I need help on making sure that I have the most efficient and effective workflow for managing the news articles I read on a daily basis.
I have a number (40+) RSS feeds and Google Alert searches that I monitor every day. Currently, I read through these using Reeder on my desktop mac and iPad. The majority of the articles I delete. However, there are some that I want to archive in Devonthink Pro as a “Web Archive” so its content is searchable at a later date, as well as add tags to each article.
When I am on my desktop and find an article I want to save in Reeder, I currently do one of two things. First, I can open the link in Safari and use the “Clip to Devonthink” add-in. I then have to close that page, go back to Reeder and continue on to the next article (+/-6 clicks total). The second option is for me to send the article to Instapaper, go to my Instapaper RSS feed in DTP, convert that link to a web archive, add tags, and move it to the correct folder (+/-10 clicks).
On my iPad, I have only the Instapaper option. In this case, I then have to remember to go back to DTP’s Instapaper RSS feed and convert, tag, etc. when I get back to my desktop.
In an ideal world, both the iPad and Desktop version of Reeder (or equivalent) would have a “send to Devonthink” option that would allow me to add OpenMeta tags on the spot (2 clicks). I haven’t found that yet if it exists…
As we all know, Google Reader is going away soon and so I am reconsidering my entire workflow. Is there a better way to do this. I like Reeder because it has a desktop and iPad application. However, I am not wed to it if there is a better option. I’ve looked at Feebly as an alternative, but I’m not sure it gets me anything beyond a Google Reader replacement.
A viable third alternative, at least in some cases, might be to save articles directly to DEVONthink from Reeder using the Capture Web Archive [Command-%] service, bypassing Safari or Instapaper as intermediaries. If that service works then others, e.g. Take Plain Note [Command-(] and Take Rich Note [Command-)], would also be available.
I just subscribe to the feeds that I want to archive to DEVONthink on a regular basis directly in DEVONthink. As a side note, any workflow that you might come up with now using Reeder will possibly be obsolete in the next 6 weeks anyway as Google Reader goes away on July 1.
Direct subscription wins if you don’t need synching, etc. between clients. I do that with NetNewsWire (plus a few feeds in DtPO) because it’s still acceptable keeping desktop and mobile usage separate. And I have others in Safari’s feeder extension that are relevant for that context.
Current plan is to continue its development after Google Reader closes:
People using clients apps from developers switching to the same GR replacement on every supported platform will generally be least impacted. Hopefully any pain of losing the broader client interoperability that Google Reader’s service has provided will be relatively short lived.
I’d eventually like to sync selected feeds between certain platforms/devices if a (trust)worthy non-GR solution emerges but there’s no urgency.
Greg-Jones is correct that a direct-to-DTP solution would be best if (and its a big “if”) I didn’t need to sync between fixed and mobile devices. I do alot of my reader on the iPad and so something that keeps it all together and harmonized is critical.
I suspect, when all the Google dust settles, that Reeder will still be the reader of choice. It will just pull aggregated feeds from a new source.
SJK: Where is this “Capture Web Archive” service you mentioned. I did command-% (using shift to get the %) and got nothing. I also checked through my installed services and didn’t see it. Finally, I wen to DTP’s get services function and didn’t see something that matched. If I could be in Reeder and hit a command-??? and it would send it to DTP, I’d be in heaven.
The Services to capture a selected area of a Web page (or a text rendition by Reader) work in Safari, DEVONagent Pro and DEVONthink’s browser – but neither Chrome nor Firefox can properly handle OS X Services, so they don’t work in Chrome or Firefox.
Note that I said that a workflow using Reeder might become obsolete, not that Reeder would become obsolete. Related to this, one might have to wonder if the Instapaper RSS feed option might also undergo changes with the new ownership.
Bill - Thanks for pointing that out. I played around a little bit with it and it does work. It’s not elegant though. The text comes through as a web-archive, but it’s unformatted and not very readable. If I select all and then do the import, I get all the formatting, but can’t use the “Instapaper” formatting within DTP that other web archives enjoy.
I’m really frustrated by this… In every solution I try there is a nice, green and black elephant head taunting me. I am desperately trying to avoid that as the ultimate solution to my workflow woes.
Can it really be this hard to create a “send to Devonthink” button that works like the other guys’ does?
Look it up on MacUpdate and you’ll find your answer is ‘yes’. It is not a trivial matter to capture web content in its exact form and have it remain editable and non-proprietary. (This last part is extremely important and where Elephant-Boy fails miserably with their data.)
Screenshots are easy. Editable, open, perfectly formatted webshots are not.
Well, if nothing else this discussion has prompted me to seek out an alternative to Google Reader. The solution I have settled on (for now) is Fever, hosted on my existing web hosting account. It appears to do most everything I need from a reader service (doesn’t solve the issues in this thread, however).
Fever allows you to create a “service” and enter a URL that it will execute. For example, sending something to Instapaper is: instapaper.com/edit?url=%u&title=%t&summary=%e. You can also assign a shortcut key.
Is there a way to use this URL capability to send something to DTP? This would require a far greater understanding of the inner workings of DTP than I possess.
