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Drag & drop file links?


ruiguerreiro

Idea

Hello to you all,

 

Does anyone know of a way to drag a file from the Finder to an Evernote note and make it a link to the file, not the actual file? I know I can link a word or a picture in a note to a file, that's not what I'm looking for.

Let's say I have a list of video files from a tutorial. I'd like to catalog those video files titles inside an evernote note. I know I can right down all the names in a list and then link them to each of the files manually, but that takes a lot of time, and I was wondering if anyone knows of a faster way to do this.

 

p.s.: I tried Symbolic Links and Aliases, but neither of those worked ;)

 

Thank you so much!

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I have never personally done what you are asking for so I had to do a bit of searching. 
I use Alfred with the Powerpack (http://www.alfredapp.com) part of which includes the ability to easily copy a file path to the clipboard (among 1,897,283 other amazing things). 

 

If you aren't willing to part with the cash for Alfred+Powerpack, perhaps #4 in this guide from CNet will help:

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-copy-a-file-path-in-os-x/

 

This should allow you to right-click any file>services>copy path. You could then paste it to Evernote. 

 

As far as I know dragging and dropping will always simply create an attachment.

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Hi ScottLougheed,

 

I've managed to create an Apple Script that does just that, really similar to step #4 that you mentioned. I even assigned a keyboard shortcut that will copy a list of links of the selected files at a given moment.

That solves half of the puzzle. It creates the links in text format, but there's no way (at least one that I know of) to make those into links from Evernote to the actual files. Unless you do it one by one, I haven't found a way :(

For now I'm doing it a different way, using parts of that technique:

  1. I select the files in the Finder
  2. press Cmd+C
  3. create a new Text (regular, not rich text) document in TextEdit
  4. press Cmd+V
  5. select the whole text using Cmd+A
  6. press Cmd+C
  7. open a new or existing note in Evernote
  8. press Cmd+V
  9. type an extra line with something like "Watch"
  10. create a link from that word to the folder containing the files

It's not perfect and it takes a few steps, but for now it does the job. It lists the files, which makes them searchable in Evernote, and I can link from there to the folder containing the files.

I wish the good people of Evernote could come up with an easier way to do this.

 

Thanks for your help ;)

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select the text, press cmd-k, and copy and past the path into the window prefixed with file:/// 

 

Spaces need to be properly encoded. So Macintosh HD would be Macintosh%20HD.

 

In my testing, that produces a clickable link that should either take you to the directory or launch the file. 

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I have never personally done what you are asking for so I had to do a bit of searching. 

I use Alfred with the Powerpack

 

This can be done with Keyboard Maestro as well, with the advantage (perhaps also available in Alfred) of ending up with a usable "File:/// … " text string in the clipboard, ready to be pasted.  With a file selected in Finder, run the macro, then select text in Evernote, ⌘k, paste, enter, you have a link in a Note to an external file.

 

I do not know how Evernote handles these outside the Mac version.

 

For Each Item in the Collection Execute Actions

  • The items in the (fixed) Finder selection
Execute the Following Actions:
  • Get Parent to Variable ‘filePath’

    From file: %Variable%File%
  • Get File Name to Variable ‘fileName’

    From file: %Variable%File%
  • Get Extension to Variable ‘fileExtension’

    From file: %Variable%File%
  • Set Clipboard to Text

    File://%Variable%filePath%/%Variable%fileName%.%Variable%fileExtension%
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Hi there Kirby Krieger,

 

That could actually work. I wouldn't mind buying Keyboard Maestro, but I'm not exactly sure how would I use the info you shared. I assume you'd have to create some sort of action inside Keyboard Maestro, right? Would you mind explaining how you go about doing that? Or if you already have something like this in your computer, could you share it as a file I could import to  Keyboard Maestro?

 

Either way, thank you so much for your help.

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I highly recommend Keyboard Maestro for anyone who thinks it will useful to them.  It's very well done.  I use it for dozens of sets of small consecutive actions that I repeat all time.

 

The macro I cobbled together is not simple.  Here it is on my public Dropbox.  "Cobble" is meant to be accurate — I am not a programmer;  I assume there is a better way to do what it does.  Import to Keyboard Maestro via "File ▹ Import Macros".

 

Note that all it does is create from the selected file in Finder a text-string that can be pasted as the target of a link.  I'm sure it could be expanded to work on a multiple-file selection in Finder (in which case you'd paste the result to a text file, not a link-maker).  That's beyond my skill, though.

 

(Added Wed 9 April 2014: fixed problem with file extension; now works with Finder folders.)

 

Here is screenshot of how it looks in the Keyboard Maestro editing pane:

2014-04-09%20at%2019.05%202x.png

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