How to batch-edit zettels?

Vinho

Hi!
Sometimes I would like to edit multiple notes at once, e.g. when I want to assign a tag to all of them. Is there a quick way to do this with The Archive and tools like Keyboard Maestro?

ctietze

Scripting for The Archive is still non-existent, so a Keyboard Maestro macro could work that:

• ⌘C copies the selection from the app,
• then uses the list of titles as filenames
• modifies the note accordingly

Vinho

Ok, thanks for the hints – I guess I have to start using Keyboard Maestro and look into this at some point in the near future. When the tag list comes, that is announced in the roadmap, is anything like "adding a tag to one or several notes per drag & drop to the tag list" planned? That would be very neat. Of course then there's the question of where exactly in the note these tags are added, but that can hopefully be found a good solution to...

skraska

@Vinho said:
Sometimes I would like to edit multiple notes at once, e.g. when I want to assign a tag to all of them. Is there a quick way to do this with The Archive and tools like Keyboard Maestro?

As a workaround you could add tags to the filename.

In The Archive select several files and press ⇧⌘R (or File > Reveal in Finder). In the Finder chose File > Rename 7 objects. Now you can add, replace or remove #tags from the filename.

@Vinho said:
When the tag list comes, that is announced in the roadmap, is anything like "adding a tag to one or several notes per drag & drop to the tag list" planned? That would be very neat.

I agree.

nvALT and FSNotes sort of offer this, but their solutions don't help us.

nvALT saves its tags in some place that is neither the filename, nor its content. It must be somewhere in the plaintext though, because copying a file copies the tags as well.

FSNotes uses the Finder's built-in tags. You can add tags to multiple files – like you say – by dragging and dropping the files onto the tag in the sidebar. Do not use the tagging dialogue, it may delete existing tags.

@Vinho said:
Of course then there's the question of where exactly in the note these tags are added, but that can hopefully be found a good solution to...

YAML looks good.

mediapathic

@skraska said:

YAML looks good.

I'm using a YAML block for most of my tags and recommend it. It seems to be the optimal balance between having the tags embedded in plain text for interoperability and having them hidden on export, as most markdown parsers will gladly ignore a YAML block.

ctietze

I've been using YAML and MultiMarkdown headers for years, too. With YAML, you have built-in parsing functionality for virtually every (scripting) language. That's nice. Didn't turn out to be of much practical relevance for me because I don't automate my writing anyway

nvALT stores tags in the file metadata, too, but using the OpenMeta tagging convention (from before Finder tags were a thing)