Sidenote

A useful application is Sidenote (chatelp.org/?s=Sidenote). This sits in the left or right side of your screen, and pops up when your mouse hits the side you choose. It is a collection of rich text notes that you can write in and use for things to do etc. Very handy.

Sidenote stores its RTFD files in ~/.sidenote/notename.rtfd, so you can link to the folder (/users/your_username/.sidenote) from your database. If it were possible to edit them directly, that would be perfect, but in the meantime, it provides a way to quickly take notes outside of DT and and have them available in DT next time you look. (You might need to use the File>Synchronize command first).

Cheers, Euan.

Actually, it seems you can’t link to a folder from DT? You can at least link to the individual files though. If you can’t access them from the DT File>Link menu, create a shortcut to the folder on your desktop and you’ll be able to see the RTFD files.

Adding external files/folders and synchronizing will be more reliable in DT Pro 1.1 & DT Personal 1.9.7 (both will be available at the end of the month).

Checked out Sidenote – like Yojimbo, the advantage seems to be the relative ease of creating or viewing a note when the note application is not foremost. Of course, it does not seem to scale at all well.

I am hoping to see DT improve in this area – even being able to float an individual note window would be great. Not so much interested in floating the whole DT window – again, I’m interested in keeping a bit of DT info available while being active in another app.

I use DEVONnote for that. A DEVONnote window can float over any other application window for notetaking, then minimized to the Dock until needed again.

Needless to say, it’s highly compatible with DEVONTHINK Pro. :smiley:

Why not simply make it a feature of DTPro? Seems that it should have most of the useful features of its less powerful sibling.

I completely agree. I do not want to have to have multiple programs open (using up valuable RAM, especially when DT Pro is eating up most of it) when I could do it with one. I used to use Hog Bay Notebook just for this purpose—to have a very simple, clean, floating window around when moving between files and programs. Now I use Apple’s Stickies, which I leave collapsed at the top of my window to take quick notes. What I really want and need is to be able to have a floating simple text view of a DT Pro file so that I don’t need to have more programs open and since most of my notes need to be in my Dt Pro db to begin with.

In the meantime, I use stickies and copy and paste stuff as needed. Cumbersome, but it works.

I agree that I wouldn’t want to float the entire db window. Just a simple, clean text view following me around where I could dump info and take notes when moving around. This would seem to be an idea compatible with Dt Pro’s function as information manager.

Just my $.02!

Alexandria

Thanks for the feedback - hopefully there will be both simplified and floating windows in v2.0 available.

Christian, you are at this moment my most favorite person.:smiley: Even if it doesn’t make it into the first release (which I hope it does!), just to know it’s ‘on the books’ is great.

Thanks for letting us know!

Alexandria

I second (or is that a third?) this feature.

I’m very much looking forward to the 2.0 release!

:slight_smile:

Hi Euan,

I’m not seeing the folder for Sidenotes. I did a search and no folder came up. I also tried searching for file names that matched the sidenotes I’d created. I was gleaning from this that each note was stored as an RTFD that could be linked. What am I missing?

Alexandria

Use EasyFind from DevonTech and search for invisable files. The folder in question is hidden by that period in front of the name. EasyFind w/ find the location and path for you. Here is the path from my laptop: /Users/bsprague/.sidenote

As you might guess it traces the “users” folder… “bsprague” is my account on the laptop… and finally the invisable folder .sidenote

Hope that helps.

-bob

One more thing… you will create a folder in DTP… I called mine “Sidenote”. In the info box of this folder you will paste the path. Close that and use the Sync command under file… The folder will fill with the files from Sidenote. They are all RTFDs. The Sync only works one way (you may already know that…). When you want to update; it must be done manually by using the Sync command. That may be more detail than you need… I don’t mean to insult your experience with DTP.
-bob :slight_smile:

Bob,

Many thanks! I used EasyFind (had it but never had really seen a use for it before) and was able to create a sync folder for sidenote files in DT. I also replicated the individual files to go where I need them in the db. That way I can sync them all at one time and still have them show up where I need them. This could really work! And Sidenote keeps all the files together and out of the way.

Still would like that simple floating window option in DT. :slight_smile: But this is a very neat solution and will definitely add to the ease of my workflow. Very nice!!

Alexandria

PS Now why doesn’t spotlight offer an option to find invisible files? I tried the suggestion in Mac Help to find invisible files and it didn’t work. But EasyFind found the sidenote folder immediately, and I was even able to open the folder and access the files within. Another question, why did the developer of Sidenote decide to create a hidden folder in the first place! I’m not expecting answers, but it seems pretty of cumbersome to have to do all this just to get to the rtfds.

I’ve been doing something similar for awhile, just using textedit.

My reason wasn’t so much for input into DT, but rather as four files of ‘global’ information that I could link to and be sure that that information would remain constant in any dtp db I happened to be in. It took me a long time to split up my databases but now that I have, and until DTP can open more than one at a time, having some ‘globals’ that remained identical was important.

If you link to individual files, you don’t have to synchronize, but you do have to link to each one rather than using a folder.

Not sure what you mean here. I find that, in order to update the text in DT with the text in Sidenote, I have to sync whether I have linked to the individual file or to the entire folder. Could you explain further? Thanks.

Alexandria

I don’t think this is true. You have to synchronise for both at present. I’m under the impression this may change in the future.

Euan.

Yes, that is what I understood as well. Thanks, Euan and Bob, for the Sidenotes tip. Very helpful.

Alexandria

Hmm, well it works for me. Until I checked out sidenote and tried it the way you described I’d never used Synchronize in my life. I didn’t even know where it was.

I just ‘launch path’ from the linked item in DT, which goes to the rtf and pops up TextEdit. Make a few changes, save in txtedit, and the next time I look at it in DT, it shows all the changes. I usually just leave open the file in textedit for daily mods. As long as it’s saved, DT reflects the changes.

Oooh, triple nested quotes. Scary. :open_mouth:

That’s not fully correct - you’re using linked files/folders and therefore DT uses of course the latest external file to display the document.

But if you need searching, see also, classify, concordance etc., then you should index the files/folders and then you have to use synchronize to keep the index up-to-date.

For example, here’s a simple script to index the Sidenote folder and to automatically synchronize the folder:


property pPath : "~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink Pro/Sidenote.scpt"

on run
	tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
		try
			set theGroup to indicate "~/.sidenote"
			set attached script of theGroup to pPath
		end try
	end tell
end run

on triggered(theRecord)
	tell application "DEVONthink Pro" to synchronize record theRecord
end triggered

Note: Save this script at the path specified by the property pPath or change the property if necessary. In addition, indexing & synchronizing of v1.1 will be more reliable.