Script to insert filename and group path

[fkoutsopoulos]

If the recipient doesn’t use DT, by looking at the group path s/he will know the source of that particular note.
It’s not that hard as a concept. Say you are researching on WW1 and the Asia Minor Campaign. You browse the archival catalogues and you find that particular archive:

This is the archive of Greece’s Primeminister’s Political Office for the period of 1917-1928. It is located on The Greek General State Archives, Central Branch in Athens. As we can see, that archive contains 1029 folders (φάκελοι), 94 log books (υπηρεσιακά βιβλία), 9 maps (χάρτες), 6 electoral rolls (εκλογικούς καταλόγους) etc. Those folders are also stored in boxes. You visit that facility in Athens, and after asking the archivists for that particular archive, they bring it to you box by box, folder by folder to study it. You start taking notes, one note per thought, usually paraphrasing its content. The name of each note is actually a mini summary of its content, so skimming through a bunch of them gives you an idea of its content, without having to open them. That works really well in searches, smart groups etc. Each note you take it is stored inside DT. If you use my approach, that means that the group path should look something like this:

Path: DTdatabase/ Greek General State Archives/ Athens Branch/ Primeminister’s Political Office/ Box32/ Folder567/ Subfolder567-21C/

If you follow this workflow and you insert that group path inside the rtf, that means that anyone who receives that particular note can see its source. It is app-agnostic. For example the guys working on cartography in the research team can take those notes, even converted to txt files if they please them, and work in a linux environment.

By following that approach you can also tag those notes and work on topics and thematics without worry about the source. If you exclude the groups they are originally stored from classification&see also (so to remain static and not classify anything in them by mistake), you can replicate them in other groups and so on and so forth, and in general work with them as you please. So, that particular groups structure represents the physical store location of the archive you took notes of, ie the source, and the tag structure represent the conceptual structure of your research.

Regarding metadata, I am not sure that the DT custom metadata follow the rtf file in another app/environment. That’s why, for example, I use the copyright field to store the date of the referenced note in YYYYMMDD format. For purposes that the note is from a document of say 1922, but it is mentioning an issue took place in 1919, by tagging I could have that note in the topic of that 1919 issue, and by applying a label named “expost” I can see that this someone was talking about that issue in later temporal context.

I don’t use the auto-classify options of DT, but I do like the “see also” sometimes. Putting that group path inside the note though may introduce somekind of issues crippling “classify&see also”, like false-positives i’m afraid. But I haven’t yet been able to formulate a better workflow.

I am really open to hear any suggestions and/or criticisms! If you can think of a better approach, or even some tips, honestly I’ll be more than happy to hear about it

Thank you all for your time!

[rkaplan]

That makes it more clear.

But it seems to me that your tags have two different roles- both physical store and conceptual structure.

It seems to me a clearer approach would be to save the physical location in a custom metdata field. Then have your script combine the filename and physical location and place it in at the beginning of the file.

[fkoutsopoulos]

Hey, thank you for taking time to read that particular thread

Your approach is actually valid, and I can see its merits. So, you just start taking notes and stored where? In the inbox I presume, right? In such scenario how do you manage not to keep adding stuff and cluttering the inbox? As far as I understand, you cannot store directly items on tags in DT.

[BLUEFROG]

@fkoutsopoulos

s far as I understand, you cannot store directly items on tags in DT.

That is correct. Tags contain a reference to the item in the database, not the item itself.

[rkaplan]

@fkoutsopoulos

Your approach is actually valid, and I can see its merits. So, you just start taking notes and stored where? In the inbox I presume, right?

That is completely up to you.

You could do it in the inbox.

You could have a Group called “New Documents for Analysis” - keep them there as long as you want or do not want. Then move or replicate them elsewhere at a later date.

You could use tags to indicate the status of a particular document.

Or you could move the documents among different groups to track their status.

There are infinite other workflow solutions - none right, none wrong. Play with it and figure out what works for you.

[chrillek]

Thank you for the thorough explanation. I actually had missed out the group path part of it before. And yes, metadata will disappear between file system changes, eg if you move a file from macOS to Linux.

With the exception of Markdown files, where you can put metadata in the file in a structured way (different from RTF). Which has also the advantage that support for it is far bigger than for RTF. I stopped using Linux long ago, but I doubt that RTF is relevant there at all.

@fkoutsopoulos

you insert that group path inside the rtf,…. It is app-agnostic

Not quite: You need an app that can read/write RTF. For MD, a simple text editor is sufficient. Not to mention that it’s easier to work with MD in a programmatic way.