Linking notes in DTPO: a few questions

DEVONthink
1

Dear members of the forum,

I have a few questions about links in DTPO. I am not sure whether it’s acceptable to ask them all in the same post; should it not be acceptable, please let me know, and I will ask them in separate posts.

  1. Is it possible to link a whole note, not just a part of the text of that note, to another note? If so, could someone please be so kind to explain how to do that (or at least point me in the right direction)? Would those note-to-note links be directional? In other words, does DTPO distinguish between inbound links and outbound links?

  2. Does the AI underlying, for example, the “See Also” feature take into account links between notes? in other words, does it consider two linked notes more related to each other than if they were not linked?

  3. I read old posts referring to Bill DeVille’s approach to linking notes and how those members thought that such approach was not necessarily intuitive or straightforward despite Bill DeVille’s clear step-by-step instructions; however, those old posts failed to provide links to the posts by Bill DeVille they were referring to. I went through many of Bill DeVille’s posts – admittedly not all of them – but so far, I don’t think I have been able to locate a post in which Bill DeVille specifically describes his approach to linking notes. I was therefore wondering whether some of the more senior members of this forum could be so kind to help me locating them.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,
Enrico

4

Dear @korm,

Thank your for your prompt and kind reply.

You are right: I was indeed thinking about what in Tinderbox are called Basic Links. I have Tinderbox documents that contain notes interconnected by Basic Links, which are directional links between notes and do not exist in the text of those notes; however, I would like to take advantage of features of DEVONthik such as its AI (e.g., See Also) and portability (through DTTG). I currently use a workflow developed by a Tinderbox and DEVONthink user that allows to “publish” notes in HTML format from Tinderbox to DEVONthink. The resulting notes in DEVONthink contain links that connect back to the respective Tinderbox notes and, in my case, to the Bookends references contained in those notes. If one uses links in the text of those notes in Tinderbox that connect to other Tinderbox notes, such links will be maintained in DEVONthink and will allow one to navigate Tinderbox notes in DEVONthink. The only problem is that I don’t use in-text links in Tinderbx, only note-to-note links, which do not exist in the text of the Tinderbox notes and are therefore not maintained when the notes are “published” from Tinderbox to DEVONthink. With the help of more experienced Tinderbox users, I have developed a convoluted system to duplicate note-to-note links as in-text links for my Tinderbox notes, so that those links would be maintained in DEVOthink. However, I wanted to check that I had not missed anything and that note-to-note links did not exist in DEVONthink, in which case I would have been able to simplify my workflow; from your answer, I gather I was right: notes-to-note links do not exist in DEVONthink.

So now the question is whether links are taken into account by DEVONthink AI: if so, it may be worth for me spending some time, hopefully with the help of more experienced Tinderbox users, on my system to transfer note-to-note links to in-text links in my Tinderbox notes, such that links between notes are maintained in DEVONthink when I “publish” those notes; otherwise, if DEVONthink AI does not take into account links between notes, my system would not add any significant benefit and I would therefore abandon it. Would you or any other member of this forum know whether DEVONthink AI does take into account links between notes?

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,
Enrico

5

Links are not taken into account by the AI.

6

@scottlougheed is correct. The AI does not consider the links for See Also or Classification purposes.

7

Dear @scottlougheed and @BLUEFROG,

Thank you very much for the very helpful clarification: that the AI does not take links into account makes my life much easier!

Nevertheless, I would still be interested in learning more about Bill DeVille’s approach to linking I was referring to in the opening post:

  1. I read old posts referring to Bill DeVille’s approach to linking notes and how those members thought that such approach was not necessarily intuitive or straightforward despite Bill DeVille’s clear step-by-step instructions; however, those old posts failed to provide links to the posts by Bill DeVille they were referring to. I went through many of Bill DeVille’s posts – admittedly not all of them – but so far, I don’t think I have been able to locate a post in which Bill DeVille specifically describes his approach to linking notes. I was therefore wondering whether some of the more senior members of this forum could be so kind to help me locating them.

I realize Bill DeVille contributed countless posts, but I was wondering whether any of you have any recollection of any post of his in which he would have described in detail his approach to linking. I went through ~100 of those posts, and I could not find one that described with “step-by-step instructions” (verbatim from the posts referring to his work) his approach to linking: most commonly, in the posts I read, he would try to explain – in this case: yes, with very clear and simple “step-by-step instructions” – to other users how linking worked in DEVONthink. Would you suggest I create a new topic for this?

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,
Enrico

8

I don’t have an immediate link to anything Bill might have written on this, but I would suggest continuing in this thread.

9

Thank you, @BLUEFROG. I will keep on monitoring this thread, then, and hope the senior members of this forum that represent its historical memory will kindly help me out.

Best regards,
Enrico

11

Yes, @korm, you did, but in that post Bill DeVille does not describe his approach to linking: he describes how linking works in DEVONthink.

As mentioned above, I went throught the first ~100 threads found on this forum by searching for @Bill_DeVille and link, but I was unable to find the post referred to in that old thread.