Update on my previous update: As it happens, this morning, I identified two sites I want to explore. I’ve been thinking I need to become more active in my local community, so I found sites for local Rotary Clubs, and made a note to review them later. I didn’t use my read-it-later app for those at all; I dropped the link into my task manager. And not in the “puttering around” section, but in the main part, where I put things I actually plan on doing.
1 Like
You are right! LOL!
Yes I mean Kill the Newsletter.
Just a typo.
1 Like
I do something similar. The line is hard to define, but by putting an article in a reading list, I’m saying the reading is the primary point, and I don’t mind if I never act on it or if I don’t act on it until much later.
When it goes in my task list, the action is the point and the reading material merely supports that. In the rotary example, I might ultimately decide to just call and visit without reading the article, and that’d be totally fine.
1 Like
Possibly not the best place to put this, but I finally improved my Reader → DT highlights saving. I customized the export template to have a good filename as the top, then split the export into the first line and the rest of it to make a markdown file that goes into the DT inbox. Just hit the hyperkey right before archiving the article.
1 Like
Posting a bit more detail, after some tweaking. This is a big friction reduction for me since I previously had been saving too many whole articles or papers in DT, which would clutter search and classification, when I just needed a few important facts or anecdotes.
There’s still an issue with the clipboard not always updating, so I’m in the habit of hitting hyperkey+j twice. It’s potentially related to secure clipboard if it’s not a bug in Reader’s copy shortcut.
This template handles a bigger variety of text contained in a single highlight and keeps comments/tags with the quoted highlight, and line breaks between quotes correctly
Highlights from {{ title }} - {{ author }}
# {{ title }}
## Metadata
- Author: {{author}}
- Category: {{category}}
{% if document_note -%}
- Document Note: {{document_note}}
{% endif -%}
{% if tags -%}
- Document Tags: {% for tag in tags %}{{tag}} {% endfor %}
{% endif -%}
{% if url -%}
- URL: {{url}}
{% endif -%}
## Highlights
{%+ for highlight in highlights %}
{% set text_lines = highlight.content.split('\n') %}
{% for line in text_lines %}> {{ line }}
{% endfor %} {% if highlight.note -%}(*{{highlight.note}}*) {% endif -%}{% if highlight.tags -%}{% for tag in highlight.tags %}#{{tag}} {% endfor %}{% endif -%}
{% if true %} {% endif %}
{% endfor %}
This populates the URL field of the pasted highlights in DT so it’s easy to scan/refer back to/automate in other ways.
function performsmartrule(records) {
var app = Application("DEVONthink 3");
app.includeStandardAdditions = true;
records.forEach (r => {
const theText = r.plainText();
if (theText !== "") {
// Regular expression for finding a URL
const regex = /https?:\/\/[^\s]+\.[^\s]+/;
const match = theText.match(regex);
if (match) {
r.url = match[0];
}
}
})
}
Nice. Before Christmas I set up a non-scripted system to improve my highlights capture as well.
I no longer use Obsidian “for anything”, but it has a good Readwise integration, so I decided to set it up solely for handling all my Readwise highlights as markdown. I’ve then got that folder indexed in DT.
I still have a manual task at the end of that, but I find it to be a worthwhile step: I import the indexed Obsidian/Readwise markdown files into my database, add any final comments (or not), and file in the correct place.
I’ve taken to just leaving Obsidian permanently open on my Mac, and so the files index pretty much real-time. I never go in Obsidian, because I interact with the files in DT and Obsidian is basically just connector between Readwise and DT.
Like you, I was trying to eliminate the need for original files in DT when they really weren’t needed. (I still have some, of course - I’ve also added a couple new tags that indicate if the original article is also in DT, but I tend to only add this if the whole article is important.)
Edited to add: for anyone considering either my approach or @cornchip’s approach, it’s really worth thinking about how you want your files customised, because Readwise has some great customisation options to ensure you only export to markdown the info you need.
2 Likes
I agree the act of reading books/epubs is very different from articles. I’m really liking setting Reader into the page turn mode for the former and scrolling mode for the latter. I also separate in time what types of things I will be reading to keep the clear distinctions of how I read.
You do know you can change how the app displays stuff on the dashboard right? I have mine set to show me the continue reading list on top with articles and books below that. You could set it to only show the continue reading set to hide everything new.
What are you using instead of Obsidian? (Pardon me if you’ve already answered that.)
Yep, mine is set up with continue reading at the top, then my shortlist, then the rest of my saved articles.
I use my read-it-later list as a maybe-read-it-later list. I should be more mindful about that.
1 Like
I pulled the trigger and resubscribed to Inoreader. I just like the Web interface so, so much. Ugly but super-functional.
Oh, Inoreader, why can’t I quit you?
I’m a DevonThink (DT) user and just write my markdown in their ecosystem.
It’s mostly due to workflow, not a reflection on Obsidian. I sort most my files into topic-based folders, and some of them get quite niche. I prefer to have markdown notes in the same folders as other files on the same topic. Obsidian introduced a level of separation between sources and notes I didn’t like. That’s just personal preference though.
It’s also why for my Obsidian/Readwise integration (still running, it’s great!), I import the markdown files from Obsidian and move them into my databases. I put them all in their correct folders. But I can see many users would probably run the integration like I do and miss that last step of importing and filing. I know lots of people think folders are old-fashioned now and prefer to navigate by tags or search (not a value judgement, we all have our preferred way of doing things!).
2 Likes
I was a heavy DevonThink user and switched to Obsidian a couple of years ago. I am slowly integrating DT with Obsidian. Haven’t done much with that yet.
DevonThink does some things easily that are tricky in Obsidian.
