650: Craft Deep Drive

Episodes
43

That may well be the case.

Perhaps the solution would be to store the docs locally on your device if you knew you were going to be accessing apps offline. That’s also a Craft option. But not a very simple approach!

44

PDF Expert will do this (I think even without a subscription), Foxit will also do this (subscription required but it’s not expensive).

45

PDF Expert ist not handling the PDF´s coming from DT3 very well. There are a lot of problems with that, so this app is unfortunately out of the race for me.
Furthermore it seems not to be able to “cut out” a portion (sentence) of an PDF, to insert it as a JPEG into an other document e.g. with pages.
And it seems to be the same with Foxit, what was until now unkown to me.
I had a new look onto GoodNotes.
It has some problems I earlier identified on my search for an App for my PDF-Highlighting/Annotating/Cutting.
First of all, the integration with DTTG is more or less minimum. I can load a PDF from DTTG, and I can safe a Document towards DTTG, but I can not save it as the same Document. I always end up with a duplicate.
Also there is a way to cut out a part of an PDF, and save it as a screenshot. Unfortunately the “Lasso” is only freehand, and I prefer a square I can draw/open over the part I want to cut, to get accurate borders.
Also I can Highlight with GoodNotes, but the Way of adding an annotation is still a big secret to me. Maybe I can find some extra time at the weekend, to solve this miracle.
BTW, is there a way to show the Annotation-Inspector, or something similar working, within DTTG?

46

@Ulli Food for thought, the discourse forum for DT maybe a better venue for you than MPU. The people there will have more experience with DTTG ;-).

FWIW I’m there as well, however you’ve already hit the limits of my knowledge.

47

just curious, in the MPU discussions on craft, notion, obsidian, etc. I wonder why evernote is not included. it can be used in many of the same ways, except for markdown, and it is not that hard to get info back out. it is an established company [a point mentioned several times that one should consider]. it is easy to link notes and there is a keyboard shortcut to grab the link and then paste it. it also has the capability to easily grab essentially any piece of data and store it. Which is a strength several of the other PKM software cannot do or dont do well. it seems evernote would be a quite useful PKM solution for the majority of users. its major drawback to me is one should be selective in putting highly sensitive information in it like SS numbers, etc. or legally restricted info. I have used and do use obsidian by the way and like it but it is not as broadly useful, in my opinion, as evernote. Thoughts are appreciated.

48

PS: a PKM episode on Evernote would be interesting,

2 Likes
49

Perhaps you missed this rather long thread that has been running for the last month or so?

1 Like
50

this is a really well made photo portfolio. I never imagine using Craft this way.

51

yes I had not seen it. it was interesting. thanks for the heads up. I use Devonthink [10 years?] and Evernote [since 2008] and Omnifocus. I still think a PKM episode on Evernote would be interesting to round out the others done already.

52

Thanks @wiredfractal. It has a lot of potential as a web creation tool, but it has gaps that I hope they fill in. The ease of creating web page on a native app without having to upload or sync anything is amazing. Especially when it comes to updating / maintaining a website. You just open up Craft, edit the document with a wonderful user experience, and the webpages are updated in real-time without so much a thought. I do want some more functionality and refinement in this area from the App - as I think they are onto gold here if they realize and harness this use case.

3 Likes
53

Craft really is a beautiful looking app. But every time I see a subscription, :running_man: away :smile:

I’m good with Apple Notes and UpNote (one time fee)

1 Like
54

I’m very careful about investing in a 3rd party apps. Craft is a rare one that made it through. Too many of them go out of business and it creates havoc. With Craft, I make income, it fills a hole that no Apple app fills, it’s a damn great app on the iPad, and I get an educational discount for doing teaching work ⌁

55

My apologies, @ismh86. I thought I remembered you saying documents were not available offline when in fact you specified attachments. Please excuse my poor memory/understanding!

56

It somehow is - but from experience that depends on where you add the attachments and where you opened them.
I e.g. imported a Twitter thread containing images on the iPad and opened the same note on the Mac. The Twitter thread was deleted and on my iPhone I just saw blank images. On the other devices the attachments where cached…

57

This episode exemplifies why I love the deep dives. I use Drafts and Apple Notes for most of my note-taking needs. I have Craft, and have used it for a few specific projects, but never enough to get to grips with all its features – there just isn’t time to explore new apps when I have a solution that kind of works already. After listening to this episode, I feel well equipped to use Craft more and better.

Thanks, David and Stephen - another fine example of why MPU is the podcast that I can’t wait to listen to every week!

4 Likes
58

I’ve started a discussion there with this topic a while ago, but wasn’t able to find a solution for my needs (and wishes :innocent:) there yet.

59

Has anyone tried collaborating on a project using Craft? David mentioned doing this on the podcast, but I’m curious if anyone has any firsthand experience with this. I understand how it works, but I’m curious if anyone has actually collaborated on a project and could speak to Craft’s strengths or weaknesses for teamwork.

60

Great episode! Considering using Craft for most of my writing. Experimenting a bit with the trial version now. My workplace uses Office 365. Most of my notes have for the last two years been saved in OneDrive and written in Word. Not really a fan, but I do have to use some sharing/collaboration with other Word users. Most of my sharing is with finished PDFs shared in Teams though. I already own DevonThink, but not using it at the moment. I also have some stuff in Apple Notes. Considering something like this:

  • Most of my writing i Craft. Some webclips as well. No more Apple Notes. Far less Word.

  • The work of others in DevonThink. Mostly PDF, some docx and maybe some webclips. With links to these from Craft if I have made my own notes from them. Also links from DT to Craft and also to OmniFocus.

  • Might export some finished stuff from Craft to DevonThink. But wish I could edit DT notes in Craft as well. Would have to export again if I changed something.

  • The most difficult thing is that I would still have to use Word for a lot of stuff. That would probably still be saved in OneDrive. Some tables, some stuff for sharing/collaboration. Can see this becoming a little messy.

Any suggestions? Would it be possible to search in both Craft, DevonThink and Finder at the same time?

1 Like
61

I use DT and Obsidian at the same time. For me DT is an archive and search tool. Obsidian is where my notes go.

By analogy - I would keep all my notes in Craft and use DT for stuff I find in the outside world that won’t change. I store academic papers, ebooks and other reading materials I find.

Does this help?

  • Mark
3 Likes
62

Thank you. Sounds about as I had planned it. Biggest problem is that I get another bucket for Office 365 stuff.