinderbox, and then selecting “Copy Item Link” (from within DTP) and pasting it in the URL section of the Tinderbox file.

But…I’d love to be able to do this with bi-directional sync. Would it be possible to create a group – within my Project Group – in which I could put replicant DEVONthink files that I’ve earmarked for drag-and-drop text selections, then set up & include the DEVONthinkGroup for that replicant DTP group, and then make drag-and-drop selections of text from within Tinderbox (as discrete notes with their respective URLs)? If not, is there another suggested process that would enable me to do this?

Thanks very much!

There is no bi-directional sync built in to Tinderbox and DEVONthink.

Yep, you can create a group in DEVONthink, sets its UUID as the $DEVONthinkGroup attribute in a Tinderbox note, and replicate documents in DEVONthink to that group. When Tinderbox refreshes the watched group, it will pull those documents in as notes.

Dragging-and-dropping text loses the DEVONthink attributes, so I wouldn’t suggest this if you want to maintain those.

I think your best bet is to duplicate the notes and edit them.

So for example, you have a document in DEVONthink that has three paragraphs. You want to split it up into three notes. In Tinderbox, I would:

  1. Move the note out of the Tinderbox watched group (so it doesn’t get overwritten on the next refresh)
  2. Uncheck $ReadOnly so I can edit it
  3. Duplicate it, and edit the $Text to have only one paragraph. Repeat for the other two paragraphs

Thanks so much for your reply and help w/ this! I greatly appreciate it. Follow up questions in turn…

-So, if there’s no bi-directional sync built in to Tinderbox and DEVONthink, then I’m not clear how the $DEVONthinkGroup was described as a feature that enabled that function. I’ve probably misunderstood… If it’s not the case, then what does that attribute do? Is it basically a way of just importing groups from DEVONthink to Tinderbox?

-I’ve dragged a DEVONthink group over to Tinderbox, and included the $DEVONthinkGroup attribute. I see that Tinderbox created the URL value for the group in the URL attribute, and so I’ve copied that and pasted it in the value section for $DEVONthinkGroup What else do I need to do to make $DEVONthinkGroup function properly?

-You wrote in response to my question about dragging and dropping text…

Can you clarify which DEVONthink attributes I’d be losing? Thanks.

-Thank you so much for outlining your suggested process. I’ve been chewing it over since I saw your post. Here’s the thing… I keep going back to the question at the top: if the $DEVONthinkGroup doesn’t enable bi-directional sync between Tinderbox and DEVONthink, what does this feature accomplish? I’m not trying to be challenging at all! I’m honestly just not quite understanding what it does.

To take a step back, I’ll reiterate my original aim with this process. As I said, I’m mostly interested in dragging and dropping select test from DEVONthink files (.rtf’s .eml’s .pdf’s) into Tinderbox for discrete notes. I originally planned to just drag selections from these DEVONthink-stored files into Tinderbox, and then selecting “Copy Item Link” (from within DTP) and pasting it in the URL section of the Tinderbox file – so that, by clicking on those links, Tinderbox will refer back to the original text.

Obviously, I would greatly prefer if there was some bi-directional sync for Tinderbox and DEVONthink, and thought that the $DEVONthinkGroup was a way of accomplishing that. Since it doesn’t, I’m trying understand how $DEVONthinkGroup helps with DEVONthink - Tinderbox functionality, in general, and with my process in particular.

BTW, it’s fine if $DEVONthinkGroup doesn’t help with the drag-and-drop text selection process! Just trying to find the right solution to my approach.

Thanks again…

I’m not sure that it ever was (though I haven’t combed through the thread or forums for all descriptions of it).

I can see that several people have requested bi-directional sync in this thread. But I have not seen a claim of bi-directional sync anywhere.

It enables watched groups with a DEVONthink group as the source group.

Any documents that are inside the DEVONthink group, will becomes notes in the Tinderbox container.

You should only need to set the $DEVONthinkGroup attribute. Then wait, and Tinderbox will import each document in that DEVONthink group to its own note.

When DT documents become Tinderbox notes, they get the following attributes: $URL, $SourceCreated, $SourceModified, $Tags.

If you select some text in a Tinderbox note and drag it to a new note, or select some text in DEVONthink and drag it it to Tinderbox, the newly-created note doesn’t have those attributes.

$URL is how we maintain a link between Tinderbox notes and DEVONthink records. If you want to easily click through from Tinderbox to DEVONthink, you want an attribute that has an x-devonthink-item:// value. $URL is automatically set to it if you used watched groups, or drag a record from DEVONthink to Tinderbox.

That would work just fine. If you only want to bring a part of a document into Tinderbox, a little bit of manual work is required. You can drag a selection into Tinderbox, and manually update the $URL attribute, as you describe. You can also get the record into Tinderbox by dragging-and-dropping an individual record, or using watched groups, and then edit the $Text so it only includes the text you want.

It’s a way of telling Tinderbox to watch a DEVONthink group, and create a Tinderbox note for any records that appear in that DEVONthink group. That way you don’t have to drag things into Tinderbox one at a time, and can just have Tinderbox create notes for you automatically.

Where did you see that description? Can you cite the URLs, as if true, they need changing. I’ve checked my aTbRef pages on this but they stress that watched folders/groups are not true sync.

It allows the automatic import of data into Tinderbox, or more simply, it allows you to view data in DT without having to leave Tinderbox.

Not at all casting blame – I just misunderstood through glancing at the exchange from this post and the succeeding back and forth: Tinderbox and DEVONthink Pro - #51 by Lupo

Understood. Seems handy, but maybe not a fit for my purpose. Would still love for some bi-directional syncing between DTP & Tinderbox, though I understand the technical challenges that make this rather tough.

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Ok. That’s fine. I’m Ok with losing those attributes. I use my DEVONthink material in a very specific way within Tinderbox.

Just so I’m following properly, when you say records you just mean files, correct?

Yeah, I got that. I’ve made a request to East for a feature that effectively copies the URL for DEVONthink’s “Copy Item Link” when dragging text selections from DEVONthink to Tinderbox .

Right. Thanks for all of that. I guess I’m trying to weigh the advantage of creating this setup, which would involve duplicating (or replicating) files to this DEVONthink group, and then making discrete Tinderbox notes from text selections from there versus just dragging and dropping the select text selections from DEVONthink to Tinderbox (w/o the $DEVONthinkGroup, duplicating files, etc.).

Thank you again…

DEVONthink nomenclature is “records”. So if when you say “files”, you mean “files that appear in DEVONthink” then yes.

Got it. Thanks. Greatly appreciate all of your help…

No need to puzzle it out in advance. Try it. Try it both ways: watch a group in DEVONthink, vs. drag text to Tinderbox. Then choose the method that pleases you. Or find a different way.

In any case, the best way to learn any software is to actually use it. It’s very difficult to break DEVONthink or break Tinderbox.

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Mail.app works with Exchange then you use the Mail plugin from Daylite.

This has been an excellent discussion. I sincerely appreciate all who have contributed. I’ve been reviewing it while also trying to answer a specific question (and not seeing it answer, though I may just be missing it). I have a TB container watching a DTP folder successfully. By default, those notes pull into TBX DTP tags. I would also like those notes to pull in data I’ve entered into DTP’s “Annotations” field. Do I achieve this as simply as creating a user Attribute for the prototype associated with those notes? If so, how can I know it’s going to specifically find DTP’s Attributes field? Or, do I achieve this some other way? Thank you.

I do not believe importing “Annotations” is possible now. But of course you can test it :slight_smile: (I did, and it does not work.)

It’s an excellent suggestion though.

The caveat would be that the “Annotations” field in a DEVONthink document can grow very large – so you would want to extract whatever is imported to a footnote or something, I think.

:grinning: I tried the same thing and got the same result. I tried creating an attribute $DEVONthinkAnnotations (patterned after the built in DEVONattributes), but no luck.