Hi. I’ve just upgraded to DTP 2 and I’d like to find a way to capture selected text as RTFD from Google Chrome, which is my default browser.
I can capture an RTFD from Safari by dragging selected text to the Sorter; but my dragging text to the Sorter from Google Chrome gives me plain text.
Google Chrome lets me capture a web archive via the “Clip to DEVONthink” bookmarklet, which I can then process to RTFD inside DTP; but the capture includes the whole page, not just the selection.
Services -> DTP -> Take Rich Note is unavailable from inside Chrome (but it is available in Safari).
Both Chrome and Safari give me plain text when I capture a note via the “Clip to DEVONthink” bookmarklet or by dragging selected text to the DTP icon in the dock.
Have I missed a way to capture an RTFD from within Google Chrome, without my attempting an AppleScript?
I know that there are a number of bookmarklets that come with DEVONthink and I’m not sure which one you are using. But the “Clip to DEVONthink” bookmarklet should give you the option of saving the selection in several different formats. The options are at the bottom of the dialog. Choose “Note” and all you will get is the selection.
Also FYI though you do get the whole page with the web archive the selection is stored as a spotlight comment (Tools -> Show Info). Highlight the new web archive entry and go to the Comments -> Assemble script to extract the selection into a separate entry.
I’ve tried the Selection bookmarklet as well as Clip To DEVONthink. Both give me plain text. I’ve reread the help page on bookmarklets and discovered that it mentions that Clip To DEVONthink produces a text file; so I’m assuming the bookmarklet is not designed to produce RTFD. I think I’m going to have to resort to AppleScript.
I’ve never installed Google Chrome, because it’s not a Cocoa-based browser and is unaware of OS X Services. That’s why you can’t get RTFD clippings from Google Chrome (only plain text). Rich text captures are easy with Safari, DEVONagent and the built-in browser in DEVONthink.
Bill,
you are kind of wrong. If you mark a text in the location bar in chrome and right click, you actually get services, despite it being not a cocoa-based browser…
so i guess it is just a matter of time until chrome implements services for the main body of the application…
A strange thing happend. A week ago I could clip selections from Chrome over the secondary mouse menu and they were saved as rtf-files in DT. But now its gone and I can only save the selections as plain text - without images and links.
But they seem not to work with Chrome.
Is there anybody who can rewrite the AppleScript of these scripts for using with Chrome or provide any other solution to clip selections in rtf from Chrome?
I stand corrected. Apparently Chrome does use WebKit.
Perhaps I’m single-minded in selection of my tools when I’m capturing information from the Web to my DT Pro Office databases. As I generally use rich text capture from selected areas of pages, I stick with browsers that let me capture the selection with the simple Services keyboard shortcut ‘Command-)’. That works in Safari, DEVONagent and DEVONthink’s own browser. (DEVONagent provides more options and capture modes than does Safari, as it’s designed as a companion to DEVONthink applications.)
Sometimes an article is split among several Web pages, as is common for long articles on the New York Times site. I like the new ‘Reader’ icon in Safari, which will sequentially download the text from all the pages. When that’s finished, I click in the Reader text panel and press in sequence ‘Command-A’ and ‘Command-)’. Nice! Not always perfect, as I often need to independently copy citation information from the Web page and paste it into the note in the database.
I expect that in time the developers will tweak DEVONthink’s tools to work as well as possible for Chrome users.
Thanks for this thread. I’ve slowly but surely switched most of my browsing to Chrome. I’m not exactly sure why. I suppose it’s the ability to search google from the URL bar and the fact that the program opens so darn quick and never crashes…
I too would like to take Rich Note using the services menue from inside Chrome.
I’m afraid sjk is right. There’s nothing DEVONtechnologies can do on our end.
OS X Services are useful to achieve interoperability between applications, as in the case of easy capture of rich text clippings from a browser into DEVONthink.
I have no idea whether or not it would be a simple matter to make Chrome fully Services-compliant. In the case of Firefox, it seems to have been a difficult problem.
In any case, the developers of another application are more likely to attempt to respond to feature requests from their user community, than from a relatively niche software company such as DEVONtechnologies.
Making Chrome more interoperable with other applications through Services would benefit the users of many other applications, in addition to DEVONthink users.
I am a long-time Chrome user from Linux…just started using MacBook Pro and DTP…
Based on the learning gleaned here and messing around with clipping stuff from Chrome, I’ve just made Safari my default browser…still using Chrome, too, but not for researching and clipping stuff. I prefer RTFD over Web Archive.
