If I look at my services menu while I have a file highlighted in Finder, I get the option to Send to Omnifocus Inbox (or, if I have set up Omnifocus differently, to the Omnifocus Quick Entry).
The same does not happen when I have a file selected in DTP.
It would be nice to be able to make an omnifocus task reminding me to read something residing in my DTP database. Now, of course, I can do this by pasting the link into Omnifocus etc. I’m just wondering if there’s an easier way to hop from one to the other.
One does get carried away with the OS X-encouraged promise of perfect inter-application cooperation!
It’s not about getting things into DTP.
It’s about getting a reference from DTP into Omnifocus’ Inbox.
This can be done in the finder, but not with a DTP item.
In fact, if I select an pdf in DTP and then see what services are available, I see none available.
Declan, If you are still looking, I just wrote a pretty quick script that will do just that.
My workflow is to scan a document into DTP2. Then I create a task in OmniFocus. So this script grabs the name of the document and the note - just in case it is a text note and not a document of some sort. It also creates a link back to the DTP document in the OF task.
There’s also an Automator service to move email attachments into DTP2. It grabs the body of the email and puts it into the comments of the record. Unfortunately right now you have to select the email and go over to the Services menu. You can’t right click to bring up this service.
I wish DTP had a richer set of metadata. For example, when a document is received in email, there can be a lot of information about that document in the email. DTP has no good way to capture that. OF does a much better job in that regard, but then the attachments aren’t indexable when they are part of a rich text note. Putting that info in comments is not ideal, but it is what we have right now.
You may be amused that the next release of DEVONthink Pro will contain a series of scripts that I wrote — independently from jgrafix — two weeks ago and that add a selected document to iCal as an event or to-do, to OmniFocus, and to Things. If you like, please try them in advance:
Reminders.zip (65.6 KB)
Personally I use OmniFocus to get organized and this script to create reminders for important documents into my OmniFocus inbox.
@ jgrafix, nice additions to DTP and OmniFocus-thanks!
Just an addition on the automator service, as the script truncates the file name before adding the email to the file’s comments (script comment: truncate the file extension if any because DT2 doesn’t include the extension in the record name). This part of the workflow broke for me as I have set the DTP preference for Import>Titles set to “Filename with extension”. I commented out the following, changed one statement, and it now works with file extensions turned on:
on updateComments(theText, strFileName)
--truncate the file extension if any because DT2 doesn't include the extension in the record name
try
--set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters --save current state
-- set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
set recordName to strFileName -- This is different from the default statement GJ
-- set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
-- on error
-- set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
end try
Also, for Leopard users the first action in the automator service needs to be changed from “Get Selected Mail Messages” to “Get Selected Mail Items”.
Thanks Eric for the iCal and Things scripts. I don’t use OmniFocus, but occasionally will look at the OF scripts for inspiration.
DEVONthink Pro Office is my main reference source for events and actions, so these scripts will come in handy.
I’ve thought of switching from Things to OF, but between the iPhone app and the Mac app, it’s a large cost, especially since my income just dropped dramatically. The main temptation is that OF is well supported by third-party apps.
These are really great! Thanks I like the dates. I have only one question, could it be made so that the x-devonthink link it ads is clickable? I use Things, which grabs the URL and makes it open up, when referencing a Mail.app message for example.
Unfortunately no. While OmniFocus allows this, Things does not. I have spoken to the Things team and this may come in a future version of Things. Sorry.
Ok no problem, thanks for the scripts as is then, they’re very handy and hopefully Things will make that do able in the near future. Since adding the iGTD person to their team, they have had this very fast series of feature and bug updates which fixed a lot of broken stuff, very quickly. I found omnifocus just too much for what I need which is more like a simple todo list with tags, Things is very nice for that purpose in my opinion.
Bartek from Cultured Code has put up a script in this thread on the Things forum that will do what you want. The link has the document’s name instead of ‘x-devonthink…’ and is clickable. It works great as is, or if you want the dating functionality of Eric’s script, you could edit it accordingly.
Thanks for the tip. When I asked the Things team two weeks ago I did not get this tip using their markup code I have added this trick to my script, you can download the new script here:
I’ve updated the Automator Service so that it adds the URL for the Mail message that had the attachment to the URL field of the DEVONthink record it creates. The updated Automator Service is here
@Greg_Jones. Thanks for editing the Automator Script. I missed the fact that DT2 had the option to include or not include the file extension. I was wondering why I was having problems with some other scripts . This script will still need editing to properly deal with file extensions since I still have that option turned off.
I have added this trick to my script, you can download the new script here:
. This script will still need editing to properly deal with file extensions since I still have that option turned off.