DonationCoder.com Software > Clipboard Help+Spell
Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
rjbull:
mouser,
Do these make sense? What I'm getting at is improving CHS as an application for keeping permanent notes, particularly when they're Web clips.
* Add, or re-purpose, a hotkey that will act the same as "Ctrl-C copy to clipboard and add to CHS", except that it will send the clip to a user-defined folder that isn't included in the standard Automatic Filing and cleaning procedure? So that one can easily differentiate clips needed for long-term storage from the commoner transient ones, without having to organise things afterwards? One might have a series of such folders, selected perhaps by right-clicking on the tray icon.
* Offer a configuration option to include the URL on a line at the bottom of a clip, so that when you want to paste the clip into a document, the URL automatically comes along with the text, without needing any extra action?
IainB:
+1 from me for at least considering this idea from @rjbull.
I am likely to spend a good deal of my time just copying stuff and then just pasting stuff into different data/info storage containers - including PIMs - typically from sources such as, for example, web pages, into OneNote, or InfoSelect, or Gmail. This is almost always done using the medium of CHS. Why not leave it in CHS for that to become the de facto free-format PIM database? I can search CHS pretty fast, I can run some SQL commands on it (if I knew the SQL), and it holds plain text, formatted text (in the last copied slot anyway!), and image data...now the full reference from where the clip was copied!
The trouble is, if mouser did that, then I'd be all over him like a bad rash wanting CHS changed to have all sorts of features/functionality that I would need for it to be my PIM. If CHS is going to be further modified, then I'd suggest that maybe we need to sit down and scratch our heads a bit to help mouser uderstand our multiifold needs better.
But this could be reinventing the wheel
For example, rather than try to morph CHS into something it was never intended to be (e.g., a PIM), do we need to consider the idea of developing CHS as (say) a plugin to (say) OneNote, or infoQube, etc. - so that when you copy something with CHS, it automagically pastes it ino the object of our choice, complete with source references? No more copy/paste. - just copy. That really could be a timesaver.
mouser:
I like the two feature requests, and they seem definitely doable without too much trouble.
The first request seems like a very sensible idea.. maybe what is wanted is a both a way to add custom hotkeys to clip and file into a specific folder, and a way to quickly switch the folder where normal clips get filed. Another related option might be a way to quickly set "tags" to be applied to new clips, so that one could set those tags based on the current task you were working on.. which would let you search and make virtual folders out of clips with those tags.
So for the second request, perhaps the easiest way to do it is to have a special paste mode you can engage/disengage where it will do some work to any clip before pasting it (such as to paste extra info like date, url, etc. and optionally run it through a modifier formatter)? does that make sense?
IainB's points are the ones that haunt me.. You see for a while I actually planned CHS to be both a clipboard tool and a note taking tool.. that's why there are some features in CHS that might otherwise seem a bit odd like the ability to customize panel layouts on the main window, and hide/show columns for item modification date, etc.
But CHS never really blossomed into a full note taking application, for a variety of reasons..
It's one of those cases where functionally, it seems like a note taking app and clipboard app share 95% of the same functionality, so it's hard to resist trying to make the program do both things. But the feel of the two tasks is very different, and i'm just not sure it's worth it trying to make CHS into a real note-taking application anymore. My inclination is to say no, and focus on clipboard functionality.
I think we should say that for now CHS should stick to doing clipboard related stuff, and consider features that would improve that.
But that doesn't mean that CHS can't be made to be a better helper for note taking, exactly as Iain was suggesting.
I'd like to hear more thoughts on how CHS can help and work with other proper note taking tools with a nice export feature.
rjbull:
I like the two feature requests, and they seem definitely doable without too much trouble.-mouser (August 22, 2011, 09:44 AM)
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:)
The first request seems like a very sensible idea.. maybe what is wanted is a both a way to add custom hotkeys to clip and file into a specific folder, and a way to quickly switch the folder where normal clips get filed.
--- End quote ---
I wasn't envisaging quick changing of folders, so much as having Ctrl-C continue behaving as it does now, and simultaneously, in parallel, the special hotkey sending clips to the currently-chosen special folder. And maybe choosing the current special folder by an item in the right-click tray menu.
Another related option might be a way to quickly set "tags" to be applied to new clips, so that one could set those tags based on the current task you were working on.. which would let you search and make virtual folders out of clips with those tags.
--- End quote ---
Actually, my suggestions were prompted by a quick play with CintaNotes, and reflecting on how something of its sort would have helped when I was trawling the Web at work for press releases and such to incorporate in current awareness bulletins. These often needed editing, or combining where the same bulletin appeared on more than one site, so I always included URLs in order that clients could go direct to the source if they needed to. From my point of view, I needed a streamlined storage medium, not something that in itself was capable of imposing organisation. The bulletins were monthly, and it would have been useful if clips could have been tagged by date, so that I could group all those for the current month together for pasting into e-mails or text files.
So for the second request, perhaps the easiest way to do it is to have a special paste mode you can engage/disengage where it will do some work to any clip before pasting it (such as to paste extra info like date, url, etc. and optionally run it through a modifier formatter)? does that make sense?
--- End quote ---
Ideally I'd like the clip to look in CHS like it will when pasted into a text editor, but, assembling the data on the way out through the pasting action would be OK. I'm not sure that the details in the pasted clip should be controlled by the current CHS layout as such, but, the column selection certainly looks like it gives all the relevant data one might want to include in the final output. One point, though. If you combine merge clips, for my purposes I'd want all the metadata (if that's the right term) from all the component clips included.
Erm... how do you customize panel layouts? :-[
[Edit 2011-08-25, 14:30] Clarified "combine" as "merge" [/Edit]
IainB:
@mouser:
IainB's points are the ones that haunt me.. You see for a while I actually planned CHS to be both a clipboard tool and a note taking tool.. that's why there are some features in CHS that might otherwise seem a bit odd like the ability to customize panel layouts on the main window, and hide/show columns for item modification date, etc.
But CHS never really blossomed into a full note taking application, for a variety of reasons..
-mouser (August 22, 2011, 09:44 AM)
--- End quote ---
Well, I have read your separate posts where you mention that you had originally considered that CHS could be a note-taking utility. But now - in the light of your comment above - I understand that I was wrong to say (above)that:
For example, rather than try to morph CHS into something it was never intended to be (e.g., a PIM)
--- End quote ---
- that is, it was always intended to be a note-taking tool.
Confession: I have been playing around with and trialling CHS as a PIM for a while now. I started doing this after I began to become interested in the implementation (though it was disabled at the time) of virtual folders in CHS, and your frustratingly terse notes about it. Once you enabled them, I was able to appreciate the potential of using virtual folders and SQL (which latter, in the context of using it in CHS, I am slowly learning about).
Now I begin to understand some of the CHS peculiarities - i.e., why it is the the way it is. This is after watching your 15-minute video (which is a very useful intro., I think), and after taking part in some discussions on CHS, and after reading and re-reading various posts across the DC forum relating to CHS, OCR, and note-taking software.
FWIW, my impression is that what you might have originally intended for CHS could be as much as 6 to 8-tenths complete (estimated) as it stands. I would like to be involved in helping the thing get to a finish.
I always thought CHS to be a strange beast for a "clipboard" proggy - it does quite a lot more than just clipboard. For example, it does "Help & Spell", "virtual folders" - which latter you can set with SQL too, if you want - and it has all those nifty settings under "Options".
The Virtual Folders are very interesting.
I have used them:
As virtul folders - in the way intended. e.g., as "auto-tags".
This enables me to, for example, list all clips from Firefox, or all clips to and from OneNote, or all images clipped via OneNote, or anything with the referece "frog" in the text.
Some examples of features that I would like to see added to CHS:
* Perform OCR on any text in images as they are clipped (similar to ABBY Screenshot Reader, JOCR, r-OCR). (For comparison, images clipped into OneNote are not given an OCR translation, but OneNote does make those images text-searchable.)
* Condition-Action on SQL-operable fields in Virtual Folders - e.g., IF Thing1="X" THEN set Thing2="Y". (Where Thing2 could be a date field, or a text field, an alpha/numeric variable field, or a logical variable, for example.
* View displays (adjustable) of, for example, variable folder names in the RH page, with options for the clips to be arranged below each variable folder name, and clip Notes arranged below each clip.
* Make sticky notes by pinning clips to the desktop.
* Make different types of "Favourite" e.g., one type to flag clips as being "Permanent"; one type to be used to set a "group to be displayed in quick clips display" (you can then choose which group to use/display depending on the work you are doing at the time); one type set as a group to be used as a stack, so that once the stack has been created just how you want it for the specific steps in a particuar operation, you can always instantly restore it from that group.
* Tags - use variable folders as tags.
This implies that your tree view is your categorisation tree. You will need to consider a toggle for showing/hiding inherited clips for parent nodes in the tree. I don't think you really need to add add the Tags feature to CHS as the functionality is probably already there in virtual folders. You might need to dress it up a bit is all.
I would like to go on, but I shall spare you.
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