I have been using MojoPad for the last few days and I am really impressed with the funtionality. The UI looks very polished and there are a lot of nice features (Canvas, linking, search …)
But there is one thing which holds me back to integrate it into my workflow and that is the “closed” filesystem.
As a heavy DEVONthink user all my documents are indexed into DEVONthink and I can use external programs to change markdown files and the changes are immediately reflected.
As I see it, there would be two ways to go for me to use MojoPad:
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Duplicate (import files - especially markdown) into MojoPad and export at a later stage, as DEVONthink holds all of my documents.
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Have some topics exclusively in MojoPad - and have to think which parts are where.
Both are not working for me.
Are there any plans to support native Finder folders, like DEVONthink, Typora or IAWriter?
All best.
Thank you — that’s a fair criticism, and precisely put.
One clarification first: the format isn’t as closed as it looks. A .mojopad document is a folder — right-click ▸ Show Package Contents and you’ll find one JSON file per page plus your attachments as ordinary files. There’s also Markdown Folder export. So nothing’s trapped, even today.
But you’re not really asking about lock-in, you’re asking about live editing — files that stay in DEVONthink, edited by whatever tool you like, reflected in MojoPad and back. That genuinely isn’t possible today, and your two workarounds are as unappealing as you describe.
It’s on the roadmap in the form I think fits: pages linked to external files — a MojoPad page whose content lives in a markdown file anywhere on disk, edited in place, watched for outside changes so DEVONthink and MojoPad stay in step. Everything else still works on it: links, backlinks, search, the graph.
What I’m not planning is turning MojoPad into a folder-of-markdown app. Transclusion, canvas, storyboards, and page properties can’t survive as plain markdown without a pile of sidecar files, and that trade would cost the things MojoPad is actually good at.
No date yet — it’s a serious piece of work and I’d rather do it properly than half-do it. Would the linked-file approach solve your workflow, or do you need the whole document to be a folder?
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Thanks for your reply and I understand where you are coming from.
What you have laid out for a possible future release sounds like it will work for my purpose.
Another thing I like (which is already possible in MojoPad) creating DEVONthink itemlinks to any document inside DEVONthink and make changes there. This is very helpful for me, as I do the annotations and commenting on PDF files inside DEVONthink.
Thanks and all best.
Manfred
I am going to start work on this now as I have a handful of customers that I know are using Devonthink in conjunction with MojoPad. I expect there are many more out there, and I also own a copy of Devonthink. I will see if I can get this out in the next 3-4 days to get your feedback. I’ll drop another note here when it is ready.
Mark
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Hi Mark, that is great news and I really appreciate how responsive you are to customer feedback.
Thanks.
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1.47.0 released. Check out the manual. I tried to implement what you asked. Let me know 2 things.
- Did I address what you were looking for
- Is it working like you want
Your pages can live in files on your Mac. A DEVONthink user asked for this, and it was built with that arrangement in mind: point MojoPad at a folder your document manager already indexes and the same notes are live in both places at once. Write here, and the file in your library changes. Write there, and the page catches up. Nothing is copied, nothing is converted, and your library stays the source of truth — thank you for asking.
- A page that is a file. File ▸ New Page from a File… asks for a markdown or text file anywhere on your Mac and gives you a page whose words are that file. It links, it’s found by search, it takes backlinks, it shows up in the graph — like any other page. But type here and the file changes; change the file in another app and the page catches up, usually before you’ve looked back at it. Nothing is copied and nothing is converted. Use it when a note already lives somewhere it needs to stay: a folder DEVONthink or another document manager indexes, a shared folder, a project’s notes, something you also edit on a phone. MojoPad writes the file in place, so an indexed item stays the same item and the links your library holds to it keep working.
- Follow a whole folder. File ▸ Link a Folder… takes a folder of notes and makes a page of every text file in it, with the folders inside it becoming folders in your sidebar. Files you add to that folder later turn up as pages on their own — whether they appear while you’re working or while MojoPad is closed. Clip something into the folder from another app, and a minute later it’s a page here, searchable and ready to link. Stop Following a Folder… ends the arrangement whenever you like; the pages stay, each still tied to its own file.
- Send a page you already have out to a file. The other direction: open any page and choose File ▸ Move This Page to a File…, say where it should live, and its words go there — page and file are the same thing from then on. Its name, tags, properties and backlinks stay in the wiki; the file gets the writing.
- A page tells you when it reaches outside. Any page whose words live elsewhere carries a small mark under its title naming its file; click it to show that file in the Finder. If the link isn’t live — the folder wasn’t approved, or the file has gone — the mark says not connected instead, so you always know which pages are talking to disk and which aren’t.
- Neither side gets overwritten. If a page and its file are both changed while they’re apart — you wrote here, something else wrote there — MojoPad won’t pick a winner. A bar offers Use the file’s or Keep mine, with both versions intact until you choose.
- You’re asked before anything on disk is touched. A MojoPad document is a folder you can send to someone, so opening one that came from elsewhere asks first, naming every folder it wants to reach — and approving only the folders it named. Say no and those pages still open, from the copies stored inside the document, and nothing on your disk is read or written. Only text files can be linked at all, a link that turns out to point somewhere else is refused, and a document with a password can’t have linked pages, because those files would sit unprotected.
- Your words stay yours even when the file doesn’t. Every linked page keeps a copy inside the document, so it still opens, still searches and still appears in the graph when the file is on a disconnected drive or has been deleted. Put the file back and the page reconnects to it.
Mark
Hi Mark, thanks for this. I am away from my computer now, but will come back to your two points tomorrow.
Hi Mark, I did some testing and I have to say that the concept is working very well. There are a few glitches I found:
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When I removed the folder, the files from that folder stayed in MojoPad. I would have expected that they are removed as well. But maybe this is working as it should.
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When I tried to re-link the same folder nothing happens. The folder doesn’t show up and there is no message that somehow the folder is still active.
You have achieved a lot in a very short time and I really appreciate it. Thanks.
Thank you — both of those were real, and the second one I reproduced exactly.
The folder you removed was still being followed; MojoPad just stopped showing it. That’s why re-linking looked like nothing happened. Now: the folder’s menu says Stop Following rather than Remove Folder, and stopping asks whether the pages should stay or go to Recently Deleted — your files are left alone either way. Following a folder again puts it back in the sidebar with everything that came from it, and tells you so properly. Pages you removed come back as the same pages rather than as copies.
Fix coming in the next release. Keep the feedback coming.
Mark
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1.49.0 is out. Please give it a try and let me know what you think.
Mark