The Capture Page feature is very useful, but not as useful if you use an external browser for most internet research – which I assume most users will do. If a Service item “Capture Page in DT” could be added to capture loaded pages in Safari directly into DT, then that would be much more useful. As it is, one has to reload the page in DT, then capture it – not as useful. Am not a programmer, so don’t know how easy that would be…
Moses:
I’ve been using alphas of DT Pro so long that I’ve forgotten which features are missing in DT PE 1.8.x.
But DT PE 1.9, which should be released soon, will do what you wish via File > Services > DEVONthink > Take Rich Note. That will capture all selected text and images into your DEVONthink database, along with the URL of the captured page. 
Actually what I was referring to was not the “Take Rich Note” command, but the actual “Capture Page” command which captures the page in full HTML format and displays it exactly like it is on the web. Taking a note in RTF loses HTML formatting. I find that I want to use both features, sometimes just capturing selected info in the manner you described, and at other times capturing the whole page as displayed on the web.
Point taken – I agree with you that it would be useful to have the Capture Page command available in Safari Services options.
Note, however, that Capture Page saves the source code for the Web page, and doesn’t actually save images, etc. into your database. Therefore, the full contents of the page are likely not to be available if your computer goes offline. And, the full contents will not be available if the originating server either discards or modifies the captured page. Those are two reasons that I typically capture pages as RTFD rather than as HTML.
There’s a third reason I usually prefer Note Capture to Page Capture: Many Web pages that I capture contain extraneous text that I don’t want to muddle up my DEVONthink searches. I’m more concerned with the content than the original formatting of Web pages.
DEVONthink Pro will offer still another option, to download Web pages including images, and even to download a complete Web site. (Even with that option available, I generally use Note Capture of selected text and images.)
It’s great that DEVONthink offers multiple options for capturing Web material, so that a variety of user needs can be met.
Thank you for further explaining how DT stores the “captured page” – I was not clear on it not storing the images. And yes, your thought makes great sense that in most cases there is no reason to “muddy up” the database with unnecessary text, not to mention needlessly waste disk space. Captured pages are still a nice option for certain uses, especially for those of us in rural areas doing web research on dial-up speeds of 26400 bps! Based on your comments though I think I will limit use of them. …that said, I would still like to have the option to do it right out of Safari. Thanks for the advice.
Moses:
Yeah, I had to use dial-up for years. Now I’ve got a 4 Mbs cable modem service that flies, with a wireless router for my TiBook.
Forgot to mention that I sometimes use Acrobat’s “Open Web Page” feature to capture Web material of special interest. An advantage is that hyperlinks work well within the captured material, such as footnote references.
Tomorrow’s issue of Science includes a special section on the history and current state of measurement techniques. I used Acrobat to download 85 pages of articles in a single document, with bookmarks and hyperlinks. This works on dial-up too, but that would be pretty slow. I used Index import of the PDF file to DEVONthink Pro.
Thank you for the suggestion. We’ll note it down in our to-do list and see if it’s possible at all with Services.
Best,
Eric.
I don’t know if it’s available in one of the upcoming versions or not…but please add the similar feature of fully capturing email too…both HTML and Text directly into DT
We already have AppleScripts for Apple Mail that do exactly this. You should find it the in the “Extras” folder on the DEVONthink disk image. DEVONthink 1.9 will come with an updated script that only copies the really important headers, not all.
Best,
Eric.
Man, I’m hardly qualified to post here, but you do know that you can highlight the url in Safari’s address bar, hit ‘capture plain note’, and the whole page jumps to DT, with the url intact, eh?
Then you can do a full capture page, with the results described above. On the ancient 1.8.1b…
There are good reasons to save the html formatted version sometimes, and here are two lowbrow hacks…
- For sites that have a ‘print page’ or similar, you can usually do the above trick to get a nicely formatted junk free version of the guts of the page, then do a DT capture page on that DT entry.
- Or, if it is really worth the trouble, you can use the above methods, THEN edit that entry’s HTML for a cleaner version. It’s usually pretty easy to trim out all the other junk, with only the guts remaining.
HTH, from a non-professorial ‘data-hoarder’.
Hi,
My name is Snert and I'm a Data Hoarder too. I've suffered the disease for years and with newer larger hard drives I thought I had it under control. But sooner or later the symptoms start to show, too many folders and directories and folders within folders within folders. Having to make notes to remind myself where things are stored. Then loosing the notes. I even had to have a secondary hard drive implant last year during the Christmas holidays. Can you imagine how bad off someone has to be to be transferring data while the kids are in the other room playing with their new toys? I was shamless!! When I came across DevonThink I thought I'd found peace, I could copy and paste all I wanted and keep it under control. I remember one Copy&Paste Binge that lasted 3 days! And the importing... oh the importing!!
But since I got word of the new version of DT there've been problems. I tried to cut back, taper off gradually... waiting for the new release. But the September deadline came and went. And I've been suffering progressive withdrawal symptoms ever since! I haven't had a fix in weeks! I still go out and surf the web occasionally but the pain from seeing a tastey clipping, or a juicy bit of text is too great. The temptation to just copy and paste with abandon is just too strong. My email box is backed up with emails I want to save but, I don't dare highlight any text! I know once I get started I'll never stop! I've been clean and sober for weeks now and it's killing me. If I don't get the new version and save something Really soon, I don't know what might happen! I'm worried I'll have to seek professional help.
dOOd, you’re singin my song. 
Well written!
My #1 backup consideration are the DT 1 - 10 db files. In four different places.
I hope you gods and godesses and various and sundry wizards at DevonThink know I’m just kidding. I think I’m like “normal” folks in one respect at least, that I am impatient for the new releases of your fine products.
I have a very strong feeling that with DT Pro I will finally realize my life long ambition of becoming the Czar of All Data!! Ruler of a vast universe of mostly useless information yet able to summon the most remote clipping with a mere hot key! With my vast stores of facts, both real and imagined, I will be able to impliment my plan of world domination. For we all know a moron with a little information is a dangerous thing. Imainge my power when I, the Moxie Moron, armed with DevonThink and a tabbed browser, unleash my miniscule intellect upon this unsuspecting world!!!
I discovered a workaround for this, sort of. From within Safari just select “Print” and then select the PDF Service “Save to DEVONthink”. (Of course you have to have the Save to DEVONthink script installed for this work.) It’s not HTML anymore, links are gone, but for pages where the “look” of the page is important it’s pretty good. Thankfully, words do seem to be kept and thus make the content searchable. Main downside with this is that it doesn’t automatically grab the URL, so you can’t tell where the original page is on the web. Thus, my next feature request: alter the script to grab the URL. …Maybe some AppleScript whiz out there could do this for us…
And this is easier/better than highlighting the URL in Safari’s address bar, hitting ‘command (’ and watching the whole page jump to DT in pure HTML (rendered or code) with URL included?
I don’t get your issue.
The action you described merely creates a link in DT. But a link is no good if the web page changes or if you don’t have an internet connection when you go to view the page. This is where being able to capture a page from within Safari would be nice. The PDF Service “workaround” I mentioned is rather clunky but it does capture all the page info for future reference. An alternative method is to do just as you described, let DT reload the page, and then hit Capture Page from within DT. For me, with an abominably slow dial-up connection in the mountains, this would take a lot longer. Hence, my interest in being able to capture a web page in full from within Safari, after I’ve already loaded it the first time. If you are working on a desktop with always on high-speed internet connections then the situation I am describing is less of an issue.
I trust everyone is aware that you can capture web pages directly from DEVONagent.
Moses, didn’t mean to be snippy earlier
Two thoughts:
- Get a Motosat! (Or whatever the stationary version is called)
- Create a sequence/macro in one of those tools to do the above for you while you turn your attention elsewhere. I use an old iKey which works for many things.
Maybe the “Add page from Safari” script is what someone’s looking for? I frequently use that to save HTML documents in DT Pro from Safari although it doesn’t capture images.
When I’ve created a shortcut for that using Keyboard Shortcuts preferences the key symbols are displayed before the item in the script menu but using the shortcut doesn’t do anything. If anyone can get that working I’d appreciate knowing that it’s possible.
I’m definitely in that group, too. Probably started back when network bandwidth was limited so I’d save everything I downloaded for fear I’d have to endure that often long and boring process again.
PS - Has anyone else noticed Safari being abnormally sluggish when editing posts to this forum? Maybe that’s a good thing or I’d be blabbing here more than anyone can tolerate. 
Where do you get this script? Is it just a DT Pro script? I don’t see it in 1.9, sounds useful…