enter an URL without creating a link?

DEVONthink Tips
1

I really wish DT had the option to type in an URL to visit – without having to create a database entry.

Is this possible? Could a future version have this capability, so that DT would work more like other web browsers.

2

DEVONthink was never intended to be a browser, it just includes limited browsing capabilities. Use DEVONagent instead, our Ínternet research tool and alternative web browser.

DEVONthink can’t be everything.

Best,

Eric.

3

All you have to do is create a new HTML-page, open it in DevonThink, press “edit” and replace the HTML-Code with the following (plus you have to activate JavaScript in the preferences):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<html>

	<head>
		<title>WebBrowser</title>
	</head>

	<body onload="document.f.t.focus()">
			<form action="javascript:void()" method="post" name="f" onsubmit="window.location.href='http://'+this.t.value">				<table>
					<tr>
						<td><input name="t" size="80" type="text"></td>
						<td><i><input name="b" type="submit" value="Go to..."></i></td>
					</tr>
				</table>
			</form>
	</body>

</html>

Enter the URL (without “http://”) and press “Go to…” or just hit the “Return” button. There’s your web browser. And it’s fast too!

Have fun!

Ture

4

Hey, thanks for that tip! A real time saver.

5

terrific. thank you.
ben

6

btw you guys at devontech seem to specifically market devonthink as an application that combines the power of a lot of applications – witness the big bracket in the devonthink product description right here on the site. in particular, safari is in included in these brackets.

so how does that cohere?

we don’t ask you to turn dt into a safari or camino, but it seems quite obvious to me that the capability of typing web adresses is clearly missing from devonthink. it was one of the first thing that struck me as missing from devonthink when i started using it and i am sure many users feel the same way. “we have another app that can do it” is kind of a strange answer anyway when talking about something really basic like this…

well, never mind.
ben

7

Yes, we combine the power of many applications, but we don’t want to do create redundancies. We just think that the integrated browser in DT is more like an add-on than a full-blown browser. That’s what DA is for.

What about including the great HTML page above by default? Would that be a solution?

Best,

Eric.

8

sorry if the tone of my previous post was a bit harsh. it wasn’t meant that way. i really appreciate the work you do. at least for me, the idea of including the html code previously posted as a kind of “template” in devonthink, would be a solution.

best,
ben

9

That makes sense - but the inability to directly cache the image of a web page from a browser like Safari goes against the principles behind the core uses of DT - storing information. If I see a web page I like I should be able to directly save a capture of that page in DT - without having to first save a link or open up a special web page (like the one above). As it stands now it is always a three step process - copying the link and then opening it in DT and then capturing the page. Why have a feature but make it so difficult to use? Simply to sell more copies of DA? But that isn’t what DA is for either - DA is for searching information, not simply archiving it.

10

Hi kongxinga, I sort of agree with you but don’t fully understand the point about the three steps. doesn’t it solve the problem to drag a link from safari or camino, switch to dt and drop the link in the appropriate location?

Best,
ben

11

With the DT Pro beta, I often use the Add page from Safari script to create a HTML document in DT of the page I’m currently browsing in Safari. Is that what you’re looking for, kongxinga?

12

Very nice, thanks!

13

That sounds more like it - although one shouldn’t be limited to Safari - it should work from Firefox and OmniWeb as well. I also don’t think this should be a “pro”-only feature!!!

14

[1] Firefox isn’t a Cocoa application, and doesn’t work well with OS X Services at this point. Perhaps the Firefox developers will add Services support in the future. OmniWeb, on the other hand, does work very well with OS X Services.

The fact of the matter is that the developers have put a lot of resources into giving DEVONthink Pro the largest scripting dictionary of any application for the Macintosh. That’s why many, many more scripts can be written for DT Pro than for DT PE.

[2] You can easily import all of your bookmarks from Firefox (and Camino, OmniWeb, and Safari) into DEVONthink. Here’s how: Select File > Import > Bookmarks > (browsername). I keep my bookmarks in a DEVONthink group named “Bookmarks.” Tip: If you’ve added lots of bookmarks in Firefox since you last imported them into DEVONthink, just throw away the old set in DT and reimport the current bookmarks from Firefox.

Hope this helps.

15

How hard can it be to create a menu command for “Enter URL”? If DT is supposed to allow us to be able to save web pages, we need this command, as well as the ability to save web pages into DT from our web browsers.

16

OK, now how do we actually save that page in 1.9.3?

17

Control-click the background of the page, choose “Capture page” to capture the page contents or choose “Copy Page Location to Clipboard” to copy the URL to the clipboard.

Best,

Eric.

18

For me too this request seems a no brainer. Furthermore, I must admint I do not understand the steps to add the html as described in this thread. Can anybody help?

thanks

19

Does the html page works with Devon 2? I am not able to make it works.

20

Hi —

Here’s what I did:

  1. Create a new html page (Data>New>HTML Page) and select it.

  2. Then, on the top bar of the document (where you normally can see the URL) click on the small document icon on the right (that’s the Text View/Preview for the document).

  3. Paste the code provided above by tloesche on the HTML document and save it (click on the little icon again).

  4. You should now have a form to write the wanted URL and a clicking button that says “Go to…”

Hope this helps.