Has anyone used Anybox for J.D. Index?
I am just setting it up.
Seems perfect as you can add folders, subfolders, links to other apps.
With Anydock, quicksave to folders, add note to folders, lightning fast quick open fuzzy search…
I am just in the process of modifying official Alfred workflow to work specifically for J.D. index search, add notes to id and such.
Just interested if anyone thought of it and what are the opinions…
I mean reading through the website again.
When writing an index note, you are supposed to put where the item is, keyword and all in the note.
With Anybox, you can just send link to the item to the appropriate I.D. With quick save, add a keyword, add a tag if you’d like, rename the link, it even automatically gets the apps icons that it leads to.
Alfred workflow allows you to add notes directly to I.D. If that is something you want to do.
Quick open and fuzzy search on a hotkey is fastest ever.
Add opening the link in default app, revealing in Anybox with shift, revealing in finder with command or copying mmd link to the item with control.
Not to mention you can have smart filters for projects or most used I.D. A click away on Anydock.
It should in theory act as a perfect “dashboard” for J.D. index?
This sounds like contextual computing at it’s finest and what J.D. Index is supposed to be if I understood correctly.
I am not sure if I just had the best idea ever and no one has thought of it or has this been considered already and I am missing something here?
Hopefully the former! Always nice to discover new things.
You mean this app?
I’d love to see a few use-case screenshots if that’s the case. Not sure how it’d actually store the JDex?..
I haven’t had the chance to try it myself and don’t have the capacity to take on anything new at the moment, but I’d be really interested to hear how it goes for you
Yes, that is the one.
I know it is nested but you could flat it out (as I said it is W.I.P.). The beauty is you can use tags or folders and the idea is instead of using notes and putting links in them, just using a folder and put the link in it.
This screenshot of my project folder with deeplinks might make more sense.
So if you translate that to J.D. Index - You create “buckets” xx.xx and just add links to where the thing is.
It kind of defeats the purpose of having a note and writing where something is. Instead it is a “dashboard” taking you directly to it.
That said, it does support notes so if you would like to keep traditional - note per I.D. approach, you could totally do that.
(The way I see it is - the folder is a note, but instead of having to paste MarkDown link you have a nice UI with the icon of where the item is stored. Also AnyBox has quick save link to folder hotkey which makes it I think easier then opening a note app and pasting the link it or writing down where the thing is)
And you can also add a note to your “bucket” be it I.D. or area describing it or keeping updates.
Hell it even supports keyword expansion to launch a link. So you could set the keyword “jjd22.15” (or whatever you choose) and be taken directly to your most used I.D.
Oh and did I mention that not only does AnyBox automatically assigns the icon of the app that link came from, but also replicates the name of the item? So for example if in Muse my whiteboard is already named PRJ001::WS00 - J.D. and I press copy URL or use Hookmark and invoke quick save and send that link to the folder (I.D.), this is how that link will look when I open AnyBox without me lifting a finger:
That is if you just hit save and don’t interact with renaming text field. I do add an app identifier at the end - MU just in case I am searching for something and forget any other naming convention, I can always rely on the suffix. Or if I am searching a worksession that will have links to 5-6 different apps, I can drill down which app I want to open.
Quick open hotkey:
Give me couple of days to get this up and running the way I want it to and I’ll update this thread with bit more detailed workflow/usecase.
In the meantime, if anyone is interested, this video of Lee Garett explaining how he manages his projects using AnyBox from the episode of Mac Power Users will make sense of everything (probably much better then I tried). It is where I got my idea from.
How Lee Manages Projects : ScreenCastsOnline
You can get a 7 days free trial to watch it as the preview on YouTube does not even come to using AnyBox.
That’s it from me, sorry for a long post, as you can see I am excited about this.
Any feedback is welcome and fingers crossed I am back here in a couple of days with an fully working new system for running a J.D. Index.
Ahh this is the classic @johnnydecimal way, Apple only… hahaha
I’ve got this one bookmarked for when I can spend some proper time looking at it. 
How’s this going @vex?
I was literally just using Anybox today cause I wanted to start getting my bookmarks sorted and came across this thread. Anybox is a very nice app, fast too. Could be interesting to put the Index there.
@johnnydecimal, all done. I finally found time to pull this together. I’ll try and keep it short.
Typing an item’s name reveals:
JDex note.
A link to that item’s destination in its respective app.
Workspace Macro – a Keyboard Maestro macro that opens selected apps, snaps them into place… (Plays some Chopin Nocturne No.2 In E Flat and whatever else you can think of).
Pressing ⌘ K switches search range from all to notes. So if I only want to search index notes without links cluttering the screen, voilà.
Pressing ⎇ ⇥ on a note will invoke “quick” preview of note.
*I find this extremely useful when wanting to check contents of a note without breaking the flow.Pressing Tab on a link or note shows more options.
Finally, I add an -AP suffix per app when naming, so typing that only shows the respective items. Another way to narrow the search scope.
Anydock can be toggled with a hotkey and can store any links (Obsidian, DEVONthink, etc.).
Lastly, I use keywords for every link.
Typing of0320. anywhere (not only in text fields) will open OmniFocus to 03.20 Routines.
ob0320. will do the same for Obsidian and guess what dt0320. does…?
If anyone finds this interesting and decides to give it a go, please do not try to import to Anybox manually.
I have scripts that I am willing to share for mass import of Obsidian and DEVONthink links that do the following:
Programming notice: in discussion with @vex I blurred their first image as it showed much detail from the LAS. So that’s my clumsy blur, not theirs.
I felt uncomfortable doing this ‘invisibly’, so am declaring it here. I’ll never edit any post without permission from the author (assuming they’re still around).
– j.
That’s my bad. Wasn’t thinking when posting. 
All good now!
Thanks for sharing @vex this looks great! Will definitely look into the app 
Hi @vex ,
This is awesome!
I am using Anybox and now trying to implement Jdex as you have done.
Could you share those scripts with me please and also some screenshots of your settings in Anybox to create this output.
Thanks.
