are there limitations to using NisusWriterPro as an external editor for DevonThink

[ronald]

Hello, I am a big fan of NisusWriterPro and have been promoting it on the DevonThink Pro forum as the best RTFD editor as compared to the native RTFD editor and alternatives like Mellel, Bean, Word, Pages, etc
DevonThink is rather unique in that users can edit internal rtfd documents in the external editor of their choice, which I think is very intelligent.
One forum member expressed reservations namely that he as experienced loss of content and style namely TOC, indexing, stylesheet, floating graphics, … because “NisusWriterPro does not support the Mac OS X’s text engine”
I have a few questions:
1- does NisusWriterPro not support the Mac OS X’s text engine or is it the MacOsx engine does not support TOC, indexing, stylesheet, floating graphics ?
2- can I predict in advance which types of formats (table of content? etc) I should avoid to remain compatible ?
3- is it simply a problem that the DevonThink's Document Preview does not show the TOC, indexing, stylesheet, floating graphics, but I will see them when I open the document ?
4- Is the following approach perhaps a solution: create a DevonThink document template with NisusWriterPro (which I did) and after it has been created, make it a habit of never making any edits except with NisusWriterPro to avoid losing any style or content ? Would that insure me that TOC, indexing, stylesheet, floating graphics are preserved ?
thank you very much in advance

[Þorvarður]

he as experienced loss of content and style namely TOC, indexing, stylesheet, floating graphics, … because “NisusWriterPro does not support the Mac OS X’s text engine”

Hello Ronald,
I think it's actually the other way around, DEVONthink, EagleFiler, Together 3 and all the other content managers out there do not support certain advanced components of RTFs, such as footnotes and styles, because their main purpose is to store data, not create data.

To prevent DEVONthink 3 from accidentally destroying footnotes and styles in .rtf files (both in Nisus and MS Word), you can do this. Create a Smart Rule in DEVONthink which marks the file as "locked" so that it will be always automatically opened and edited in Nisus.

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The file will remain locked until you unlock it manually, but why should anyone want to do that? There is no reason I can think of to do that. Editing and reading a Nisus document is always best in Nisus Writer itself.

are there limitations to using NisusWriterPro as an external editor for DevonThink

What do you mean when you say "using NisusWriterPro as an external editor *for* DevonThink"? Do you mean using it exclusively instead of creating a plain text, a new rich text and a new formatted note in DEVONthink itself?

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If that's what you mean, you will certainly not experience any "limitations," quite the contrary.

Addendum
I have not used DEVONthink 3 for quite a while now. Today I deleted the above mentioned Smart Rule and did some tests to see how that would affect things. To my surprise .rtf files are now all Read-only, so that they can't be edited in DEVONthink. Maybe the DEVONthink team has added this recently as a new feature to prevent .rtf files from being tampered with in DEVONthink. If that is the case, that would actually be good news.

Anyway, I recommend using the above mentioned Smart Rule until we get to the bottom of this new behavior. The Smart Rule is foolproof. :–)

[ronald]

thank you very much @Þorvarður for a very intelligent and imaginative reply. Also thank you for taking the time to test.

To my surprise .rtf files are now all Read-only, so that they can't be edited in DEVONthink. Maybe the DEVONthink team has added this recently as a new feature to prevent .rtf files from being tampered with in DEVONthink

there must be something in your settings. I can definitely edit RTF files in DT. Most forum members use only DT to edit files. I edit RTF files all the time. I would guess that you smart rule is perhaps still running (a duplicate?)

Create a Smart Rule in DEVONthink which marks the file as "locked" so that it will be always automatically opened and edited in Nisus.

Wow ! an extremely intelligent solution which I will implement. I will make a minor modification, which is to add one action to your rule: to display a notification stating that the doc can only be opened in NisusWriterPro based on a custom smart rule. Just in case I am hospitalzed with covid, come out of a coma in 3 months, forget that I created the rule, and start searching for the reason why RTF files are blocked.

What do you mean when you say "using NisusWriterPro as an external editor *for* DevonThink"? Do you mean using it exclusively instead of creating a plain text, a new rich text and a new formatted note in DEVONthink itself?
I think that it is a question of workflow.
I created a RTF template in DT which I always use to to write in RTF. What happens is that I initially write the document in NisusWriterPro, but subsequently make small corrections using the DT editor (for example correct a small typo in a phone number or email address) because it is so fast and easy. And there is the problem because it would appear from DT forum contents that as soon as I do that certain NisusWriterPro proper formatting features are lost. Your brilliant solution solves this problem. I am curious to see if all the NisusWriterPro formats and styles will be visible in the DT preview window.

thanks again VERY much !

[Þorvarður]

I am curious to see if all the NisusWriterPro formats and styles will be visible in the DT preview window.

Formats, styles, and tables… yes, but footnotes, page numbers and images (unless you save the file as .rtfd) will not be visible in the preview. It's the same as in Apple's Finder preview: no footnotes there either.
Personally, that doesn't bother me too much; after all it's just a preview. If I want to see everything, I open the file by double-clicking on it in DT. That should open it in Nisus (if you have enabled DT preferences > General > Interface > "Double-click opens documents externally". :–)

[ronald]

once again thank you very much !

[martin]

he as experienced loss of content and style namely TOC, indexing, stylesheet, floating graphics, … because “NisusWriterPro does not support the Mac OS X’s text engine”

I think it's actually the other way around, DEVONthink, EagleFiler, Together 3 and all the other content managers out there do not support certain advanced components of RTFs, such as footnotes and styles

This is correct. RTF handles pretty much any word processing content you can throw at it, including advanced features like TOC, footnotes and endnotes, tracked changes, etc. Apps like Nisus Writer Pro and Microsoft Word have excellent RTF support and properly maintain advanced content.

It's the default macOS text engine that does not support all features allowed by RTF. Apps that use the default Mac text engine to read/write RTF files may not properly load those features. Editing and resaving RTF files using those apps may discard or downgrade advanced content. The exact consequences will depend on the app and its level of support for RTF.