Help with DTTG and the Workflow app (and Buffer)

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1

I am desperately seeking someone who can help me automate my work process a little bit. What better place to seek help than the DTTG forum!

I frequently find news articles that I want to share to my network via Buffer, but also want to archive in DTTG while on my ipad. Currently, I am sharing via Buffer and then using the share function to send the same URL to DTTG as a markdown doc with decluttering enabled - all done manually.

I have the Workflow app and am not very good with it. However, I would like to be able to call a Workflow function and have the same URL sent to Buffer (with the ability to select the accounts I want it to go to, add hashtags, etc.) and also send the same URL to DTTG and be able to add tags, and select “decluttered markdown”.

Could someone please explain how to do this like I am 5 years old. I can’t imagine it’s that tough to accomplish, but it has befuddled me thus far.

Thanks,
Brad

2

To do exactly what you want may actually be a bit trickier than you think, for two major reasons:

  1. The x-callback URL scheme for DTTG only allows you to create Bookmarks, Text, or HTML. It doesn’t allow you to create a decluttered markdown file.
  2. Buffer doesn’t appear to have x-callback URL support at all.

1 means that while you can get it into DEVONthink in a few different formats, you can’t get it into DEVONthink in the format you want.

2 means that you basically can’t interact with Buffer at all from within Workflow. Can’t post, can’t select accounts, can’t do anything like that. Buffer does have a developer API, so in theory you might be able to connect directly to their web back-end but this would be a very involved process (and it may not work at all).

So this puts you in a tricky spot. Either your automation is going to be a bit less automated in order to accomplish exactly what you want. Or you’re going to have to modify what you want so that it can be more completely automated.