Script to replace text in given selection of records

DEVONthink Automation
1

I’m looking for a script to replace some text with some other text in the contents of all records of the current selection (e.g. a Smart group with all Markdown documents).

Is there anything ready-made for this? I looked at the Rename script, but this only changes at the names of records not the content…

Another thing I found in forum is that I can modify the files in the database bundle with an external tool/editor, but this was a post from 2009 - is this still valid?

I guess a DT-builtin Applescript is the safer alternative…

2

Here’s a script based on the “Replace text in names” script. Warning: This can’t be undone.


-- Replace Text in Plain Text & Markdown documents
-- Created by Christian Grunenberg Tue May 16 2017.
-- Copyright (c) 2017. All rights reserved.

tell application id "DNtp"
	try
		set this_selection to the selection
		if this_selection is {} then error "Please select some contents."
		
		repeat
			set search_string to display name editor "Replace Text" info "Enter text to find:"
			if search_string is not "" then exit repeat
		end repeat
		
		set replacement_string to display name editor "Replace Text" info "Enter replacement text:"
		
		set od to AppleScript's text item delimiters
		repeat with this_item in this_selection
			set this_type to ((type of this_item) as string)
			if this_type is "markdown" or this_type is "text" then
				set current_text to plain text of this_item
				if current_text contains search_string then
					set AppleScript's text item delimiters to search_string
					set text_item_list to every text item of current_text
					set AppleScript's text item delimiters to replacement_string
					set new_item_text to text_item_list as string
					set plain text of this_item to new_item_text
				end if
			end if
		end repeat
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to od
	on error error_message number error_number
		if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink Pro" message error_message as warning
	end try
end tell
2 Likes
3

I’ll check it out. Thanks for this.

4

I’m interested in such script as well for potential future use, please let the forum know whether it works for you!

5

Do I understand correctly that the purpose of this script is to alter text in more than one document within a Group? This is something I would have occassional use for and I hve tried it but nothing appeared to have happened. I may, of course, have misinterpreted the purpose or executed it incorrectly. To run the script I selected all the items, (all .rtf’s) and then ran the script.

6

The script supports only plain text and Markdown.

7

That would explain it then! Thanks for your quick response. :slight_smile:

8

Finally I got around to the Replace script - and it doesn’t work for me.

Here my steps what have I done to use it:

  • Saved the script in the script editor as “Replace in Text Records.scpt” in the DEVONthink script folder
  • Selected in DEVONthink two Markdown documents - one containing the word “modular”, one without this word.
  • Selected the script in DEVONthink’s script menu.
  • Waited…
  • Cleared selection and selected the document which had contained “modular” and put the document in edit mode, but it still contains the word “modular”.

Any idea what’s going wrong?

9

What did you enter in the dialogs??

10

Ups, missed that step:

In “Enter text to find” I type “modular”,
in “Enter replacement text” I type “compartmentalised”.

11

Relaunch DEVONthink and run it again.

12

Restarted DTPro - but does not better it.

13

I just saw in the script that the type strings “markdown” and “text” are lower case, but in DT the Kind is capitalised - does this make a difference?

14

Kind and Type are not the same thing.

I am running Criss’ script as is on a Markdown document and it’s changing the word as expected. Note the string to match is case-sensitive.

15

Just send you via email a screencast of what I’m doing - maybe this sheds light on the issue.

16

Well, I have restarted my machine, restarted DTPro, but still the script doesn’t do any text change for me (still on 2.9.11). I hope other people have more luck.

For my bulk editing needs I’m now rather thinking of changing the underlying files in the file system with a bulk editor…

17

Why? You should update to 2.9.12.

18

Because of this:

19

Just for the record:

The script does not work for me even with 2.9.12. Something must go wrong in my environment.

20

Does something like this exist to do a “bulk edit” or bulk replace of metadata in a selection of multiple documents of any type?

What might be very nice is an option for “Paste from Clipboard” as a placeholder in a Smart rule - but I do not think this is available currently.