Feature Request: Enhancement to Notes with Figures

[sun0727]

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been using Devon-Suite for a few months, and I’m very very satisfied with the document management features. But for the note editing, to be honest, there are still a lot of things could to be optimized. Especially for the handling of images in notes.

Problem

Imagine that you are learning how to use a software, so you might add a lot of screenshots to your notes.

Using Markdown

Markdown is super efficient for text editing, but not convenient for adding a lot of figures. You need to write ref, not just simply drag/drop or copy/paste images.

Using RTF or formatted notes

You can’t rescale the image directly in notes. In order to scale an image, it must be resized with external tools. And “Resize” also means loss of the details of images.

Possible Solutions

In other note apps, for example in Evernote, You can scale a large image to a small display size, so that it takes up less space in the text-body. If you want to see the details, you can double-click on the image to enter figure-viewer mode.

Alternatively, many modern markdown editors will automatically capture dragged-in images or images from the clipboard, store them in an internal image directory, and then automatically give you an internal reference.

e.g. after clicking CMD +V to paste a screenshot, the editor will show something like:

c8479ae0a244c347134f33376e039bfe.png.

if you want to change the display size, simply add some suffix like:

c8479ae0a244c347134f33376e039bfe.png @w=600     % width = 600
c8479ae0a244c347134f33376e039bfe.png @h=400     % height = 400
c8479ae0a244c347134f33376e039bfe.png @w=200h=100  % width=200 and height=100
c8479ae0a244c347134f33376e039bfe.png @h=100w=200

End

Thank you all for the nice Application!

[rmschne]

Nice ideas and well presented. But why not use Pages or Word (storing the files in DEVONthink) which do all this now with pretty good user-interface? Plus other tools already available could do.

[pete31]

@sun0727

Markdown is super efficient for text editing, but not convenient for adding a lot of figures. You need to write ref, not just simply drag/drop or copy/paste images.

You can drop images into Markdown records. From help:

Drag and drop items into a Markdown document to add the appropriate links. Drag and drop documents while holding ⌘-⌥ will create a URL with an item link. Dropping an image will create a properly formatted Markdown image link. Drop .mp3 or .mp4 files to insert a playable multimedia link.

[sun0727]

Thanks for your reply. It could be a solution. But I think it also increases the sense of fragmentation.

For example:

• create File: I need to open pages or word first and then select store to Devonthink, instead of right-clicking in Devonthink to quickly create a new one. (maybe script can help)

• quickly Preview: If you have multiple pages or word documents with figures in the same directory. Now you want to quickly preview the multiple notes by mouse clicking or direction key. The loading can be very slow (you may see a loading bar).

• Gif: If you insert a gif into a pages-document, it will remain static in the Devonthink internal previewer. To view it you need to use “open with pages.”

[pete31]

@sun0727

create File: I need to open pages or word first and then select store to Devonthink, instead of right-clicking in Devonthink to quickly create a new one. (maybe script can help)

You can add your own templates. From help:

Templates are stored in the ~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink 3/Templates.noindex folder. In order to manage your templates, rename them, organize them in subfolders, or delete them, you can quickly access this folder by selecting Data > New from Template > Open Templates Folders. More templates are available by selecting Data > New from Template > More Templates, or as extras in the [Support Assistant] or in the [Extras sidebar]

A very useful thing you can do is add your own files to this folder, even if the files aren’t directly editable in DEVONthink. For example, you may have a specific Pages template you often use. Open the template in Pages and save it into DEVONthink’s Templates folder. Now you can add documents to your database even more efficiently.

I suggest you read the help

[sun0727]

Thanks for your suggestion, but If I drag a figure from Finder, it gives like:

![1920px-Hydrangea\_summer\_garden.jpg](xxxx/Downloads/test/1920px-Hydrangea_summer_garden.jpg)

That inserts the figure by indexing, I think you couldn’t view this in DTTG.

And it also can’t handle the figure from the clipboard and rescale the figure.

[BLUEFROG]

Welcome @sun0727

This isn’t “inserting by indexing” and the file is certainly visible in the Markdown document in DEVONthink. However, it’s an absolute link so the file must be present in its current location for the link to remain valid.

Why aren’t you adding the file to your database then linking from within DEVONthink?

Also, Evernote is not a Markdown editor. It is an HTML editor so this is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

[sun0727]

I’m learning a professional software recently, so I will take a lot of screenshots to my notes. Usually the screenshot software will automatically copy the image to the clipboard after the screenshot is done, so it would be better if I can paste the image directly in my notes. This can be done with RTF or formatted notes, but the problem with them is that they can’t resize the image, so when I capture the entire interface of the software, it takes up a lot of space in note-body. Then I wrote this post.

Also, Evernote is not a Markdown editor. It is an HTML editor so this is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

I didn’t give any comparison and I don’t mind any format. I just want to say that they provide a better solution for figure-processing. I think Devonthink could also do better. ^-^

[BLUEFROG]

In RTFD files, you can double-click an image to open it in the system default application.

You can also enable Preferences > Editing > Scale image attachments to set the apparent size of an embedded rich text image to the width of the document.

[rmschne]

Well, I take the simpler approach

: When taking notes, I keep Pages open in a window (next to or somewhere on screen). No need to involve DEVONthink to make a new one, right clicking, and all that. Just hit “New Document” in Pages.

: when ready to save it, save to the DEVONthink Global Inbox. If wanted, Rules on that Inbox to move wherever wanted in DEVONthink.

: I tested previewing a Pages document saved into DEVONthink. “Opened With” Pages, added a PNG and for kicks a JPG. Closed the file. In DEVONthink both images are shown in preview (without opening Pages) or doing extra steps.

: I didn’t try putting GB’s of images into files to test performance, but as these are “notes” that is unrealistic and I wouldn’t think performance would be an issue.

Guess your mileage differs. Go with it.

[sun0727]

Thanks for your suggestion

You can also enable Preferences > Editing > Scale image attachments to set the apparent size of an embedded rich text image to the width of the document.

Imagine that I take a screenshot of the entire interface from a software and mark some notes on this image. This image would then fill up almost my entire editing window.

In RTFD files, you can double-click an image to open it in the system default application.

Then I open the image by double-click, and resize it to 300*400 via macOS Preview. The display size is good now, but you can not clearly see the toolbar text or marked note on image anymore. Because it is resize not rescale.

So what I want is actually lossless scaling, or separating the display-size in note from original size of the images