Show document contents in view/edit window

DEVONthink Automation
1

OK, I’ve searched through the forums and haven’t found an answer to what I think is a very simple question. In 3 Pane view, it’s easy to have the files contained in a group listed in the top pane. What I haven’t been able to do is select one of those files and have the content shown in the bottom pane. Here’s a little test snippet:

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	set myGroup to create location "/Test Group"
	set myRecord to create record with {name:"Test file", rich text:"Hello there!" & return, type:rtf, tags:"test"} in myGroup
	
	-- In 3 Pane view:
	-- The following line shows the list of docs in the top window pane
	set root of viewer window 1 to myGroup
	
	-- The following line doesn't show the contents in the lower view/edit pane
	-- What are the magic words?? :-)
	set selection of viewer window 1 to record "Test file"
	
end tell

What does one have to do to show content in the bottom pane and not open up a new window with the ‘open window for’ code?

Thanks,
Chuck

2

I’m more than a little confused – why write a script to open 3-pane view? What’s the bigger objective for this?

3

I’m not opening a 3 pane view, I’m always in 3 pane view. I have a script that I keep in the toolbar called ‘Journal’. It creates a new rich text file named with the date. It creates the file in a group named for the year-month such as ‘2013-10’. When Journal creates the file, I’d like to display the files in that group in the top pane and the contents of the newly created note in the bottom pane.

I can’t imagine why a script would be able to display a list of files in a group in the top and then not be able to display the contents of any of them in the bottom??

Thanks,
Chuck

4

This “should” work, but it wrongly opens an excess tab instead of a tab for the designated record. Would be useful if the components of “think window” could be set directly – not possible yet, AFAIK.

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	set myGroup to create location "/Test Group"
	set myRecord to create record with {name:"Test file", rich text:"Hello there!" & return, type:rtf, tags:"test"} in myGroup
	set root of viewer window 1 to myGroup
	open tab for record myRecord in think window 1
end tell
5

Thanks for the open tab idea Korm. I think I have it. Try this:

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	set myGroup to create location "/Test Group"
	set myRecord to create record with {name:"Test file", rich text:"Hello there!" & return, type:rtf, tags:"test"} in myGroup
	
	set root of viewer window 1 to myGroup
	
	open tab for record myRecord in viewer window 1
	close first tab in viewer window 1
	
end tell

It seems to work.

6

@clan47, that is really clever. A good technique to keep in mind.

It could be adjusted to check how many tab there are and close the first n-1 tabs.

7

Thanks Korm, the big thing that still escapes me is how to highlight the file in the upper pane whose content is showing in the lower one. Maybe a future version of DTPO will make this a little more straight forward!

8

@Korm- I figured out an easy way to highlight the active file in the upper pane…clear any labels set for the existing files and set a label for the newly created or changed file:

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	set myGroup to create location "/Test Group"
	set visWin to viewer window 1
	
	tell visWin
		set root to myGroup
		set label of every child in myGroup to 0
		set myRecord to create record with {name:"Test file", rich text:"Hello there!", type:rtf, label:5, tags:"test"} in myGroup
		open tab for record myRecord in visWin
		close first tab
	end tell
	
end tell

….and Bob is your uncle! :mrgreen:

9

Cool. Thanks for sharing :smiley: