According to the manual (p24), one way of getting material into DEVONthink is to “Drag selected text clippings, URLs or other items onto an open DEVONthink browser window.”
I tried this using the following steps (in DT 1.9.1):
Choose Content > New > HTML page
Drag URL from Firefox address bar to DT browser window
Rename the item (ie change “New HTML Page n” to something else).
The HTML page appears properly in the document pane but when I click on another item in the “title pane” then click again on the name of the item I just created, the document pane is blank (the page I just imported has disappeared).
This also happens with Safari. (I also tried creating a .webloc file and dragging that to a new DT browser window, but got the same result as dragging from the browser address bar.)
Am I doing something else incorrectly? Or have I misunderstood the manual and it’s not possible to import content into DT by dragging a URL into a new browser window?
it seems to me that you got some details wrong, it is easier than you do. Capturing Web pages has been subject to several discussion, I recommend you checking the forum for some keywords. As always, Bill’s contributions are most helpful.
I came up with the following work flow, but still do not know whether it is the best way to do it (I always browse the web with OmniWeb):
(1) I select the content, select the DT Service menu “Take Rich Text Note”. Then I have all pictures etc. included, as well as the URL and links working. It is like a WebPage, but it will not be reloaded when I am connected to the net, and if I like, I can reload via “start URL”
(2) I drag the URL to DT, there it is stored as a link without any additional information. I only do so in cases when I want to revisit the site, check whether I want to download some more pages of the site etc. In DT, I select the link document, so that DT loads the page, and I can either “capture page” (which is better than RTF in cases where HTML tables are involved) or take parts of the site to the Download Manager and download those sections of the whole site that I would like to get.
I am working with the beta of DT Pro, so I do not know whether everything works the same with PE. If not, I recommend the Pro version, I could not live without these features – beside some others.
Yes, the Download Manager is Pro-only – But, please, remember: the Professional Edition of DT is not available for the public, only to selected beta testers such as Maria, Bill and quite a few others. We’re working hard on a public beta, though.
I’ve just switched back to the Macintosh after 8 years of Windows so I was using Firefox – but the DT Service menu options are grayed out in Firefox. But I downloaded OmniWeb and it works exactly as you say. OmniWeb has some other neat features so I’m now considering whether I might make it my default browser. I hadn’t realized that the Rich Text Note was such a powerful and elegant option.
This, however, I’m not so clear about. I assumed that when I “capture a page” within DT that the content is stored in the database. But when I click on the item title in the lefthand pane, the web page appears to load from the server – I expected it to appear instantaneously. (Unless, of course, this works differently in DT Pro.)
When you capture a page using a contextual menu option of DT’s WebKit browser, the HTML source code is stored in your DT database, and you are right – you can edit it. But the non-text content of the original Web page isn’t in your database, just the text. So, when you are offline and open the DT version of the page, you will see text only – no images. If you are online, DT will go out to the 'Net and show you the images.
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