Keeping track of where things came from

[rickla]

One of my preoccupations as an academic is allowing a free flow of ideas while keeping track of where I’m getting inspiration from. In a DT database, it’s possible to select a chunk of text within a document and drag that chunk somewhere else within the database. This is useful for making highly focused documents on specific topics that will likely be the subject of future searches. What I’d like to know is whether, or under what circumstances, DT remembers where things came from. Scenarios that come to mind are dragging from a rich text document with a source URL in the comments field, dragging from a web archive, and dragging from a PDF.

Alternatively, turning this around, are there any tips for making sure that source info is always included with any new documents?

[cgrunenberg]

@rickla

What I’d like to know is whether, or under what circumstances, DT remembers where things came from.

DT adds the URL only to notes taken via services.

[rickl]

@cgrunenberg

@rickla

What I’d like to know is whether, or under what circumstances, DT remembers where things came from.

DT adds the URL only to notes taken via services.

It hadn’t occurred to me before, but I just tried using the Take Rich Note service from within a document inside DevonThink. It worked fine. The disadvantage is that you can’t just create a choose the location for the new document with one drag. But if you have one window for your current location and another for your default location for new notes, I think this is probably a quicker method than manually copying and pasting the URL.