I notice that both Evernote and Ultra Recall allow you to copy links to their items, and these links can be pasted into another program - enabling the user to navigate to the Evernote or Ultra Recall items from that other program.

The Evernote link uses the "evernote" protocol, and Ultra Recall uses the "ur" protocol. Examples below:

evernote:///view/23595/s1/1a8a1335-69b1-4ce9-bedb-f496489908df/1a8a1335-69b1-4ce9-bedb-f496489908df
ur:///?item=1029,1031,1000

I am wondering what other outliners / PIMs support this. It does open up possibilities. For example, Evernote could be used as a universal collector, and other outliners could link to a collected item without having to import the data into its own database.

Hi Jim,

Just to ask, how does one go about this in Ultra Recall? I tried the usual methods, and can't seem to get it to work or find it in the help file.

Thanks in advance!
Best, /Pavi

You can also do it in Surfulater and ConnectedText.

You can do this with TheBrain. And in OneNote you can not only make links to specific pages of notes, but to individual paragraphs in those notes.

I think you can also do this in Zoot, but am unsure. Will test it out when I get to the office.

Steve Z.

Pavi wrote:

Just to ask, how does one go about this in Ultra Recall?

Select the item you want and click (on the menu bar) Item / Copy Item Command-Line; you may have to fully expand the Item menu the first time. There's also keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-I. You can then paste the result to the program from which you will be linking from.

In UR, you can also create a Windows desktop shortcut to the item through the same menu.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

In UR, you can also create a Windows desktop shortcut to the item
through the same menu.

You can also create a desktop shortcut to a topic in CT, by dragging the title of a topic (from the heading of the topic) and dropping it onto the desktop.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Select the item you want and click (on the menu bar) Item / Copy Item
Command-Line; you may have to fully expand the Item menu the first time.
There's also keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-I. You can then paste the
result to the program from which you will be linking from.

thanks for that info ... this produces a link in the following format:

ur://C:/Users/jsw/Documents/Ultra%20Recall%20Samples/Intro.urd?item=1029,1031,1000&pos=0

Obviously it contains the path to the local Ultra Recall .urd file.

I'm curious to know what the links to ConnectedText, OneNote, and Surfuator items look like.

jimspoon wrote:

I'm curious to know what the links to ConnectedText, OneNote, and
Surfuator items look like.

CT:

ct://Project1/Home

Surfulater (also has an option to format it as HTML):

sulkb://kb=PhD,Fid=8239,Rid=8675

Also Mindjet, EssentialPim and GemX do-Organizer can do that with their own protocols

Zoot:

zootxt://C:/Users/YourName/Documents/Zoot%20Databases/Projects/Work/Work.zdb&IdRef=1&IdFldr=29&IdItem=412981375237631&=Test

You can also add a desktop shortcut to any item.

zootxt://C:/Users/YourName/Documents/Zoot%20Databases/Projects/Work/Work.zdb&IdRef=1&IdFldr=29&IdItem=412981375237631&=Test
evernote:///view/23595/s1/1a8a1335-69b1-4ce9-bedb-f496489908df/1a8a1335-69b1-4ce9-bedb-f496489908df
ur://C:/Users/jsw/Documents/Ultra%20Recall%20Samples/Intro.urd?item=1029,1031,1000&pos=0
sulkb://kb=PhD,Fid=8239,Rid=8675
ur:///?item=1029,1031,1000
ct://Project1/Home

As a CT fanboi, I can't resist pointing out that out of the ones mentioned so far CT's protocol seems to be the neatest and most intelligible, despite its reputation... "Project 1" is the name of the database, "Home" is the name of the topic (document).

Dr Andus wrote:

As a CT fanboi, I can't resist pointing out that out of the ones
mentioned so far CT's protocol seems to be the neatest and most
intelligible, despite its reputation... "Project 1" is the name of the
database, "Home" is the name of the topic (document).

Quite right you are, though I assume that things get a bit less elegant as you add spaces; I think then the %20 will come crawling in.

I see that UltraRecall includes the full path to the database. I thought that this would be an advantage, but on second thoughts I believe it is a handicap: when moving files around you have to update all ur:// links.

I faced similar issues in the past when switching from Windows XP to 7 because the user file paths are different. I worked around the issue by creating junctions pointing from the old paths to the new ones. Still, ConnectedText's (and also Surfulater's) approach of addressing databases by name, rather than by path, seems to make sense.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Quite right you are, though I assume that things get a bit less elegant
as you add spaces; I think then the %20 will come crawling in.

Yes, that's true. Though even in that case the link is more recognisable than the other examples with all the numbers.

I faced similar issues in the past when switching from Windows XP to 7
because the user file paths are different. I worked around the issue by
creating junctions pointing from the old paths to the new ones. Still,
ConnectedText's (and also Surfulater's) approach of addressing databases
by name, rather than by path, seems to make sense.

Unfortunately that's still an issue with CT as well, so one can't just sync between an XP and Win 7 system directly, one needs to use some workarounds (at least I wasn't able to).

Dr Andus wrote:

Unfortunately that's still an issue with CT as well, so one can't just
sync between an XP and Win 7 system directly, one needs to use some
workarounds (at least I wasn't able to).

I assume the simplest solution is to set the Dropbox folder outside My Documents, in a path that can be the same in both versions of Windows.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Dr Andus wrote:
>Unfortunately that's still an issue with CT as well, so one can't just
>sync between an XP and Win 7 system directly, one needs to use some
>workarounds (at least I wasn't able to).

I assume the simplest solution is to set the Dropbox folder outside My
Documents, in a path that can be the same in both versions of Windows.

It can be done but I'm too risk averse, as conflicts can arise and I don't want to lose anything.

Dr Andus wrote:

It can be done but I'm too risk averse, as conflicts can arise and I
don't want to lose anything.

Understood. My suggestion to anyone using Dropbox for important information is to go premium and also include Packrat unlimited undo history https://www.dropbox.com/upgrade

I've only needed it twice in one year, and then because of my own mistake, but it has saved the day. It beats any local backup system in terms of convenience and number of versions maintained.