Just looking for a way to use the count of PDF annotations that DEVONthink already maintains in an AppleScript. I can’t see a property of record for this count, however… is it available, or do I have to come up with a way of counting the annotations in the script?
Thanks!
Sorry but this is not a property of a record in AppleScript at this time.
@BLUEFROG Copy that. Count this as a feature request, then!
My use case: I’m trying to create automatic exports of what I’m calling “reading sessions.” Basically, if I read something and make some annotations, I want to extract just those new annotations to an exported summary.
My ultimate goal is automatically extracting annotation summaries (1) without overwriting any additions/edits made to previously-created summaries, and (2) without re-exporting the same annotations over and over again.
To aid my future self’s memory, and to see if anyone else has other suggestions, this is roughly what I was going to do:
if newAnnotationCount > previousAnnotationCount:
set addedAnnotationCount to (newAnnotationCount - previousAnnotationCount)addedAnnotationsFile markdown record\n> such that it creates an array of each annotationaddedAnnotationCount annotations from the split-out array and combine them as text as addedAnnotations
addedAnnotationsFile with just addedAnnotations
addedAnnotationsFile to something like %DocumentName% Highlights from Reading Session %yyyyMMddhhmm%, where %DocumentName% and %yyyyMMddhhmm% are variables for the name of the PDF and a timestamp, respectively.The result of the above pseudocode would be that every time I sit down to highlight a reading, I automatically get a “reading session” annotation summary in a new file about 15 minutes after I put the reading away. This would make it easier to e.g., create tasks in annotations and have them become something I can act on, or to create new link blog post about the reading.
Thanks for sharing your thought process. It’s always interesting to see how people think about such things.
I can do better than thought process—got it working!
Edit: an important caveat: this assumes reading and annotating in sequential order. I.e., new annotations will only ever be added to a PDF later in a document. It doesn’t check for new annotations added in between previously-made annotations.
AppleScript:
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
property databaseUUID : "D0CA3444-A862-4C99-9A20-3B93E6F24CA8" -- Switch this with the uuid of the database for your summary notes.
property summaryNotesGroupUUID : "E940D2EB-5B4A-4D29-B64F-E585AA756826"
property summaryNotesGroup : "Summary Notes" -- Switch this to the name of the folder/group you'll use to store summary notes when they're first created. Must be a unique name.
property readingSessionNotePrefix : "∎ " -- This is a prefix I use to indicate summary notes. If you don't want to use a prefix, switch it to ""
property readingSessionNoteSuffix : " - Reading Session "
on performSmartRule(theRecords)
set {year:yr, month:mn, day:dy, hours:hr, minutes:mins} to (current date)
set dateandtimestamp to "20" & my pad(yr as integer) & my pad(mn as integer) & my pad(dy as integer) & my pad(hr as integer) & my pad(mins as integer) -- Got this from https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=44567 as a quick and dirty way of getting a Zk-style timestamp. It didn't include the "20" in "2022" so I prepended it manually. That'll become a problem in 87 years or so...
set datestamp to "20" & my pad(yr as integer) & my pad(mn as integer) & my pad(dy as integer)
set timestamp to my pad(hr as integer) & ":" & my pad(mins as integer)
tell application id "DNtp"
set summaryNotesGroup to get record with uuid summaryNotesGroupUUID
repeat with eachRecord in theRecords
set annotationNoteName to readingSessionNotePrefix & (eachRecord's (name without extension)) & readingSessionNoteSuffix & dateandtimestamp
set highlightsSummary to summarize highlights of records eachRecord as list to markdown in summaryNotesGroup
if highlightsSummary is not missing value then -- highlights were successfully summarized, now we have to clean the resulting syntax
set highlightsSummaryText to plain text of highlightsSummary
set highlightsArray to my splitText(highlightsSummaryText, ("
* "))
set newAnnotationsCount to ((count of highlightsArray) - 1)
set previousAnnotationCount to get custom meta data for "Previous annotation count" from eachRecord
if previousAnnotationCount is missing value then
set previousAnnotationCount to 0
end if
set numberOfNewAnnotations to newAnnotationsCount - previousAnnotationCount
if (numberOfNewAnnotations ≠ 0) then
set annotationIterator to 0
set annotationFileOriginalHeader to the first item in highlightsArray
set linesOfAnnotationFileHeader to my splitText(annotationFileOriginalHeader, "
")
set annotationFileYAML to "---" & return & "annotation-status: new" & return & "---" & return & return
set annotationFileHeader to annotationFileYAML & the first item in linesOfAnnotationFileHeader
set newAnnotations to annotationFileHeader & return & "Reading session from [[" & datestamp & "]] at " & timestamp & return & return
repeat with eachAnnotation in highlightsArray
if annotationIterator > previousAnnotationCount then
set newAnnotations to newAnnotations & "
* " & eachAnnotation
end if
set annotationIterator to annotationIterator + 1
end repeat
set newAnnotations to my replaceText(newAnnotations, "* {==", "- > ")
set newAnnotations to my replaceText(newAnnotations, return & "* ", return & "- ")
set newAnnotations to my replaceText(newAnnotations, "==}", "" & return)
set newAnnotations to my replaceText(newAnnotations, "\\", "")
set plain text of highlightsSummary to newAnnotations
set name of highlightsSummary to annotationNoteName
add custom meta data newAnnotationsCount for "Previous Annotation Count" to eachRecord
else
-- no new annotations
delete record highlightsSummary
end if
end if
end repeat
end tell
end performSmartRule
on pad(v) -- got this from https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=44567
return text -2 thru -1 of ((v + 100) as text)
end pad
on splitText(theText, theDelimiter)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theDelimiter
set theTextItems to every text item of theText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
return theTextItems
end splitText
on replaceText(this_text, search_string, replacement_string)
set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the search_string
set the item_list to every text item of this_text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the replacement_string
set this_text to the item_list as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
return this_text
end replaceText
Smart rule:
A sample of the results:
---
annotation-status: new
---
# [A Guideline of Selecting and Reporting Intraclass Correlation Coefficients for Reliability Research - Koo, Li - 2016.pdf](x-devonthink-item://8926222D-5BE7-4C63-8D0B-458A7A473173)
Reading session from [[20220302]] at 14:27
- > As a rule of thumb, researchers should try to obtain at least 30 heterogeneous samples and involve at least 3 raters whenever possible when conducting a reliability study. Under such conditions, we suggest that ICC values less than 0.5 are indicative of poor reliability, values between 0.5 and 0.75 indicate moderate reliability, values between 0.75 and 0.9 indicate good reliability, and values greater than 0.90 indicate excellent reliability.
- [ ] Integrate this rule into the granularity paper
Very nice work 
The next release will add an annotation count property.
Since I built the hacky workaround above, I’m 33% mad, 166% grateful.
And I lost a percentage point somewhere, so let me know if you find it!