Devonthink and Ulysses

I’ve recently starting using Ulysses for writing my dissertation, because of its latex exporter. Is Devonthink able to index and search Ulysses projects? I’ve imported a Ulysses project and tried to search for terms that are in the project, but Devonthink does not return the file in the search results.

Would be possible to make the Ulysses files searchable in Devonthink? They’re packages containing text files, like Scrivener files, so there are at least no proprietary formats to deal with.

Thanks!

DEVONthink should be able to index (and display) Ulysses files if Ulyyses is supporting Spotlight (and Quick Look). Is anything logged to Window > Log while importing the projects, are you able to convert them to plain text via Data > Convert?

I’d like to piggyback on this thread with somewhat of a tangential issue, albeit a minor one. I’m wondering what would be required to do in order to open a file first created in DEVONthink, specifically a markdown one, with Ulysses and then have what’s written in it automatically saved into the file that is indexed in DEVONthink? It’s really not that big of a deal, but it would be something convenient to have.

Are you using Ulysses 2 or Ulysses 3? I’ll assume it’s Ulysses 3 – but the design is completely different between 2 and 3.

If you create an external folder and index it in DEVONthink, and with that folder “Add External Source” in Ulysses (the same as indexing) then you’ll be setup to do what you want. Say that the folder is D-U Docs. If you create a markdown document inside D-U Docs in DEVONthink, edit, then move it to the indexed folder using the Move To External Folder contextual menu command. Immediately, that document is visible and editable in Ulysses. This works in the opposite direction too. With D-U Docs selected in Ulysses, create a “New Sheet” (same as a document) and it is immediately available in DEVONthink.

It’s nice when things integrate this well.

Thank you korm!! Though I’m guessing that I can’t effectively integrate apps without having to add separate folders each time for both apps, i.e. use Ulysses 3 like using TextEdit on RTF files?

I’m not sure what “each time” is so this answer is probably off base

I have a folder “Ulysses” in Dropbox. I index it in DEVONthink and it is one of my “External Sources” in Ulysses III. Any subfolders I create inside the “Ulysses” Dropbox folder appear instantly in both DEVONthink and Ulysses. I put the folder in Dropbox so that other iOS apps – Daedulus, Editorial, Drafts – can also access those documents. So I can make a document in Editorial on my iPad, save it to one of the subfolders in Dropbox/Ulysses and it’s available to DEVONthink and Ulysses III on the desktop.

I guess we have different workflows. So I’ve taken a screenshot of how I use Dt and posted it below; what I would like to do is use Ulysses to just write files and have it be located in the way that I’ve organized my folders as shown in the screenshot:

Then ignore my posts. They are completely irrelevant to your situation.

You can open a markdown file that is stored in the database in Ulysses - Data > Open With > Ulysses. However, Ulysses III will merely make a copy of that file, put it into the Ulysses “Inbox” (usually this is an iCloud folder) and from that point any edits you make in Ulysses will not appear in DEVONthink – because you’d be editing a copy and not the database’s original.

With Open With, most editors will edit the copy in the database. Not with Ulysses III. That’s why I use the method I described.

Ok, nonetheless I sincerely appreciate your time in considering my posts; at least I’ve got a better understanding of the relationship between Ulysses and Dt. And using Ulysses’ “Quick Export” feature isn’t half bad.

Is there a way to add markdown file support in Dt? The reason why I’m asking is that I can’t return the editable markdown file from Ulysses back to Dt from Ulysses “Quick Export” feature because Dt doesn’t show up in the drop down menu in Ulysses’ “Quick Export” with “markdown” selected.

I create the markdown file inside Dt, open it with Ulysses, do my writing, but I can only export it back into Dt as an RTF file exhibiting the formatting, or as a plain text file with the markdown syntax removed.

I’d like to be able to export the markdown file back into Dt and have the option to reopen it with Ulysses for further edits.

Thanks for the consideration! -A

yea? nay?

I am confused. This sure sounds like a Ulysses problem, not a DEVONthink one.

I’m not sure. I’ve provided screenshots below to show you what I mean.

Ulysses essentially has the same kind of feature that Dt does when it comes to opening files; in Dt, you can select from the list of programs from the “Open With…” command based on the file type and the apps that support that file type.

In Ulysses it’s essentially the same thing but only for the listed formats that a document could be opened/exported as. In all but the markdown format, Dt is listed as an app that Ulysses could directly export the text to in the format selected, so I’m finding it unusual that Dt isn’t listed as an available app for markdown specifically.

In any case here are the screenshots:

No Dt for Markdown:

Dt for HTML format:

Dt for plain text format:

Dt for RTF-Pages format:

Dt for RTF-Word format: