What happened to "append Nisus document with selected text"

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lindas2013
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What happened to "append Nisus document with selected text"

Post by lindas2013 »

I hadn't used it for a while. But, I remember selecting some text (like from Safari) and right-clicking for the Services menu and choosing "append Nisus document with selected text"

Now the only Nisus option is "New Nisus document with selection"

I tried to find it in System Preferences, Keyboard, Services. It's not there.

Am I missing something?? Or was it permanently removed for some reason?? Is there a way to get it back??

I'm using NWP version 2.0.7 on Mtn Lion 10.8.5.

Thanks for any help!!
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martin
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by martin »

lindas2013 wrote:I hadn't used it for a while. But, I remember selecting some text (like from Safari) and right-clicking for the Services menu and choosing "append Nisus document with selected text"
I'm not aware that we ever had such a command. Perhaps you are thinking of Nisus Writer's menu Edit > Copy > Append Copy, which appends the copied content to the end of the current clipboard? However, that has only ever been available inside Nisus Writer; it was never available via the Mac OS X services menu.

I think the best workflow available is to just copy the content (from Safari or wherever), switch to Nisus Writer, and then paste it into whatever document you like.
lindas2013
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by lindas2013 »

Thanks for reply, Martin.
I definitely remember that Services menu option. Hmm. I might have Snow Leopard clone somewhere…I'll have to give it a try. If I find it, I'll post back with screenshot.

…to be continued... :drunk:
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martin
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by martin »

Please do let us know, I'd be curious to know what you find!
lindas2013
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by lindas2013 »

I found my SL clone. No luck. I had already updated to Nisus 2.0.7. I only upgraded to Mtn Lion earlier this year. (takes me a while to upgrade OS, I'm cautious). Anyway I booted to the clone. Ran Nisus and Safari and tried the Services menu. It wasn't there. I also checked System Preferences and it was not in the list.

I know it used to be an option in the Services contextual menu when you selected text in Safari. I'm 99% sure that it was before Nisus ver 2.0.7. I know it was there, because the first couple of times I used it, it bugged me! I would choose it by accident. Then I realized I could use it to append an open document (like putting info from multiple web sites into one document). I started to like this feature! LOL!

I have been into other things lately and not using Nisus/Safari as much. I went to use the Services from Safari and realized it's no longer there.

Oh well…

Maybe someone else has used it??

thanks again for trying...
Bendrus
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by Bendrus »

lindas2013 wrote: I know it used to be an option in the Services contextual menu when you selected text in Safari. I'm 99% sure that it was before Nisus ver 2.0.7. I know it was there, because the first couple of times I used it, it bugged me! I would choose it by accident. Then I realized I could use it to append an open document (like putting info from multiple web sites into one document). I started to like this feature! LOL!
What you describe sounds to me like the must-have service I use with TextEdit:
Services—> TextEdit—> New Window Containing Selection
which opens a new TextEdit .rtf document in the background with the contents.

I frequently use this to collect snippets and associated URLs without interrupting my attention, then deal with them later—dragging from window to window to get the order I want and any edits along the way. I was excited to find a similar service provided by Nisus Writer Pro years ago, as I was hoping to make NWP my do-everything text machine as Nisus Classic had been. I don't recall the exact name of the service, but I don't think the name included "append".

Anyhow, I gave up using NWP in this way because:
1) Nisus didn't select paragraphs by triple-clicking, which I routinely do,
2) I couldn't get it to share the system find strings to compare web data text files with Safari presentation of the data without copy+pasting the search string each time,
3) NWP periodically acquired a stray NewLine character in the end of the find string, which of course spoiled the search. It was a relief to until I discovered the problem, but I have not ferreted out what causes it nor when, but suspect it some condition when using cmd-e to enter the search string. I simply seldom use NWP for routing quick searches any more. I don't see this problem when typing or entering power find strings.

Also at some point, the open-selection-in-Nisus service became irratic, and then later disappeared. Since I didn't use it any more, I just ignored it. I just don't remember exactly when nor what versions, but under OS 10.4 and version 1.x of NWP.

I don't remember if these services were ever in a contextual menu, but that would certainly make sense, though now I have assigned cmd-ctrl-x key binding and don't even have to think about how to access it.

Hope this helps... at least it confirms your recollection, if indeed this is the same Service. :-)

Alas, I did not read carefully enough at first. After getting online to post and re-reading your original post, I see you indicate that there is still a "New Nisus document with selection" (which I no longer have)... so maybe this is no help, since I don't specifically recall an "append" version of the Service...

But while on the subject, for my use, an append feature needs some sort of clear automatic delimiter between entries. But then I also use PTHPasteboard to gather smaller snippets. So many overlapping options, and none fully refined! :-\

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martin
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by martin »

lindas2013 wrote:I know it used to be an option in the Services contextual menu when you selected text in Safari. I'm 99% sure that it was before Nisus ver 2.0.7.
Thank you for checking. I don't recall Nisus Writer ever having such a services menu command, but that doesn't mean it never existed. Perhaps we could add it, though I think it might be more useful if we added a command like "Append to Clipboard". Appending to the frontmost document could be confusing. I often forget which document was last frontmost.
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martin
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by martin »

Bendrus wrote: 1) Nisus didn't select paragraphs by triple-clicking, which I routinely do,
You can select paragraphs in Nisus Writer in such a way, it just requires one more click: triple-clicking selects the sentence, and quadruple-clicking selects the paragraph. Perhaps one more click confuses your muscle memory, but it's handy enough once you're used to it. You could also assign a keyboard shortcut to the menu Edit > Select > Select Paragraph.
2) I couldn't get it to share the system find strings to compare web data text files with Safari presentation of the data without copy+pasting the search string each time,
Nisus Writer does behave a little differently in this aspect as well. Because Nisus Writer allows for more complex find operations (eg: PowerFind expressions) we didn't want the user to ever lose a find expression they'd taken some time to craft. For this reason Nisus Writer will only import the shared/system search string if it would not overwrite an existing search expression. However, Nisus Writer always export the user's entered search string/expression, so other applications can pick it up.

But perhaps we can be a bit more helpful in this regard. Instead of only importing the shared search string once, we could import it if the user has their Find & Replace panel set to "Normal" find mode, or we detect that their PowerFind (or PowerFind Pro) expression is a literal string that contains no special pattern matching.
3) NWP periodically acquired a stray NewLine character in the end of the find string, which of course spoiled the search. It was a relief to until I discovered the problem, but I have not ferreted out what causes it nor when, but suspect it some condition when using cmd-e to enter the search string.
That sounds like a bug, and if you ever see it or detect some rhyme or reason to it, please let us know– thanks.
Þorvarður
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by Þorvarður »

lindas2013 wrote:I remember selecting some text (like from Safari) and right-clicking for the Services menu and choosing "append Nisus document with selected text"
Now the only Nisus option is "New Nisus document with selection"
I really wish there were such a Nisus related Service, because that would be very useful indeed. I can't remember having ever seen it though; if there ever was one, I would have used it copiously. My guess is that you may be confusing this with Scrivener or some note taking application (many of them have this feature). Scrivener has:

Append to Current Notes
Append to Current Notes (Unformatted)
Append to Current Text
Append to Current Text (Unformatted)

I think an AppleScript should be able to copy selected text in Safari, append it to a Nisus file and then turn back to Safari.

What about Automator? Couldn't Automator also do this and save the steps as Service?
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martin
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by martin »

Þorvarður wrote:I think an AppleScript should be able to copy selected text in Safari, append it to a Nisus file and then turn back to Safari.
That's a good idea, even though I have no love for AppleScript :P Here's an AppleScript that does such a thing without using the clipboard:

Code: Select all

set insertText to "[Failed to get text from Safari]"
set appendDelim to "
"

tell application "Safari"
	set insertText to (do JavaScript "(''+getSelection())" in document 1)
end tell

tell application "Nisus Writer Pro"
	set frontDoc to the front document
	make new paragraph at end of text of frontDoc with data appendDelim & insertText
end tell
Unfortunately it does not handle formatting; the selected Safari content comes through as plain text. I could not find a way for AppleScript to get the formatted text, but we could instead use copy-paste, which does handle formatting:

Code: Select all

tell application "Safari" to activate

tell application "System Events"
	keystroke "c" using command down
	delay 0.25
	
	tell application "Nisus Writer Pro" to activate
	keystroke (ASCII character 31) using command down -- 31 is down arrow key, to move to end of document
	keystroke "v" using command down
end tell

tell application "Safari" to activate
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phspaelti
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by phspaelti »

Þorvarður wrote:What about Automator? Couldn't Automator also do this and save the steps as Service?
Can Automator do anything at all? Automator has got to be the most useless piece of software ever written. Ever.
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by phspaelti »

martin wrote:
Þorvarður wrote:I think an AppleScript should be able to copy selected text in Safari, append it to a Nisus file and then turn back to Safari.
That's a good idea, even though I have no love for AppleScript :P Here's an AppleScript that

use[s] copy-paste, which does handle formatting:

Code: Select all

tell application "Safari" to activate

tell application "System Events"
	keystroke "c" using command down
	delay 0.25
	
	tell application "Nisus Writer Pro" to activate
	keystroke (ASCII character 31) using command down -- 31 is down arrow key, to move to end of document
	keystroke "v" using command down
end tell

tell application "Safari" to activate
Couldn't this be improved by sending control to a Nisus Macro, once the text has been copied? That way Nisus could check that there is a suitable document, to paste, do some editing clean-up, etc. And best of all you could keep your contact with AppleScript to a minimum :P
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Þorvarður
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by Þorvarður »

martin wrote:Here's an AppleScript that does such a thing without using the clipboard
Marvelous! This is pure poetry! Especially this "JavaScript" thing that suddenly pops up out of nowhere and brings the tension and suspense to a climax. I'm sure Shakespeare would go green with envy if he were still alive. :lol:

I modified the second script slightly so that it can now copy text from any application, not only from Safari. It works fine with PDFs.

Code: Select all

tell application "System Events"
	key down {command}
	keystroke "c"
	key up {command}
end tell

delay 0.25

tell application "Nisus Writer Pro"
	activate
	
	tell application "System Events"
		key down {command}
		keystroke "v"
		key up {command}
		keystroke return
		keystroke "----"
		keystroke return
	end tell
	
end tell

tell application "Safari" # or change to match the correct application
	activate
end tell
Question:
Instead of writing:
tell application "Safari"
in the last part, how could we track the name of the application we started from? Once we have that command, it should be used instead. Thus the script would not be limited to Safari anymore. Unfortunately I don't know (yet) how to accomplish this. Can someone please help?


Now the question arises how to use these scripts. I place mine into the systemwide Scripts folder. It's located here:

/Users/ME/Library/Scripts

Next I used a shortcuts manager to assign shortcuts to the scripts. Every time I now select text in an application other than Nisus and press the key combination, the corresponding script is triggered. This is much better and FASTER than right-clicking for the Services menu.

Any shortcuts manager will do. I use Apptivate because it's a menubar application and is very easy to use. One could also use Spark which is a powerful and easy to use free shortcuts manager, Keyboard Maestro, or something else. Unfortunately OS X doesn't seem to have a shortcuts manager yet that can launch a script, an application or a file with a keystroke. Or am I missing something?


I think these scripts can be of great value, not only to the original poster, but to all Nisus users who are doing research and need to collect material from the web.

Three things still need improvement:

1) When I'm in Nisus and I (accidentally) execute the assigned keystrokes, the scripts will start running,… with unpredictable results. I need a command that prevents the scrips from running when the user starts in Nisus:

tell application "System Events"

How can I call "System Events" at the beginning and *exclude* Nisus Writer Pro?

2) It would be great to let the scripts grab the URL when in a web browser and enter it at the end of the pasted snippet, preferably in curly brackets, so that it could be easily identified later with a macro and removed, if necessary.

3) If the selected text is from a PDF, then it would be good to grab the name of the PDF and include it at the end of the pasted snippet, just like in 2) above.

Edit:
The assigned key combination does not behave as expected, i.e. it seems I must hold down modifier key(s) while typing the chosen keyboard character TWICE. Although I assigned the script the shortcut Command+ü (on the German keyboard), I must hold down the command key and type "ü" *twice*. I have tried all sorts of key combinations, and it's always the same. Has anyone an explanation for this?
Last edited by Þorvarður on 2014-07-20 05:48:12, edited 5 times in total.
Þorvarður
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by Þorvarður »

phspaelti wrote: Can Automator do anything at all? Automator has got to be the most useless piece of software ever written. Ever.
It's certainly not as intuitive and easy to use as Keyboard Maestro; that's for sure.

Automator can run the scripts as Services, if they are saved in Automator as application. Selecting text in Safari (or any other application) and then look for the Service in the Services menu, takes much more time than executing a single keystroke right away, because the Service is *buried* in the menu somewhere among dozens of other Services and needs to be spotted before the user can release the mouse. I say this to the original poster.
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Re: What happened to "append Nisus document with selected te

Post by Þorvarður »

Philip asked Martin:
Couldn't this be improved by sending control to a Nisus Macro, once the text has been copied?

If I'm not mistaken, that should be easy with:

Code: Select all

Do Menu Macro with macro "[name of macro]"
That way Nisus could check that there is a suitable document

This is a good suggestion.

do some editing clean-up

It might be more practical to do that afterwards, all in one go; but it depends on what kind of clean-up you have in mind.

And best of all you could keep your contact with AppleScript to a minimum

Just curious, what is it, Martin, that you don't like with AppleScript?
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