Copy Zettel as link in DEVONthink

zettelkasten

Following up on my recent article on cleaning up Zettelkasten WikiLinks in DEVONthink, here’s another script to solve the problem of linking notes.

Backing up to the problem. In the Zettelkasten (or archive) - Zettel (or notes) are stored as list of Markdown files. But what happens when I want to add a link to another note into one that I’m writing? Since DEVONthink recognizes WikiLinks, I can just start typing but then I have to remember the exact date so that I can pick the item out of the contextual list that DEVONthink offers as links. Also, if I took that approach I would end up with the same problem of excessive text in the link that I would then have to clean up with the previous script.

Instead, the easier approach is to use AppleScript again, triggered by a Keyboard Maestro macro to extract the UID from the title and put it on the clipboard, ready to go into the note I’m writing. Simple, but small inconveniences amplied over time become impediments to efficient learning and writing.

(*
Copyright © 2020 Alan Duncan

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use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions

tell application id "DNtp"
   set theSelections to the selection
   if theSelections is {} then
      error localized string "Please select at least one document, then try again."
   end if
   repeat with theRecord in theSelections
      set theTitle to name of theRecord
      set the clipboard to "[[" & extractLink(theTitle) of me & "]]"
   end repeat
end tell

on extractLink(theText)
   return do shell script "echo " & quoted form of theText & " | grep -Eo '[0-9]{14}'"
end extractLink

N.B. In order to effectively use links in the form of [[20201207215041]], you’ll need to store the 14 digit timestamp as an alias for the actual Zettel tile. See the previous article that discusses it further or this article by Mark Honomichl on using aliases in a DEVONthink-based Zettelkasten.

References: