In my research I take screen grabs on my Mac which become png image files. Once these image files are placed in my DT database, is there a way to tag each image with keywords to facilitate future searches?
I have tried using Mac’s OS “Get Info” by entering keywords for a file in the file’s “Spotlight Comments” box before entering the file into DT (drag & drop). However, my DT searches don’t see these “comments”, but a search with Spotlight does. The only way I can find the image file in DT searches is to use a search word that appears in the file name. Thanks for any advice on this.
You should have scripts icon in the top DT menu bar. In there is a script under Tags_Comments that will allow you to add tags to multiple items or add comments. Will one of these do what you want? My quick test showed that running the tag script after importing pngs from screen captures did assign tags to the files.
Under the scripts drop-down menu, there is no “Tags_Comments” listed. I am using DT Pro version 1.5.4.
I did find a “Copy Info to Comment” under the “Images” item in the scripts menu selection. Could this be helpful? There is also a “Comments” item in the menu that has “Assemble” and “Speak” as sub-selections.
How do you find out what all these scripts will do? I don’t recall seeing them in the User Guide. Thanks.
Tagging is a feature of the DEVONthink 2.0 applications, but isn’t available in the 1.x applications.
After capturing a document into your database, you can add keywords or notes into the Comment field of the Info panel. If you use File > Export > Files & Folders to export a document that holds information in Comment, the resulting file in the Finder will hold that information in Spotlight Comments. However, Comment information will not be transferred to Spotlight Comments if you export by drag & drop.
If you Import (File > Import > Files & Folders) files from the Finder, any content in Spotlight Comments will be copied into a document’s Comment field in the Info panel.
Open a Search window (Tools > Search). Notice that you can search the content of the Comment field. Try it.
Try experimenting with those scripts on an experimental document. Select an image document and invoke Scripts > Images > “Copy Info to Comment”. Now open that image document’s Info panel and inspect the content of the Comment field. What happens if you now select that same image document and invoke Scripts > Comment > Speak?
You will find other scripts that affect the Comment field in the DEVONacademy pages. See “Scripts dealing with Comments” at devon-technologies.com/suppo … ripts.html
In addition, there have been hundreds of new or modified scripts posted in the Scripting section of the user forum.
You will rarely find detailed documentation of scripts. Often, there’s none except the title.
Some scripts may delete or substitute existing content in the Content field. Other scripts, for different purposes, could have database-wide effects. It would be prudent during experimentation to first run Tools > Verify & Repair, followed by Tools > Backup & Optimize. If your experiment has results that you don’t like, simply press Tools > Restore Backup and choose the most recent internal Backup folder. That will restore the database to its previous state.
Thanks Bill, but still no luck. The image files that I want to attach searchable keywords to are initially on my Desktop.
After entering keywords into the image file’s “Spotlight Comments:” box that is brought up when I right click on the file and choose “Info Panel”, I imported the file into DT Pro v. 1.5.4 via File > Import > Files & Folders, as you suggested. However, after attempting a search using these keywords (Tools > Search), DT Pro failed to find the image file.
I am taking screen grabs of pages displayed by an online publication service to which I subscribe. When I do a screen grab on my Mac (Shift > Command > 4), the image pops up on my Desktop as a PNG file. So, I do not initially capture this image file with DT Pro into my database. Is there a way to do this – initiate and select screen grabs from within DT Pro, and then have keywords attached to the file searchable? Thanks again.
I don’t know why you can’t carry over Spotlight Comments on Import (File > Import > Files & Folders) into DT Pro 1.5.4. That worked for me.
But why not enter your keywords into the Comment section of the image’s Info panel after capture into a database? That will result in searchable content.
Suggestion: Try capturing rich text of a selected area of a Web page, instead of a screen capture. If text is included, it will be searchable in your database. If you are using Safari, the Service command for a rich text capture directly to your open database can be invoked by the keyboard shortcut Command-) — that’s Shift-Command-0.
Thanks Bill, that did the trick. After importing an image file into DT Pro, I selected the file in DT, went to Tools > Show Info, and entered several keywords into the comment box. A search by DT Pro was able to find the image with these keywords. For other folks who may read this thread, this “Info Panel” is not the same one as you access in the Mac OS’s “Get Info.” Entering keywords into that comment box is only useful for a Spotlight search, not a DT Pro search.
The Info panel Comment field of an Import-captured (File > Import > Files & Folders) will display Spotlight Comments data.
Likewise, if data has been entered into the Comment field of a document’s Info panel, when that document is exported via File > Export > Files & Folders, the Comment field data will be found in Spotlight Comments. (This doesn’t work for export by dragging.)
Note: It is a common practice to use Spotlight Comments to hold keywords, and some tagging systems use Spotlight Comments to hold the tag data. Please note that Spotlight Comments is not a “rock solid” means of associating such metadata to a file. There are Mac applications that will delete the information in Spotlight Comments.
I could not get this function to work on my Mac running OS 10.5.8. When I checked into my DT Pro “Preferences” to see if I could find a problem there, I noticed that under the “Import” tab next to “General:” the box was NOT checked for “Import Finder Comments.”
I checked this box and restarted DT Pro to make sure the new pref was active. After importing an image file that had keywords entered into Spotlight Comments, I checked “File Info” in DT and the keywords were indeed present in the comment box. Also, DT was able to find this file using these keywords.
Problem solved via a mere checkbox in DT Preferences!
