It seems like the commands beyond bold/italic/underline etc. to apply formatting to rich text notes are surprisingly hard to access. For example, if I want to make a list, I have to choose Format > List and use popups to select from a variety of options. What about introducing a hideable formatting bar with most of these options, such as exists in TextEdit? They would also have associated command-key equivalents.
Nice idea.
Meanwhile, you can, of course, activate the ruler with ⇧⌘R and access nearly the same things as in TextEdit, plus use shortcuts (faster, no need to take your hands from the keyboard) to toggle bold, italic, underline (⌘b, ⌘i, ⌘u, respectively) and the font control with ⌘t
Silly me – I should have realized this!
A proper formatting bar is seriously lacking here. I would have thought it would have been there by default, even if original use ideas were only that it was to be used for storage and retrieval of information created elsewhere. I use it for that at an MA student doing research. But as a teacher, I use it to store my lesson plans and access them with DT2G in class to stay paperless. Having to use an external editor to get the plans formatted reasonably is just an extra unnecessary step for me.
@TeacherBart, I make lesson plans in the form of outlines, and I’ve been using Circus Ponies Notebook for a very long time because in addition to being a wonderful outliner, it groups these outlines in the form of Notebooks (i.e. as a single file). Since Circus Ponies stopped development, I’ve been looking for a replacement: Scrivener is one possibility, as is Ulysses, and there’s also Outlinely. Do you feel that DTP is really up to this task given its modest text formatting abilities?
Hi,
That’s a good question. I’ve been using Evernote solely for the purpose of lesson planning as it’s not too bad at outlining, and I can insert mind maps which I use a lot. Instead of extending my subscription, I bouth DT2G hoping that it would be a solid replacement. I’m not sure now. I suppose I could always use something else to compose and then just store and view them in DT…or even try some rich text snippets from text expander.
I also used to use CPN and thought it was awesome! I don’t know how well it would have worked for planning as there wasn’t an iPad app. But that’s gone. I use Scrivener for my papers and never considered it for planning. I know they have an app for iOS now. But really, I like the idea of having everything about all my classes in one place. Scanned tests, etc… I haven’t tried the others you mention and will have a look. Thanks for the ideas!
I don’t think this is off topic as we’re discussing use scenarios of DT and its limitations. Others might chime in to give some ideas for making it work within DT and the developers might see some uses they hadn’t considered.
What do you teach? For me its ELT/ESL/EFL/TEFL/etc. Maybe our plans are very different from each other’s?
I came across this today:
blog.devontechnologies.com/2014/ … evonstyle/
which could help you with your outlining. It’s not CPN, but it’s about as good as Evernote. Per the comments section, option+tab will start you with a new bullet (default is a dash, but can be changed from the drop down on the ruler bar).
Yes, mac OS offers these basic outlining features by default for RTF.
You might also want to look at OmniOutliner, which is an excellent compliment to Devonthink. I use OmniOutliner files instead of rtf and text files a lot of the time. DT displays the Quicklook view which you can use you to expand the outline while they are displayed in DT without opening OmniOutliner.
You might also look at Curio, which is a definite fit for visual thinkers and all around amazing tool.
Frederiko