When creating an annotation on a document (e.g., a PDF file) using the Annotations dropdown arrow in the Annotations & Reminders inspector, the file that’s created has an empty value in the DEVONthink URL metadata field.
The manual for DEVONthink 3.7 on p. 33 implies (at least to my mind) that the URL should point to the document being annotated:
Is the URL field of the annotation document supposed to point back to the PDF document being annotated, if the annotation is created in the Annotations & Reminders inspector? Or do I misunderstand what is intended?
(Note that this is different from my previous questions here and here, which referred to URLs in the Finder comments box and not the URL field. Also, I know about the fact that the annotation document itself can contain a backlink to the annotated document. This is about something else.)
The annotation file does show a link back to the PDF being annotated in the Properties/Annotations/Link inspector. But I agree with you, the manual suggests it should (also) show up where you are asking about.
Then, I would like to argue that making an annotation file’s URL point to the thing being annotated is analogous to the other uses of the URL field in DEVONthink. For example, a bookmark is a file that describes a URL, correct? Well, an annotation file is something that describes another thing, so in my mind, it’s pretty similar.
Having the URL point to the annotated document would not only be useful from the standpoint of additional metadata enriching the annotation; it would also allow the use of the ⌘controlu shortcut to jump to the annotated document. IMHO this would be very handy. For example, in editiing an annotation file in one window, it would let us instantly open the annotated item in another window via the shortcut.
