New DT user here, with a question about how to best import articles from my RSS feeds into DevonThink.
I use Google Reader to subscribe to feeds of interest, and read them on my iPhone and iPad with Reeder. I send articles I want to keep to Pocket, for later reference.
Now that I am using DT, I would like to keep the same workflow, and quickly save articles to DT directly from Reeder on my iPhone/iPad, but can’t figure out how that would work. Any ideas? Or alternative readers that integrate with DT?
If this isn’t possible, can I subscribe to my Google Reader feed in DT, and use DT as my reader?
I’m brand new to DT, so there might be a better way of doing things, but:
a) If you have DT Pro you can subscribe to RSS feeds in it
b) I use Instapaper rather than Pocket, and if I want to keep an article, I put it in a “DevonThink” folder. That folder has an RSS feed that I subscribe to in DT
c) I think Google Reader lets you share items and that there is an RSS feed for that which you could subscribe to from DT
I’ve tried the suggestion to send to a folder in Instapaper, then subscribe to the RSS feed for that folder in DTP. I can’t get that to work. I create the new folder in Instapaper, then click on the button near the bottom on the Instapaper screen to subscribe to the RSS feed for that folder. I’ve tried this in both Reeder and NetNewsWire, and the RSS feed shows up in my list of subscriptions, but no matter how many different items I put in that Instapaper folder, neither Reeder nor NetNewsWire ever sees anything in that feed. I’ve also added the RSS feed in DTP itself, and it also never sees anything in that feed.
Is there a step I’m missing? I’ve refreshed feeds in DTP and the other news readers programs, and nothing ever shows up in the feed.
If there’s another (preferably simpler?) way of getting items from my RSS feeds into DTP, I’d appreciate hearing it! The ideal would just be a button in Reeder that I can click and automatically have the item added to DTP (just like the button I can click in Safari to do that).
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve done, but even after all that, if I put an article in my Devonthink folder in Instapaper, nothing ever syncs to the feed in Devonthink. I’ve also tried to subscribe to the Instapaper’s folder feed using Reeder and NetNewsWire, just as a test, and nothing ever shows up there, no matter how many articles I’ve put in that folder in Instapaper. Sounds like the problem may be on the Instapaper end (or mine), but I can’t figure out the problem.
An update: OK, this now seems to be working. I deleted my prior Devonthink folder in Instapaper, and started all over. The method suggested above now does seem to be working, although I notice that what shows up in the Devonthink-Instapaper feed is in the form of URL links, not web archives. I suppose this is a function of Instapaper, as another feed I set up in Devonthink from a different site actually downloads the feed as web archives (which I much prefer). Making progress, I guess.
Any way to get the Instapaper feeds into Devonthink as web archives?
BTW, what I’m really looking for is a way to get an article I’m reading in my newsreader (usually Reeder, though sometimes NetNewsWire) into Devonthink. In the best of all worlds, there would be a little button in the newsreader’s toolbar that I could click and automatically send that article to Devonthink as a web archive. Another way I’ve found is to hit Cmd-A when reading the article to select everything, then select the Devonthink Pro - Web Archive Capture service from the App-Services menu.
Any other suggestions? Anyone have a way that works well for them?
I noticed the lag in updates of Instapaper RSS feeds that you mentioned – adding an article to a folder in Instapaper does not show up in the DEVONthink feed for quite a while. I sent a support request to Instapaper to see what they suggest the RSS feed update interval would normally be.
Cannot comment about the link between your news reader and DEVONthink, but there is a script in DEVONthink “Convert URLS to Web Documents” that will make webarchives from bookmarks. If it is not currently installed in your Scripts > Download folder, you can install it from the Support Assistant’s install extras panel.
It does seem like there’s a delay on the part of Instapaper in uploading of the folder contents (because every other feed I’ve added to Devonthink uploads/downloads very quickly). I will try contact the Instapaper folks as well on that.
But your suggestion to use the script to convert the URL to a PDF does just what I like once the URL appears in the feed in Devonthink.
Requires a few steps, but gets me where I want to go!
Have not heard back from @Instapaper, but from experimenting it looks like Instapaper updates the feeds every 90 minutes.
It’s feasible to write a short script that attaches to DEVONthink groups and automatically converts the feeds to PDFs. I might have even written something like that once – will have to look in the trunk to see what’s there
I will admit that in my deep dark past I did some programming (on my Mac Plus!), I haven’t yet delved into Applescripting. It’s on my list of “Someday” items, but . . .
Thanks (and let me know if you run across something good in that trunk!).
For a bare bones approach, I’ve discovered running this two-line AppleScript after selecting an item in NetNewsWire works well:
tell application "NetNewsWire" to set {the_title, the_URL} to {title, URL} of selectedHeadline
tell application id "DNtp" to create PDF document from the_URL name the_title in current group of current database without pagination
It takes a while for DEVONthink to process the pdf, but the result is nice. Didn’t know it could be this easy.
In NetNewsWire the date can be accessed via the date published property of selectedHeadline but not sure how to script so that is assigned to the new DEVONthink record.
