Thanks so much for your reply, @Frederiko. Really appreciate it, as always.
Just to be clear, I keep most of my active research material in one database (per the suggestion of other DTP users in previous discussions - though I’m amenable to change). So, I’m not quite clear how your suggestion of “indexing common themed documents so they can be included in multiple databases” would work – especially as it relates to the organization of tags vis-a-vis your script. Can you explain this a bit further? Thank you.
I’m intrigued by your smart groups suggestion, and would happily explore that further. Quick questions:
-It seems that would involve a process of identifying (or marking) files (or sections of files) in a way that falls outside of your tagging script. Is that accurate?
-How would you set up such a smart group system? That is, how would you suggest identifying (or marking) files (or sections of files) so that they can be grouped in a smart group?
just out of curiosity @frederiko, what is your organizational approach toward tags for using tags for specific projects (e.g., an individual case) and the larger, globally-themed tags (e.g., people & issues for that relate to a larger, unifying case or body of law - that might one day be part of a book)?
i actually thought it might involve something related to your post on “Building Trees for intersecting tags,” although that might just be a different kind of an organizational schema.
also, what is your approach to annotating and tagging PDFs when using a iOS devices?
would show every document or tag group tagged with “Issues” across all your databases. Its not perfect in that tag groups with the same name are not merged together, but they do appear adjacent to each other if the view is sorted by name. Still it allows you to quickly see items that have the same tag or tag group across multiple databases. You could of course choose any tag you like to accomplish the same thing, and tag items that might be of common interest across databases with that tag.
(I use the Document Review Pane Script to tag documents consistently in the same way that annotations are tagged by the Annotation Pane Script so the documents and the annotations draw from the same pool of metadata i.e. the tag hierarchies)
I keep a separate database of common material which I copy to or from individual databases when needed. Actually its not something I need to do a lot because of the specificity of the terms of information that are used means that there is little overlap with the other information in the individual database. So searching for a specific legal term like “Res inter alios acta” would take me to a database where I had researched the topic previously, and that research is then copied over to the new database .
No, that was simply an experiment in exploring tagged information
Why would I tie both my hands behind my back ! I have tried on number of occasions to use an iPad and I can see absolutely no reason why I would use one over a laptop - ever. Your use case of course may differ. As a ‘post production’, presentation or display tool, using something like MarginNote (which has rudimentary tagging) or TrialPad, an iPad ‘might’ be useful, but thats a whole other topic.
thanks for your reply. if i understand you correctly, this sounds a bit like a cradle to grave workflow for how you manage annotated files from your tag system - moving them from an active database to an archival one. is that an accurate summation? i hate to trouble you, but i’d love to better understand how that might work. that is, are you just dragging and dropping annotation files from a tag, and moving into an archival database?
trying not to trouble you too much, but i think we’re getting to the meat of the problem that some of us face with tag / group management for active projects and perennial interests. and i found the breakdown of your annotation process to be extraordinarily helpful, esp. in the .2 version of your tag system (i.e., the one with the diagrams). thanks.
got it. just trying to think of creative solutions to the problem at hand. thanks.
easy to answer this. i wholeheartedly agree w/ your take re: using a laptop v. ipad. but here’s the thing: i read a ton of documents (as do you, imagine) and find that it is much, much easier and faster (for me) to do so and mark them up on an ipad. (i’m told that, as a dyslexic, it’s easier for us to read documents on ipads for some reason.)
so, i use my ipad for the reading and initial annotations (i.e., highlights and notes for documents), and then my laptop for all of the heavy lifting tasks that i need to accomplish.
i was just hoping there might be a way to accomplish some of the tagging w/ your script for ipad annotation so that I wouldn’t have to re-read and re-annotated it on my laptop - just so i could make use of the tags annotation pane & tag system. make sense?
happy to consider another approach, if you or anyone else has got one.
@Frederiko! Thanks you so much! I really appreciate how your help with this!
I LOVE this approach, and I feel I’ve nearly solved the problems I’ve been facing. I tried it out, and I have questions that to determine if this will ultimately work.
Right now, I’ve got a pretty full sidebar with Favorites and Smart Folders, and I’m nearly out of space. I did some poking around and it seems that it’s not possible to nest Smart Folders. Is it possible to put them in collapsible folders – or organize them in some other way? It seems to me I need to first figure out how best to organize Smart Folders in order for this system to work.
An ancillary question… I know this is unlikely, but is there any way one could use your tag-annotation script in one database (let’s call it the “Active Projects” database), and then set up Smart Folders in a separate database (lets cal it the “Dormant Projects” database) that could reference the tags from the “Active Projects” database) in the Smart Folders example you provided.
I tried this myself, and it seems that Smart Folders can only reference data from within their own database – unless they’re Smart Folders that are created in the (global?) sidebar. I’m asking because:
b [/b] I’m trying to figure out another way to organize and group tag-referencing Smart Folders – that is, if there’s not a way to nest/consolidate Smart Folders in the sidebar, and…
b[/b] It also seemed like a way to solve @NZT-48 's question about “cradle to grave workflow” and “how you manage annotated files from your tag system - moving them from an active database to an archival one.”
But maybe there’s another solution out there that others can suggest…
Thanks so much again, @Frederiko! You guys are the best!
Great script, and really useful! I know that when you link back to the origin document, it shows the copied text “highlighted” in grey (great for establishing context…).
My question: Is there’s any way to modify the script so that a link to the annotations is inserted into the original document (in my case, an rtf file), providing not only a link, but also a visual cue that the text is the subject of an annotation?
I’d love to be able to scan a longer source document, see some visual cue that a certain stretch of text has been annotated, then be able to jump to the annotation. Perhaps the annotated text in the source document could be markedup somehow (with highlight or some symbols??).
Not only would this help to tie source docs to their notes, it would also provide a visual cue that the text has already been processed/annotated. In large databased, it’s far too easy to lose track of what you’ve annotated already…
Any info would be much appreciated!
Kevin
Not sure if this is possible, but it would really turn this into a “roundtrip” solution – from source to annotation, and annotation back to source…
The best you can do is to highlight any passages immediately before or after the annotation (Cmd-Shift L) to let you know the passage has been annotated. I would suggest attaching a keystroke to a particular colour, say blue, that you use consistently to indicate that a passage had been annotated.
Unfortunately its beyond my skills to add a link in the highlighted passage of the original pdf which would take you to the annotation. Its possible to make the link manually using the pdf annotation tools in the annotation toolbar, but in practice making the link requires multiple steps and is just too time consuming to be practical.
I have been thinking about this problem too. Here is how I deal with a second review of documents where the annotations were generated with the Annotation Pane script:
I have the group folder open that contains all the documents annotations.
I have that folder sorted by URL, so that the annotations are sorted by page number.
Looking at the URL field I can see the page number and if there are already any annotations for a page, although inevitably I have highlighted the passage in the original passage in the pdf at the same time as making the annotation, so I will already know this. (The nice thing about how DT compresses short column views is that the page number is always visible at the end of the URL no matter how much the field is compressed)
Any image might be useful to show how you can keep the ‘private folder’ (reached by clicking the URL field of the document) with the annotations to the document side by side with the pdf being annotated
This ‘private folder’ makes it easy to see what pages have already been annotated and any additional annotations added with the Annotation Pane show up automatically in the folder, sorted by page. I find this useful for a second or third review of documents when I want to remove superfluous annotations, add further annotations or supplement existing annotations with more detail or links to other documents. It also makes it very easy to select all the annotations to a document and use the Document Review pane script, to review the annotations’ metadata and update the spotlight comment summary.
is it possible to modify the script so that it would highlight the text before it copy it?
I think I can use Keyboard maestro alongside the scrip to get the effect. But, it would be nice if the script itself does the highlighting of the text.
My turn to thank for the Annotation Pane script. It is very useful.
I would have a small request for improvement:
Would it be able to automatically highlight the selected text with the label color chosen, in the annoted pdf or text, so that one can view in the text where there is annotations?
Perhaps I have missed a feature, and this is already available by ticking a box in the panel (or this is a way it could work if implemented).
Hello everybody! I’m very interested to use this script (and the Review Pane also) but it appears the download links to DrobBox are broken, could somebody upload it again? Thx
Dropbox removed all their public folder links. I have updated the Annotation and Review Pane links with new links. I have scripts all over this forum so there are probably some I missed
Does this script work with Devonthink3? If I invoke the script using the current Beta of DT3, the annotation pane file is created, but no highlighted text is used as the source text.
