I was revisiting how to use Devonthink to speed up making chronologies and came across @stephenjw 's post in this thread on August 2021.
I am wondering how you got Devonthink to sort in date order with the dates in the traditional format - dd/mm/yyyy - rather than ISO format - yyyy/mm/dd ?
Also, I am wondering what solution(s) people have for creating a timeline from a chronology created in Devonthink?
When clicking on a date heading in a list of documents DT sorts by that date. Regardless of its format.
But I’m not sure where you are seeing that „traditional“ (rather: local, other regions have other traditions) format and where you want to sort the documents.
I had understood - or perhaps misunderstood - from @stephenjw 's post in the linked thread that he creates a series of individual markdown notes with titles such as 10-03-2023 - The victim met the defendant behind the football ground.
The only way I have been able to sort notes like that chronologically is to write the date in ISO format : 2023-03-10 etc.
That is fine for me but often just confuses people I need to share the chronological list with
Obviously I can’t speak for @stephenjw, but looking at the linked post’s capture he probably sorted by creation date or used Custom Meta Data and sorted by that.
Hi @wrothnie - @pete31 is right. I set & sort by creation date (because you can then sort chronologically in DTTG easily).
Here’s the script if you would like it (disclaimer: I’m not a scripter and most of what I have has been cobbled together from scripts which Christian, Jim, pete31 and others have been kind enough to share, but it works for me. Any suggested improvements would be gratefully received. 
)
-- Creates note with date, event and link in inbox and sets creation date to date of source document
use AppleScript version "2.4"
use framework "AppKit"
use scripting additions
property theDelimiter : return & return -- or e.g. linefeed & linefeed
property theSeparator : "---" & return
tell application id "DNtp"
try
if not (exists think window 1) then
error "Please open a window"
else
set theWindow to think window 1
end if
set thisRecord to content record of theWindow
if thisRecord ≠missing value then
set theType to (type of thisRecord) as string
try
set theSelectedText to selected text of theWindow & "" as string
on error
display notification "No text selected"
set theSelectedText to ""
end try
if theType is in {"PDF document", "«constant ****pdf »"} then
set thePage to current page of theWindow
set theRefURL to reference URL of thisRecord & "?page=" & thePage
end if
end if
set theDatabase to current database
set defaultDate to creation date of thisRecord
-- get creation date of thisRecord
set theYear to the ((year in defaultDate) as integer) as string
if (month in defaultDate) as integer is less than 10 then
set theMonth to "0" & ((month in defaultDate) as integer) as string
else
set theMonth to ((month in defaultDate) as integer) as string
end if
if (day in defaultDate) as integer is less than 10 then
set theDay to "0" & the ((day in defaultDate) as integer) as string
else
set theDay to the ((day in defaultDate) as integer) as string
end if
if (hours in defaultDate) as integer is less than 10 then
set theHour to "0" & ((hours in defaultDate) as integer) as string
else
set theHour to ((hours in defaultDate) as integer) as string
end if
if (minutes in defaultDate) as integer is less than 10 then
set theMinutes to "0" & ((minutes in defaultDate) as integer) as string
else
set theMinutes to ((minutes in defaultDate) as integer) as string
end if
set displayDate to theDay & theMonth & theYear & " " & theHour & theMinutes as string
-- get doc link
set theInbox to (incoming group of the current database)
set theName to name of thisRecord
-- determines whether to include selected text or not
if theSelectedText is not "" then
set theContent to theDelimiter & theSelectedText & theDelimiter
else
set theContent to "" & theDelimiter
end if
-- prompt for date and event
set userDate to display name editor "Date (DDMMYYYY HHMM)" info "Enter date of the event (default is date of record)." default answer displayDate
set chronoCreationDate to creation date of thisRecord
set displayMinutes to "00"
try
set displayDay to (characters 1 thru 2 in userDate) as string
set displayMonth to (characters 3 thru 4 in userDate) as string
set displayYear to (characters 5 thru 8 in userDate) as string
end try
try
set displayHours to (characters 10 thru 11 in userDate) as string
set displayMinutes to (characters 12 thru 13 in userDate) as string
end try
if displayMinutes is not "00" then
set displayDate to displayDay & "." & displayMonth & "." & displayYear & " " & displayHours & ":" & displayMinutes
set year of chronoCreationDate to displayYear as integer
set month of chronoCreationDate to displayMonth as integer
set day of chronoCreationDate to displayDay as integer
set hours of chronoCreationDate to displayHours as integer
set minutes of chronoCreationDate to displayMinutes as integer
set seconds of chronoCreationDate to 0
else
set displayDate to displayDay & "." & displayMonth & "." & displayYear
set year of chronoCreationDate to displayYear as integer
set month of chronoCreationDate to displayMonth as integer
set day of chronoCreationDate to displayDay as integer
set hours of chronoCreationDate to 0
set minutes of chronoCreationDate to 0
set seconds of chronoCreationDate to 0
end if
set theEvent to display name editor "Event" info "Enter the event this record relates to."
if displayDay is "01" then
set altDate to display name editor "Do you want to assign a different display date?" info "Example display date, eg Sep YYYY?" default answer (displayDay & "." & displayMonth & "." & displayYear)
else
set altDate to displayDate
end if
set theLocation to display group selector "Destination" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"}
create record with {name:(altDate & " - " & theEvent), type:markdown, creation date:(chronoCreationDate), content:("# " & altDate & " - " & theEvent & theDelimiter & return & "[" & theName & "](" & theRefURL & ")") & theContent} in theLocation
on error error_message number error_number
hide progress indicator
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
end try
end tell
It’s quite quick to create as you go through documents in a new brief. The idea is you can copy key (ie highlighted) text about the event from the document you are looking at into the note (but you don’t have to copy anything) with a link back to the document. I go back and manually add links in individual notes to additional evidence later (eg another witness’ conflicting testimony about a key event).
This is what the process looks like (I’ve taken it from a random court case for the purposes of this example):
(1) Trigger script using whatever keystroke you assing:
(It’s showing a default date and time which is the creation date of the particular document I’m using here.)
(2) Type in the date of the event you want to capture:
I’ve tweaked to allow you to put in a “display date” such as a month or a year where you don’t have enough information to input a date in DDMMYYYY format or want to put in a date range (eg “Apr to June 2009”). An additional input box for the display date comes up whenever the date is “01”.
You can put in a time as well, but don’t have to.
(3) Type in a description of the event
(4) The script will pull up the sorter:
I use a subdirectory (“@ chronology”) in each project/ matter database (the reason for the “@” is so it appears near the top and stands out from other subdirectories).
(5) This is how it looks as you build it up:
Wow! Thank you!
Your scripting abilities are way beyond mine.
I have tried it and it creates exactly the right kind of note for selected text and I do like your point about linking in links to additional evidence.
I didn’t understand your comment about DTTG, however, I didn’t think scripts could run in DTTG. Certainly, I agree that if it weren’t for that it is usually more convenient to be reviewing documents on the iPad.
Thank you once again for your generosity!
Glad it worked for you - hope it is useful.
You’re right - AFAIK they don’t. What I meant to say was that by setting the creation date of the note to the date of the event (which the script does), you can sort by Date Created in DTTG so that the notes appear in chronological order.
Another option if you need a working chronology on your iPad is to merge the notes into a single markdown document, which I sometimes do for when I’m on my feet in court.
Ah. Thanks!
Just another frustration of the limitations built into the ipad.
I use an Applescript that creates a Table-of-Contents note for the note collection
. html format (formatted note)
. entries are sectioned and sorted as required
. entries are linked to the original notes
The ToC document functions in both DevonThink and DTTG
sort in date order with the dates in the traditional format - dd/mm/yyyy - rather than ISO format - yyyy/mm/dd
The script uses it’s own hidden sort fields for the ToC entries
I hear you. So much potential, so let down by the operating system. 
Not sure what you’re referring to here. If this is about the lack of a scripting language on i*OS: Apple is simply not interested in supporting scripting anywhere. They don’t do any work on AppleScript on the Mac, nor on the abandoned JXA, and they’ve deprecated Perl (not sure about Python). For i*OS, the argument (if there even is one) is probably “security”. Though we know that there are apps supporting scripting (in JavaScript or Python) on i*OS, e.g. Drafts, Pythonista and Scriptable (apparently abandoned, also).
And Apple is apparently going for crippled approaches like Shortcuts (and the now all but dead Automator): Shortcuts does allow for scripts, but only on macOS. For not technical reason at all, at least for JavaScript code.
App developers who want to provide scripting on all Apple platforms could go for JavaScript since support for that is built into the OS anyway (because of Safari). That’s what Drafts does. But this is an entirely different approach from Apple’s OSA, so everybody would be reinventing wheels.
Hi @chrillek
That’s interesting about JavaScript (something I know nothing about).
The iPad is potentially brilliant for work from a business user’s point of view. For taking handwritten notes in a meeting, for reading and referring to documents it’s unobtrusive and user-friendly. Scrawling a note on a document feels more easy and intuitive than messing round typing text boxes on a Mac. When I am on my feet in front of a judge, an iPad lies flat on the lectern and I can look the judge in the eye while swiping from one document to the next. There’s something a bit anti-social about clacking away behind a laptop screen in many professional settings.
But then you bump up against iOS’ limitations. Apple seems to have improved file management but it’s still too fiddly having to share documents between apps. DTTG takes quite a bit of the pain out of the process (and it’s frankly easier to do all my noting up in DTTG knowing that markups will be saved in place). But there’s just so many things that you just can’t do in iOS.
I am really just repeating grizzles other people have been making for many years and have strayed from the original post.
I take your point about the limitations of scripting support and the impact on app developers. (Did you put the asterisk in “i*OS” to signify that it’s not a “real” operating system? 
) I didn’t mean in any way to suggest that the problem lay with the app developers. It’s impressive how much functionality DTTG has wrung out of the system.
No - there’s iOS and iPadOS. The asterisk is short for „both“.
Warwick,
Good to see that the discussion in the other place has spilled over to here. I will come back to this thread next week - busily prepping for a 2 day hearing next week where I would love to be across all this now although I have built the chronology for the matter in Filemaker. Also, need to get across incorporating annotations in Devonthink into Chronologies and submissions.
I use Text Expander for dates. Simply create the format you want and a trigger abbreviation. Works in all apps.
Sorting YYYY-MM-DD I find easier because at a glance is the year which for the law is generally more useful to begin with than the actual date.
If you’re not applying styling to the date…
Depending on your settings in System Settings > Language & Region > Date Format, you could also just use our WordService > Insert Short Date service. 
