Do you have an effective way to use an external editor when doing batch changes over results from a search in DEVONthink?
I normally wouldn’t resort to a script like this in the first place, but I had a situation where I needed to replace something in a hundreds of markdown files spread all over a database. I did it by (1) running a search in DEVONthink for the text to be replaced, then (2) selecting all the search results in the DEVONthink window, and (3) applying a modified version of the AppleScript script to the results.
In a situation like that, have you found an effective way to both invoke an external program (say, VS Code) and programmatically instruct it to perform a batch find/replace operation on hundreds of files? I would be interested in learning your approach for that.
Note: The script needs BBEdit Command Line Tools, see BBEdit menu BBEdit > Install Command Line Tools...
-- Open selected records in BBEdit for Multi-File Search
-- Note: You need to install BBEdit Command Line Tools, see BBEdit menu "BBEdit > Install Command Line Tools..."
-- Usage: Select records in DEVONthink. Run script. Use BBEdit menu "Search > Multi-File Search". Select the desired windows under "Search in:" > "Open Editing Windows"
tell application id "DNtp"
try
set theRecords to selected records whose path ≠ ""
if theRecords = {} then error "Please select some records"
set thePaths to {}
repeat with thisRecord in theRecords
set end of thePaths to path of thisRecord
end repeat
set thePaths_string to "'" & my tid(thePaths, "'" & space & "'") & "'"
do shell script "echo \"\" | /usr/local/bin/bbedit --clean && /usr/local/bin/bbedit --front-window " & thePaths_string
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
on tid(theInput, theDelimiter)
set d to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theDelimiter
if class of theInput = text then
set theOutput to text items of theInput
else if class of theInput = list then
set theOutput to theInput as text
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to d
return theOutput
end tid
