Drag and drop from Bookends

I’ve just dragged and dropped a couple of references from Bookends into Tinderbox and got an odd result that I have not seen before. The name of each note was raw data in this format:

@Article{colzato2008,author = {Colzato, Lorenza S. and van den Wildenberg, Wery P. M. and Hommel, Bernhard}, title = {Losing the Big Picture: How Religion May Control Visual Attention}, journal = {PLoS One}, volume =

Not sure what is going on! The rest of the note seems normal, in that it has all the usual data assigned to the usual attributes. I guess I could created a stamp to rename the note with author name, date and title, but it is an extra step.

Has this feature changed in recent updates, or am I doing something odd?

Are you remembering to press the cmd and option keys before and during the drag?

Check which export format you’ve got selected:

gives me BibTeX text but if I change the pop-up:

The selected export format can be changed elsewhere in Bookends, but the above makes a better visual example. Not 100% sure this is your issue but the above certainly caused me to get unexpected results in the past.

On the Cmd+Opt part, an odd aspect is you must press Cmd+Opt before starting the drag. Oddly that timing does make a difference. Slightly different to Finder were you can press/release Opt or cmd during a drag to chage from drag to explicit copy (Opt) or explict move (Cmd).

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@eastgate @mwra As I hope you can see from the screenshot, it is only the $Name that is affected. I have tried using a couple of Bookends formats, and a couple of different Tinderbox files. It’s possible that I have some sort of utility that is interfering, but I can’t imagine what. It has never happened before.

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Is it all references or just this one. If the latter I’d look for some odd non-printing character or the like that’s crept into the Bookends record’s fields’ data. Easily done is to keep testing the same records (for consistency) but it’s worth ensuring you test others in case (not certain!) that the gremlin is not in the records.

The closest I can get to the sort of effect you show is by failing to press both modifier keys before clicking in Bookends to start the drag but I think you’ve ruled that out already.

The code example you showed at start is BibTeX, in case the format is unfamiliar to you. It’s the bibliography format used with LaTeX but leveraged elsewhere too. What is odd is that IIRC Tinderbox works of RIS format data in Bookends generated dragged data. The Tinderbox’s notes $Text gets the reference in the current Bookends bibliography format set (i.e see my screen grabs above).

What’s odd here is the TB ‘Reference’ prototype is being applied (we know that from $Color) but the $Name string is wrong. The drag-created note’s $ReferenceRIS should show you the data Tinderbox received and from which it made the new note.

@eastgate @mwra Tracked it down. It is caused by a preference in Bookends. And not one I would have expected to have interfered here. See screenshot. I would never have discovered this if @mwra had not mentioned BibTeX. I happened to have that selected for Hypertext reference links (no idea why!). Changing it to something more sensible gave me a sensible $Name in Tinderbox. One to remember for the future …

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[checks Bookends prefs] Oh. It looks like the default is title and the other choices in the pop-up are however many formats you have ticked (as available for use) in the Bookends Formats Manager. so , I see:

The Bookends manual (page #269):

Hypertext reference links

You can define the visible portion of a hypertext link that you create in Bookends (via drag and drop or copying to the clipboard). The default is the title of the reference, but you can use any active format. If you use a format, it is likely you will want to create your own for this purpose (and name it accordingly, such as Hyperlink Format).

• This setting applies to linked references. If you link to a group, the group’s name will always be used.

So my hunch is the assumption is you use the default ‘Title’ option unless you’ve added a format to formats manager and made the format active, in which case it becomes one of the items in the pop-up list. IOW, more obvious after the fact!

Another useful Bookends nugget gleaned. :slight_smile:

I’ve set up a Tinderbox import format, which will give me a $Name as I want it. Now, all I have to do is remember that I set it up …

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