More robust (or corrected) highlighting

DEVONthink Feedback
1

I’ve seen some comments about highlight colors in the forum… I agree that user-definable colors would be great, but my issue is a bit different.

If I highlight some text in a document, but then try to highlight text directly under that (initially highlighted) text with a different color, it deletes the highlighting above it! This must surely be a bug… I hope??? :question:

If this isn’t a bug, I hope a system can be worked out in which the user can “butt” one highlighter color up against another, while on separate lines or anywhere else. I’m sure many people (other than myself) have a color-coded highlighting system when conducting research (i.e. each color defines the specific nature of the text being highlighted), and not being able to do this is irritating!

I hope this is a fix that can be implemented in the next beta.

Thanks,

-CE

2

ADDENDUM MY PREVIOUS POST:

I forgot to add:

There should also be the ability to highlight (and change colors) whilst in full screen mode.

3

The command Format > Highlight toggles the highlighting (in rich text documents, PDF documents and web archives). Could you send screenshots of each step to cgrunenberg - at - devon-technologies.com? Thank you!

4

I know the highlight command toggles the highlighting, but that doesn’t help if I want to change the highlight color… I have to exit full screen, change the color, and reenter full screen. You can imagine what a pain this becomes if you’re switching colors every few minutes.

5

Interestingly enough, I’m finding that this behavior isn’t consistent–sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ll play with it a little more and try to isolate a specific string of commands that makes it occur. I must’ve been doing something right (wrong) last night, because I was able to get it to repeat over and over again! :laughing:

6

Have you tried to assign a keyboard shortcut with System Prefs? :question: It seems to work here.

Good Luck!

7

I’d be interested to hear how you set that up. I set up the shortcut but it does nothing at all!

8

I usually can’t keyboard shortcuts to work either, just got lucky this time. Here’s what I did:

Go to System Prefs>Keyboard & Mouse>Keyboard Shortcuts.

Click on the add button on the lower left. Choose DT from the drop-down menu. In Menu Title, enter the color name (for example “Yellow”). In Keyboard Shortcut, type the keyboard combination you want to use for a keyboard shortcut. Click Add.

Your shortcut that didn’t work, could the keyboard combination you picked have conflicted with one that already existed? If it’s any help, I chose control-option-command-1 for Yellow (same as in Circus Ponies Notebook).

Hope this helps!

9

I’ll definitely try it out. Thanks!! :smiley:

10

Well, it works and is quite efficient. Thanks Karen!

(My issue was that I tried to set it at the “Highlight Color” command to use as a toggle, rather than assign a specific color)

Now if only I could define my own colors… :laughing:

11

The contextual menu of views showing PDF, web archives or rich text contains the “Highlight” submenu to choose & apply the color.

12

That’s a good tip!

Now would it be possible to add an item below the colors list to display the Color Picker so we can create our own highlight colors?

13

In case of rich texts and web archives, just use the Color panel and activate the “Background” checkbox.

14

Mein Gott im Himmel! A wonderful discovery. Thanks for pointing that out.

15

Too slow and laborious. Karen’s shortcut tip was awesome, now all I need to do is define my own colors! :smiley:

16

I would like to do this myself, & agree with the sentiments mentioned in the thread about the available colors being too dark. I tried CJG’s tip about using the color picker with “Background” checked; it does indeed enable me to choose the color for the currently highlighted item but does not create a persistent new color.

I’d like a prefs pane where I could click on say Magenta and change that highlight color to whatever I want, and then see the chosen color in the highlight menu.

17

The momentum is building…the suspense is killing me.

18

Is there a file within the DEVONThink Package that I can hack to customize the highlight colors???

DEVONThink Pro Office is great but is USELESS for highlighting PDFs because the highlight colors are HORRIBLE. Only yellow is usable. The other ones are too dark.

I have to use an external app - Adoble Acrobat Pro, or an iPad app - GoodReader - when highlighting PDFs.

PLEASE - it’s been over two years since this request was initially made - either:

  1. Improve the current highlight colors or
  2. Allow customizable highlight colors - just as we can customize label colors.

It shouldn’t be too hard to program this in.

19

Yes.
And then a way to search for a given color.

20

Would you teach us how?

It would be a great service to all users of DEVONthink.

It looks like they won’t be able to add this feature until version 3.0, if it is planned.