I think for me as a new user, what I might find helpful is a user-interface for such a text-based metadata system.
As I commented over here: [url]Reference Management]
Could there be an easy way to enter, retrieve, and edit basic metadata which was then stored in a text file linked to each primary document? The user-created script solutions do some of this, but i wish there was a basic solution that “came out of the box.” It’s not a bad thing for me to spend a week figuring out how to start setting up my database, but it could be easier.
I wish there was a GUI to enter my basic metadata about a PDF while I’m reading the info off the PDF. I’d love to experiment on the best way to do this, but jumping back and forth between two open files seems clumsy when I’m on my laptop. I wish I could split screen or have a little “add annotations” window like the Get Info one. Something like that would be nice.
“How do I add a bit of information to these documents?” does seem to be a reasonable question several people are facing. It sounds like it’s not simple to do this because there’s no universal way to include that information in the original file.
I’m supportive of the obvious good of non-proprietary formats. When I exported from Scrivener to Devon, I found that Scrivener kept all its metadata in readable text files. This was good; I need to figure out how to make it useful in Devon, but at least it’s openly available to me.
If Devon could integrate this file-based “Kludge” in a way that uses exportable text-file formats, but makes it easily editable within the DevonThink window for each linked item (for users who want to use a GUI method) that might help people solve this issue. I think that would make things quite easy for me.
I’d be happy to beta-test!