How to create a shortcut that appends text to a selected note!

DEVONthink To Go
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1

Greetings,
I need a shortcut for this workflow:

  • I select a text on a webpage (or another document)
  • the shortcut lets me choose a note inside DT2G
  • the shortcut appends the selected text to that note

My main note format is Markdown.

It’s something iOS natively allows for Apple Notes.

I’ve found an example here:

https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/append-shortcut-replacing-entirety-of-note/69875/2

but as far as I can see that shortcut allows to append text only to a pre-specified note.

I’ve found nothing on the Web.

Any help and suggestion would be appreciated.

Thank you!

2

Choose a note based on what? There has to be some filtering as it’s not reasonable (or technically feasible) to return all the potential documents in all the databases.

3

Agreed, I should have added further details.

I mean: I search for a note so that I can choose which note will be updated with the new content.

Or at least it creates a new note and updates that note.

For example, this shortcut searches for a term and gives a list of notes inside DT:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/163eb0818ebd4cae9b844a3e4fb372eb

1 Like
4

But what would you search for, e.g., if you were in DEVONthink To Go doing the search?

5

Please see my previous comment, that I’ve updated with an example.

I’m sorry but I’m writing on an iPhone while travelling.

6

No worries!
That’s an old and quite complicated shortcut.

Could you provide more information on your specific use case?

7

Ok I have 2 scenarios for my use case…

Scenario 1.

I have to write an article.

So I start my research along the Web, I find articles and documents, but I don’t need to keep the whole documents: only some excerpts.

And all these excerpts should go into a single document, that is the draft of the future article.

With Apple Notes, I select the text on Safari and share it to the new document.

When I have another snippet to save (from the same document or a different one) I simply select the text and share it to the note I’ve created before, and snippet is appended to the previous text.

And so on, until I finish the research, go to the draft and work on it.

Scenario 2.

I don’t have a new article in my mind yet.

But while I wonder along the Web, I find a document here, a video there, and a new topic comes to my mind: it may be material for a new (maybe, future) article.

Again, I don’t need the whole documents, but only some snippet here and there, and all of them are collected to a single document, that may be, one day or another, the draft of an article.

So, again, sharing the snippets to the same new document makes all the workflow easier.

There are times when I do part of this work when I’m on my iPhone, when I have spare time.

No problems at all when I’m on my Mac.

These are my typical scenarios.

But I’m open to other workflows or workarounds to test.

Maybe there’s something I’m missing, and I don’t need such Shortcut to do the work?

1 Like
8

An issue with mobile automation is a lack of persistent variables. True there may be external utilities to handle this but every dependency is a point of failure, so we try to avoid them when possible.

However, perhaps this little shortcut I just whipped up will suit you:

Append Text To Markdown

Make sure you have your working document selected in DEVONthink To Go.

1 Like
9

Thank you for the shortcut.

Just a question: what do you exactly mean for “Make sure you have your working document selected in DEVONthink To Go”?

I’ve tried the shortcut but I get an error that says that a note must be selected.

I don’t know what it means as I’ve tried with several options.

10

Exactly what the warning says: you need to have a Markdown document selected to append the text to.

Are you not seeing that message?

11

I that the Hookmark app might work for you. URL: hookproductivity-dot-com
It’s included in SetApp, too.

1 Like
12

Indeed I was seeing the message.
But now it works fine.
Maybe I’ve found where I was wrong.

Thank you!

13

I know Hookmark, and I’m under SetApp.

Can you please detail it?
How would it ease my work?

Thank you!