Ability to edit info fields for multiple item selections

DEVONthink Feedback
1

(Please correct me if I’m wrong about this) Currently in DTP, you can edit spotlight comments, tags, URLs etc in multiple selected files at the same time only if they contain the same information. E.g. I select three files with the tag ‘chapter 3’ and I can change their tag to ‘chapter 1’. But if the tag/information fields in any of the files differ, they cannot be altered en masse; the fields are not accessible.

or another example: I frequently need to add the same URL, or clear existing URLs from multiple files (e.g. for bits of text dragged into DT from documents that are were only temporarily in the location put in the URL). It’s annoying and time-consuming having to do this individually.

Please could DEVONtechnologies allow editing information for multiple files? I know some applescripts have been provided for adding/removing tags, but this seems like more basic functionality - itunes allows multiple info editing in fairly clear fashion, for example.

Failing that, if someone could think of an applescript to add/remove URLs from a selection of files in DT that would be an enormous help…

2

That’s indeed scriptable, here’s an example to remove the URLs from the selected items:


tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	set theSelection to the selection
	repeat with theRecord in theSelection
		set URL of theRecord to ""
	end repeat
end tell

You could assign a shortcut or add it to the toolbar (since v2.3.3) to easily access it. Finally, I’m curious - why are you adding the same URL to multiple items?

3

Fantastic, thank you!

I have hundreds of RTF notes on references in Bookends, sometimes with many notes pertaining to single sources. So I’d like to add URLs linking them to the Bookends references or the original PDF sources themselves. I haven’t had time to sort out my workflow but this seemed like a useful interim thing to do for the sake of interoperability and convenience. open to alternate suggestions, obviously!

4

Also, could I ask whether there’s a page on the DEVONtechnologies where helpful little scripts such as this could be uploaded for the benefit of newcomers/novices like myself?

If not, could I suggest it to the devs? It’d reduce duplicate posting on the Scripting subforum as well…

5

Thanks for the suggestion, we’ll discuss this.

6

This was from a long time ago, but I am currently in pretty much the same situation - wanting to make URL links on individual PDF notes back to the Bookend library. Is there a way to input the same URLs to multiple text files in one step?
EDIT: Oops. That’s what one gets for not searching properly…this did it for me: Adding the same URL to the URL field of all items in a group

1 Like
7

Good thing the forum has good searching and years worth of info still, huh? :wink: