I am having a question caused by my integrated use of DT and Ulysses 3.
but I think it might also be general question that applies to the use of other external app-files and integration of workflows between apps.
the issue is the following:
Ulysses assigns random strings as file-names. when searched for apps like Spotlight and Alfred e.g. display the label of the file (generated out of the initial text-string of any Ulysses file.
this is handsome as you immediately know/see what was found content-wise.
(disregard the first result; results deeper down the result list show the title-effect, though!)
now in DT it of course diplays the real file-name in any list view. so here you see that random string that is not human-readable. thus quick orientation and overview are really corrupted.
now the question: is there any way to automatically change/adapt the listed name in DT from filename to the “label-name” of an external (Ulyses) file? or, a way to swap file-name display for an excerpt of, say, first two lines of content?
I think it would be great if DT and Ulysses (and likewise apps) could be used alongside more coherently/tightly, especially as it seems some people are going for this close integration of DT with an external writing tool.
thanks in advance for any thoughts or hints!
oliver
no, unfortunately not. I also tried just to check a real import instead of indexing the files – in both cases the change in the preset doesn´t change the display behaviour here.
It’s because you’re using Markdown XL in a Ulysses container in iCloud Drive, I bet.
If you can give up Markdown XL and stick to more vanilla markup (you’ll lose some good features but if you don’t use them who cares) and keep your projects in an External Folder hosted on, say, your Dropbox folder, the file names will be consistent and not be like an inscrutable puzzle or maze that you cannot escape from.
Exactly – good advice @s3mpai – it’s probably not a good idea to index Ulysses XL documents – not only do you get the inscrutable names (which cannot be got rid of) but you might inadvertently step on some of the special markup that Ulysses uses in “.ulysses” documents.
Documents kept in an Ulysses External Folder can also be indexed in DEVONthink.
you were exactly right!
I was not really aware of external folders working so fluidly with Ulysses itself; and the initial built-in iCloud-synch was so tempting…
but using external folders is my usual preference anyways - and external folder + md-file-format instead of Ulysses-fileformat does solve the issue of title-display in DT! so thanks.
for everyone else following/interested in this:
for now and from what I can find Ulysses ios-app allows only for syncing via Dropbox and/or Box to achieve this external sync setup. no syncing via own ftp/webDAV-server, as far as I can see.
– this means, one can solve the problem of title display along the way pointed-out by s3mpai + Korm. what seems not possible is getting whole security/control involved in syncing via own server. on the lack of webDAV-syncing in Ulysses I will ask the Ulysses team – … and update here in case of things happening.
for now, in principal, this is marked as solved for me! thx again for help!
You can sort of use your own FTP or WebDAV server. On iOS Ulysses when you go through the steps to setup an External Folder you can use Transmit as one of the sources. If you are using Transmit on your iOS device, that is. This is a very idiosyncratic solution – I’ve found Transmit to be a reliable document provider for my WebDAV locations about 30% of the time. Transmit fails as a document provider more frequently than it succeeds – and no, it is not because my WebDAV location are unreliable. It’s Transmit that is unreliable.
thanks Korm for latest hint!
– I will keep on poking the Soulmen/Ulysses folks about the webDAV. I think it shoud be there just like in the DTG2
meanwhile, in the spirit of documenting this scenario of tandem DT/Ulysses use, I thought I drop the following here. at least for my scenario of using the DT/Ul-combo as to leverage the AI of DT this makes sense:
I found an online note by Nikolaj Raahauge that hints how you can make DT display rendered markdown in DT by default, thus making the reading/browsing/skimming experience better. so, now I have both: readable document/sheet titles and rendered sheets!. you use:
Yes, that’s one of the “hidden preferences” documented in Help and the Manual, as discussed here in several threads over the years since DEVONthink has supported Markdown documents. There is also an option to treat all plain text as Markdown. See the Appendix in Help and in the Manual.
It should be pointed out that you need to copy the command posted above and paste it into Terminal. Close DEVONthink first, just for safety. If you want to reverse the command then replace “True” with “False”
Personally, I think DEVONthink’s Markdown rendering is weak. E.g., it does not support custom CSS (though advanced users could include CSS into their Markdown if desired). I much prefer dragging Markdown files from DEVONthink to Marked for review and export.
hey, just as an update + note to people interested in this “dual-use”:
after getting a little more into this, I came up with an intermediary option, combining some of the forementioned possibilities, to fit my use-case/-preferences.
I – I returned to the iCloud-sync and XL-Markdown in Ulysses
the reasons:
with external folders you win on the side of title-display, and of course a more self-controlled way to sync your files.
you lose: ability to render images, and tagging option within Ulysses
for me that was to high a prize, as I definitely will need tagging, and also love to keep image-rendering (even if I could have done w/o the last one, technically)
II – instead of direct inclusion/indexing of the externalized Ulysses text-folder, I switched to drag my Ulysses files to the local folder, replacing the old ones
effectively this is like a manual “sync”, for the sole use of having my Ulysses files in a readable version within DT; where I can enjoy the advantages of a) the AI + finding contextual info and b) having a structure where I can manually structure the snippets through the alias-option of DT (which is missing in Ulysses)
plus in this scenario I can take Advantage of the markdown rendering nevertheless
so, it is not the most direct ‘solution’. but I feel it gives me the best of Ulysses, and a decent way to work in DT.
the fact that this kind of manual update/re-syncing preserves alias-relations in DT after every update, means that this kind of ‘sync-hack’ even preserves DT-internal structuring to some extent.
probably everyone is different in preferences here. I just wanted to add to and map out all options for this dual Ulysses-DT use, and hope this kind of infos might help others finding their way.
Just for understanding – you are doing your main editing in Ulysses with the XL-Markdown sheets, and then dragging a copy of the the edited sheets into an folder in Ulysses’ “External Folders” and indexing that manually-made copy?
to be totally precise, I delete the folders and sheets of the external folder from within(!) Ulysses first, and then drag the iCloud-files – i.e. my original Ulysses working files+sheets-structures – onto that folder once again.
this way
a) there are no doubles
and
b) the structure is taken over (actualized) within DT (preserving alias-relations)
so what happens in this set-up, is that I work with XL-Markdown, and the transfer to the external folder turns them into simple md-files.
the one caveeat, of course, is that within DT you only have ‘viewing’ copies, and there is some manual work involved. but for me overall this has the maximum benefits; and is still simple enough.
Here’s something I discovered I did not know before. If you select one or more XL-Markdown sheets and drag them to Finder or to a DEVONthink group, you get an “ulysses” file for each of those sheets which can be previewed in Finder of DEVONthink – but not searched. This seems to be useless, though interesting.
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