Do you use a tool for keeping track of web pages, pdfs, and such that you want to read later?
If you do, I’d like to hear about what you do, how often you use it, whether it’s works well or not. Especially if there are great tools not on this list!
I use DEVONthink, which creates .webloc files in the target DEVONthink database, when I am collecting research information to review and annotate later in the context of a research project I am working on. With the DEVONthink extension I also capture pages as PDFs (decluttered when possible), and occasionally in webarchive format.
I use Readwise Reader for other general interest articles I want to read and annotate later.
I never use Tinderbox for this, mainly because Tinderbox is lacking share extensions for Safari and other apps. (Yes, there are reader-contributed services and scripts, but services and scripts are not as convenient and useful as share extensions.)
I use DEVONthink, Zotero, Tinderbox (of course)…
One I’ve been trying to get to work, for ages, with Tinderbox is Diigo for ages. I’ve nearly got the Diigo RSS reading successfully fetching into TBX. I then plan on using the json parser to render the fetched notes. But, on Diigjo’s side, only items designated as “public” can be fetched by RSS, which is disappointing.
I would LOVE to find a browser extension that lets me highlight what I’m reading on the web and notes I take on the web and then pull those highlights into Tindrebox. I’ve just not found anything or a process that will sufficiently work yet.
I use DEVONthink everytime I need to archive some pictures I found on the web, especially in the field of plastic arts because I like to have an overview of artworks. I use Bookends to store the PDF I download and annotate for my researches. I use TheBrain to connect weblinks to general notions I try to link. For instance, a link to a Bill Bly reading video of We Descend connected to the Hypertext notion. With Tinderbox, I sometimes use the URL attribute in a note to archive a weblink too, but it is not a rule: to be honest, I don’t automatically think to read the Attribute Browser to see my URL as I do with $Tags attribute.
I use Readwise (and their Reader app), DEVONthink, Raindrop.io, Drafts app, Zotero/Bookends.
I clip URLs to DEVONthink Pro a lot—especially in contexts like Zoom calls—where there’s no time to look at the resource at that time.
Regular Web haunts live in my browser, as that puts them closest to hand.
For research, I often put multiple URL-type references in Displayed Attributes. Here’s a real-world example from my research on Wikipedia bots:
So, the above TBX has >8k URLs bookmarked in this fashion. In research doc, since smart URL arrived, I’ll also sometimes just put a bunch of related links in a note’s $Text—normally these are for might-need contextual sources for the work at hand, so not worth the effort of saving in a discrete note or making a DEVONthink record.
Where I store things tends to relate to the reason for bookmarking & regularity of likely use.
A sort of link store is my RSS reader, NetNewsWire (I wish more folks used RSS but I I guess that cuts ad revenue)
In summary:
The one left off the list that I use … ALL the time is HookMark. I use it to create a mesh between my bookmarks, files and apps I commonly use: Safari bookmarks, Devonthink files, pdf annotations and of course Tinderbox. If I want a local reference, I use DevonThink and Tinderbox to add my meta.
For reading I use Kindle + HookMark to create a deep link to my exact reference in kindle. I use highlighting and annotated notes quite a bit in Kindle which are exported via Readwise.
I use Zotero as my reference manager which is also supported in HookMark.
Lastly, I use Skim as a my pdf reader which is deeply integrated with HookMark.
Tom
Nice ! I did not think — and never tried — that it was possible to create Tinderbox URL-type attributes.
@dominiquerenauld see more on URL data type here. In addition to linking to URLs out on the web, a URL-type attribute can also be used for local (i.e. within your Mac) pseudo-protocol links, e.g. bookends://, such as offered by Bookends, DEVONthink, Hookmark and other apps.
Whether calling other apps locally or the Web, I find URL-type attributes really useful for rapid access to information I don’t want to keep inside the TBX document yet to which I still want fast access.
I use goodlinks for archiving web content that I pretend I will get round to reading later. It’s an excellent iOS and Mac tool which has automation support and iCloud syncing, with no external dependencies. For things I know I will need later, I’ll catch them in either DEVONthink (as Markdown, to make indexing lighter, or webarchive, in case of hellishly architected sites) or Bookends, if I’ll need to cite them. I index my bookends repository in DEVONthink, where I turn to to find things I’ve archived.
I used to use instapaper and Pocket, but their businesses would keep pivoting in a contra-helpful manner.
If I’m just archiving URLs, I’ll throw them to pinboard, which has some great iOS and macOS clients, and makes them easy to retrieve on alien computers I’m not logged into. There’s a lot of triage taking place when I decide to keep something.
DevonThink for anything I’m reading in a web browser.
I send Mastodon links to Drafts, just as a reminder to revisit.
I did a trial of Readwise but didn’t see any great value over what I can already do with DevonThink or Kindle. The Readwise integration with Obsidian is nice, but it’s not significantly easier to build “atomic notes” from Readwise than it is from Kindle.
I don’t have any discipline around RSS feeds…I’ve got some in DevonThink, some in Feedland, some on FlipBoard. I should just pick one and live with it.
I used Pinboard for a long time … Then realised I never went back to read anything I had collected.
Some time ago I adopted the practice of printing to pdf any web page that seemed to contain valuable information and storing the pdfs in DEVONthink. The URL is preserved in the pdf, and if the page disappears at some point, one still has the information it contained. DEVONthink’s search function is superior to most, and is capable of turning up material I had forgotten about together with related material that I do remember. I find this useful.
I also tried Readwise and didn’t find it useful for my purposes. I’d sooner have my research material in DEVONthink.
Kind of a different set of tools than what this thread is supposed to be about, I guess, but: You might want to look at hypothes.is, Glasp and what people from logseq/Obsidian etc. are doing with those?
For Logseq I know there is a plugin that pulls in all your hypothes.is highlights. Looking at how that works should be a decent starting point for getting it to work with TBX?
I use Numbers. Love it because I can make it look how I like, expand the scope, comments, etc, group, relocate; visually format, add images even. I don’t get a visual preview but I don’t consider it important once my urls are clustered.
Have played with dedicated bookmark managers, but none fulfilled.
Other URLs awaiting ingestion lie around in Drafts or Obsidian until then.
SWEET! 
Thanks.
Notes, the software provided by apple. (Mac only).
For reading web pages later, I use Pocket because of the cross-platform access and the share extension. The internal tagging is useful too.
For storing PDFs for the long-term I use Devonthink, mostly because in the research phase the See Also functionality works very well on a database of c. 10k PDFs. Also, I can use the same PDFs for indexing in Bookends which I use for bibliography and footnote formatting.
For storing web pages for the long-term I use EagleFiler. It is rock solid software with great capture options and excellent fidelity to the original. If my interest in a web page is extractive then I usually capture to Devonthink with one of their Markdown conversion. (This last I want to move to Drafts.)
If I am deciding a very specific task, like buying a new TV, I have used Tinderbox because I like that I can clip and drag and create in a fast and fluid manner, then sort and reconcile, as I move to a decision.
Yes – and it’s a lot better, than I would have thought.
Highlighting text in Safari, right-click and selecting Add to Quick Note actually creates a somewhat bidirectional link.
Not only does the text get highlighted in Safari – when you visit the page again, the Quick Note will be automatically pulled up and show in the lower right corner of the screen.
Iirc this functionality of “apps seeing what page is open and offering stuff that is related” is not proprietary to Apple Notes, but can also be used by other applications. I think it’s great – just never saw any app actually using it.
Is there now a way within Tinderbox to create a collection of weblinks? I want to be able to associate weblinks with some kind of linking instead of just making a static list.
I don’t understand what you’re asking. Could you expand at slightly greater length?
