Dynamic Template Calendar/Planner

[LynuSBell 11]

Hi,

In one of my project, I need an editorial calendar.

I fell in love with Evernote and was wondering if there would be a way to make a dynamic template?

You would give the month and it would put the right day number (example Monday 6th, January 2020 and so on).

From the same principle, you could make a weekly calendar by specifying the first day of the week. For now I do this under Google Sheet with a formula. I give it the first day of the month and it fills everything. But it is not ideal as a template and I constantly have to move back and forth between Sheet and Evernote.

Anyway to do this? With a third-party tool or an Apple Script?

 

Best,

 

[gazumped 10,701]

Hi.  Any kludge with Evernote would be just that: a workaround that's almost certainly more complicated than just using a link in Evernote to jump to and from a saved calendar in Sheet or elsewhere.  I'm a strong believer in finding an app that deals most efficiently with an issue - like mind mapping or calendaring - and using that to process your data.

You could use an Evernote calendar template as a well-laid-out table of contents note and set up Filterize (or another automation app) to populate each day with any tasks tagged with that date,  or with reminders due that day - in fact a note tagged <20200124> (or more efficiently <2020> <M01> <D24>) could appear in day, month and year templates for any given client,  or for a group of clients.  -The extreme case of a year display for all clients,  potentially being a very large note indeed!

 

[DTLow 5,728]

5 hours ago, LynuSBell said:

You would give the month and it would put the right day number (example Monday 6th, January 2020 and so on).
...Anyway to do this? With a third-party tool or an Apple Script?

 

Applescript is the tool I use

A script generates my daily journal note starting with a template and putting in the date and so on

 

>>For now I do this under Google Sheet with a formula. I give it the first day of the month and it fills everything. But it is not ideal as a template and I constantly have to move back and forth between Sheet and Evernote

Another script generates my daily task list, using my task notes in Evernote 
and generating a gantt timeline view in  a spreadsheet, putting in the dates and so on
- the entries under Project/Task are note links; making it easy to navigate to the note in Evernote

[LynuSBell 11]

8 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Applescript is the tool I use

A script generates my daily journal note starting with a template and putting in the date and so on

Another script generates my task list, using my task notes in Evernote      
and generating a gantt timeline view in  a spreadsheet, putting in the dates and so on

I know you love AppleScript  ha ha!
I am trying to learn the language that comes with AppleScript but not there yet.

I know programming a bit so that helps but the syntax is quite different.

Do you know if there is an interactive website with projects to learn Apple Script?

[DTLow 5,728]

14 minutes ago, LynuSBell said:

Do you know if there is an interactive website with projects to learn Apple Script?

I don't know of a website, but if you know the basics you have a good start
My best learning tool is a web search for script examples - all my questions are answered this way
If you have a question, feel free to post in the Mac forum and we'll do try to answer

I posted some basic information in the note linked here

 

[LynuSBell 11]

@DTLow I started scripting and I think I got some basics looking at other people's scripts but still some parts are giving me troubles.

For now, I am making a script that will open all the tools that I need as well as created two notes from two templates.

I manage to create the notes but:

1. They do not keep the layout of the tables. The column gets squeezed to the left.

 

The content of screenshots don't match but you get the idea.

 

2. Impossible to assign or unassign tags. I am not sure why Evernote gives me an error message there.

I tried different syntax there... I don't get it

 

The script

Get Ready to Write Facts.scpt

 

[LynuSBell 11]

@DTLow

[DTLow 5,728]

On 1/25/2020 at 8:41 AM, LynuSBell said:

They do not keep the layout of the tables. The column gets squeezed to the left.

I have the same problem with tables - something happened when Evernote switched to the new improved table processing
I haven't looked into it; I simply reset the column width manually

>>Impossible to assign or unassign tags. I am not sure why Evernote gives me an error message there.

Your coding level might be exceeding my limited skills
Do you have the exact statement the code aborted on?

One point is that "Y2020" is not a tag - It's the value of the name field in a tag record

[LynuSBell 11]

global tags_to_assign
global the_tags
set tag1 to ("tag: \"Y2020\"")
set tag2 to ("tag \"facts for OF\"")
set tag3 to ("tag \"OceanFact\"")
set tag4 to ("tag \"Instagram\"")

set tags_to_assign to {tag1, tag2, tag3, tag4}


set the_tags to (the tags of template_note)

 Here: 
assign the_tags to new_note
assign tags_to_assign to new_note

I tried different format, none of them works.

And I simply adapted code I found on internet. I am a total beginner but I have some basics in coding other languages.

[DTLow 5,728]

Let's start with    assign "Y2020" to new_note

Change this to     assign tag "Y2020" to new_note
AppleScript will look up the tag named Y2020 and retrieve the tag id

[LynuSBell 11]

11 hours ago, DTLow said:

Let's start with    assign "Y2020" to new_note

Change this to     assign tag "Y2020" to new_note
AppleScript will look up the tag named Y2020 and retrieve the tag id

That works!

I tried to fix the list of tags the same way but no, didn't work. I guess I have to loop over the elements of the list or something like this.

For the table width... I think I know a workaround! In filterize, you can apply a template following the addition of a tag and it keeps the formatting so far.

So technically, if you assign a tag with AppleScript first and apply a template following this tag with Filterize it should work!

I haven't tried yet and it is getting late but it should fix this.

As you need to wait for filterize to refresh maybe you can tell Filterize to add a tag when it applies the template, and AppleScript to wait until this specific tag has been added to the note.

 

 

[LynuSBell 11]

I think there could be a workaround for the dynamic Planner.

Best so far is to prepare it in Google Sheets or Numbers and then copy-paste the table.

I am not sure why some columns do not keep their original format but so far, it is doing a good job.

The dates are formulas in the sheet. I enter the first day of the month (the one for my calendar) and google sheet is doing the rest.
Surprisingly, it is keeping the conditional formatting (not shown on the screenshot)

It also keeps the merged cells which is normally something not available in Evernote Tables.

Either I distribute my calendar as a sheet (with dropdown lists, formulas ...etc)

Rest is to find how to script this: copy cells from Google Sheets/Numbers and then paste them inside a note.

@DTLow Do you know if it is possible to copy-paste the formatting of a cell in Evernote (i.e. background color)? So far, I haven't managed. I would like to keep the colors I have.

[LynuSBell 11]

On 1/24/2020 at 12:04 PM, gazumped said:

Hi.  Any kludge with Evernote would be just that: a workaround that's almost certainly more complicated than just using a link in Evernote to jump to and from a saved calendar in Sheet or elsewhere.  I'm a strong believer in finding an app that deals most efficiently with an issue - like mind mapping or calendaring - and using that to process your data.

You could use an Evernote calendar template as a well-laid-out table of contents note and set up Filterize (or another automation app) to populate each day with any tasks tagged with that date,  or with reminders due that day - in fact a note tagged <20200124> (or more efficiently <2020> <M01> <D24>) could appear in day, month and year templates for any given client,  or for a group of clients.  -The extreme case of a year display for all clients,  potentially being a very large note indeed!

 

@gazumped The idea seems interesting but wouldn't you need one ToC per day of the month? And the days would change from months to months, the 1rst of each months being a Monday, Tuesday...etc
Or did I misunderstand your point?

The only I would see this work would be to reduce the amount of information. Let's say use a weekly calendar where you would set a reminder date, Filterize would apply a tag for a specific week to the weekly calendar, add the correct ToC, through a template that would contain one of the 52 ToC fieldtags and add the notes as a table of content.

Either you would need 52 templates each containing one of the ToC Filterize fieldtags, or a way to add the correct tag depending on the reminder date.

[DTLow 5,728]

On 2/2/2020 at 11:52 PM, LynuSBell said:

Do you know if it is possible to copy-paste the formatting of a cell in Evernote (i.e. background color)? So far, I haven't managed. I would like to keep the colors I have.

I tested on my Mac, copying from a numbers spreadsheet.
Formatting was preserved; background colour, merged cells, ...
Column width was jumbled

My approach is to keep the spreadsheet as a note attachment
I update it with Evernote note data using an AppleScript
The screenshot is my tasks spreadsheet

[gazumped 10,701]

33 minutes ago, LynuSBell said:

Or did I misunderstand your point?

Slightly,  I think - I was using the calendar example to illustrate how much simpler it is to use an app than to configure Evernote! 

Have to say I have never tried anything this detailed,  but the saving grace (I think) is that Filterize will update (I also think - haven't tried this) multiple notes if there's a filter which says -effectively- 'list all the notes with this <due date> where you see <this code>'.  So (if you want to take it that far) your 365 date codes appear on notes for 365 days,  52 weeks,  12 months,  and 1 year.  I'd use a spreadsheet to generate date and day information,  and as a source for copy/ paste into notes,  and a 'control' note for Filterize.

Filterize has an interesting (and occasionally frustrating) feature called parameterisation you can use for repetitive filters.  Your actual filter would be more along the lines of 'if any note has a due date from <this table column>,  then apply a tag (and/ or take other actions) from <that row>'

I'll leave it as an exercise for the class to work out whether that's actually feasible - seems to me the finest detail you'd need would be by week: one note split into days,  each with a Filterize <toc> bookmark. 

But again I stress - I'm happily using Google Calendar,  plus a couple of notes for items due,  or past due for today,  and what's coming up in the next 10 days.  That works for me,  and I have no need (or desire) to work out the most effective options for this Filterize kludge!! 

Good luck if you do.  😄