Recently in On-line research Category

Improved Note Taking

| 2 Comments | No TrackBacks
I would like to say a few words about our latest release, which includes a major update to Sente's note-taking features.

Since the release of version 5.0 in 2007, Sente has included the ability to attach multiple notes to each reference. (Earlier versions restricted you to a single note per reference.) Each note included a title, page range, quotation and comments.

For many users, this has been a valuable feature, and they mention it regularly in posts about Sente. But we have never been particularly fond of Sente's interface for creating and editing notes. It worked, but it was neither attractive nor terribly functional.

In Sente 5.7, we have completely rewritten the notes interface and we are much happier with the results.  In the new interface, it is easy to see more than one note at a time, and we make better use of limited screen space.  Also, it is now possible to copy one or more notes from within the Notes view, and then to paste them into most other applications.

We have also added a feature that makes it simple to create notes from selections in PDFs or web pages. You can select either text or any arbitrary region in either a PDF or a web page, and then, if you click on the Create Note button, Sente will automatically create a new note for the current reference using the selection as the quotation.  Sente will also fill in the page numbers and add a placeholder title for you.

This ability to create notes from PDFs is not intended as a replacement for tools that let you mark-up a PDF, like Preview and Skim.  If what you want to accomplish is to highlight portions of a PDF so that the next time you read the document you will see these annotations, then we would recommend that you use one of these other tools.  (Annotations created in Preview, unlike those created in Skim, will show up in the Links view within Sente, so you will not need to return to Preview to view them.)

These changes should make Sente's notes feature more useful to many of our users.  I would encourage you to watch the new video on our web site and then to download the latest version and give it a try.

Screencast from a Sente User

| No Comments | No TrackBacks
One of our users, Dr. Kerim Friedman, has put together a nice screencast demonstrating the use of Sente to acquire references from Google Scholar and related PDFs from AnthroSource.  The video is included in one of his posts at Savage Minds, a site dedicated to topics in anthropology.

You can view the screencast here:


The basic flow works in many other fields, as well, so even if you are not an anthropologist, you might find the information valuable.

About this Archive

This page is an archive of recent entries in the On-line research category.

General Reference Management is the previous category.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Pages

Powered by Movable Type 4.2-en