I usually write my stuff in Drafts before I decide where it should go. Now that the iOS version of Agenda is out, I started actively using Agenda again. It would be nice to have a way to automate note creation with X-Callback URLs like Ulysses can for example, so I could create new notes from Drafts too.
What’s the workflow you are trying to adopt?
Note that Agenda Links do work as callbacks. Click the cog icon, to share a Agenda Link. Put that in another app, and when you click it, you come back to the note.
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As I wrote: mainly I want to create notes from Drafts. But I could also use this to automate journaling with Workflow templates (examples using Day One), or have meeting templates for different clients.
I have multiple actions in Drafts for sending data to apps, like “New To Do in Things” or “New Sheet in Ulysses”. I use these to create a new todo, a note or whatever in their target app. I want to use the same for Agenda. I know, I can link to notes, but as far as I know, there is no way to create new notes with an X-Callback URL. There should be a new URL scheme, something like this:
agenda://newNote?title=title_of_the_note&body=url_encoded_markdown_text&project=name_of_the_project&date=optional_date_of_the_note
This could call Agenda, which then could create a new note in the project set in the params with the title and markdown text. Also it could assign an optional date to the new note. It should return the URL or ID of the new note to the source app with x-success. This can be also useful on macOS too.
For example Workflow can receive this data on x-success and continue the workflow thats called Agenda with the ID of the new note (Things does this when you create new todos via URL schemes.). I could take that new note ID which Agenda returned to Workflow to automatically create an additional todo in Things with the Agenda note URL attached to the todo’s note or whatever. 
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This is huge for my workflow too. I want to get things into Agenda, but it’s not always easy. URL scheme to add an article or quick thought text would be huge, especially for file links, etc.
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Another +1
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Thanks for this post. Very useful. We have some ideas about quick entry, and this could perhaps be worked into that update.
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Something related that’s bugging me, is that if I’m in On The Agenda and I try to create a new note, a dialog pops up asking me where I want that note.
Quite understandable, but a real pain when I’m trying to create a note in hurry - for example to jot down an idea quickly, or to make notes during in phone call. It’s a pain because I want to write the note NOW, not worry about where to file it! Especially when filing it means I have to use the track pad, because I can’t navigate the dialog box with the keyboard.
I know you’re resisting an Inbox - but this is another situatuon where it would be helpful. (You’ve sometimes suggested using the Agenda as an Inbox, but that’s counter intutive for me: I don’t want to clutter up my Agenda with odd notes, I use it for stuff I want to focus on NOW, not deal with later.)
The ability to select the project for a new note using the keyboard would be helpful as well, but still requires too much cognitive overload in my opinion - in those sorts of scenario.
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We have ideas to solve this exact scenario, stay tuned
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I start everything in Drafts. Adding an action to the Drafts Action Directory would also be a great acquisition model for new users, as folks like us can;t stop buying to-do/not taking apps
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Just want to +1 this as another person who starts everything in Drafts.
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I also want to +1 this - and +1 that other suggestion about creating a note without having to decide where to file it (although if there is support for x-callback-url, I can work around it using Drafts)
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Without Proper x-callback and ability to initiate from Drafts Agenda is unfortunately next to unusable to me.
This compounded by what I still see as poor decision on URL placement in calendar as “note” rather than URL.
I’ll keep checking here periodically as concept is great; some decisions made so far appear weak but hopefully they will listen to voices in the forum in the iOS product early days.
I’ll keep checking here periodically as concept is great; some decisions made so far appear weak but hopefully they will listen to voices in the forum in the iOS product early days.
It’s indeed early days, the iOS app is literally weeks old. Also, some choices have a lot more reasons then what might seem obvious. We aim to steadily improve the app and making it more powerful. Unfortunately you can never please everyone, so some things will simply never make it due to time or technical limitations, time will tell.
This is a great idea - nicely worded, too. +1
ScottyJ
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I’m needing this right now. Agenda has a lot of room for really powerful URL schemes:
- Notes already have an identifier, so appending to existing notes could be implemented
- You already have a scheme for linking to projects, so you could set a URL for adding a new note to said project
- You could add additional arguments for setting a date (arguments for associating with an event would be very hard I’d imagine)
I really really want to be able to use Agenda with Drafts.
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Perhaps you can propose a minimal set of URLs, and how you think they should work. We can consider that going forward.
Note that we are supporting shortcuts on iOS, which allow some of this type of functionality.
I think Shortcut support will be great, but having URL schemes in addition to Shortcuts will allow extendability with other great apps (e.g. with the existing URL scheme for Agenda, I can link to an Agenda note in an OmniFocus task, or link to a handful of different Agenda notes in a Bear note outlining specific things; many in this thread have brought up using URL schemes to make notes with apps like Drafts specifically)
Some examples might be (and as a non-developer, I’m borrowing these from other apps’ documentations):
agenda://create?title=[title]&text=[text]&date=[yyyy-mm-dd]&project=[projectname]
agenda://append?text=[text]&id=[existing note ID]
Perhaps the append URL could also have the capacity to add a date in the process.
I’m sure smarter people than me have other things that they would love to see. Building a URL scheme will make Shortcuts even more powerful for many users. I know URL schemes for navigation are popular as well (e.g. agenda://search?search=[query] or agenda://today or agenda://ontheagenda)
Thanks. That is useful. It overlaps a lot with the siri shortcuts we are going to support.
I’m a bit intrigued though as to how you would use URLs like this. The shortcuts I understand. Eg. “On the Agenda” navigates you straight to that overview. It’s a “shortcut” for a bunch of steps.
But what about a URL? Take the “create note” one. You are going to end up writing a whole note in the URL. Is there any benefit to that over just going to Agenda?
Or is the idea that it forms one part of a script of actions, where you grab the text from somewhere else, make a note, etc etc. I guess that would make more sense, but I guess in that case you want a callback URL, right? Ie Agenda passes back control to Drafts.
Drew
As for the “create” URLs, it’s essentially creating a note in a URL, yes. The user wouldn’t actually be typing any of that URL though, as they’d be plugging it into a different app. For example, with Drafts, I could set an “action” in that app that would plug in the URL that I had preformatted to take info from what I’m writing in Drafts. I’m trying to use @craigmcclellan ‘s workflow for writing lesson plans and assessments. So for example, I might come up with an idea briefly for a lesson, and jot it down in Drafts. Then I may add some details to it or use Drafts to get access to a template for lesson plans. When it’s ready, I could use a Drafts action that has a pre-programmed project in the URL and draws the text and title from my Draft. Or I might have some assessment data to quickly jot down when I don’t have that Agenda note easily at hand and run an append action (of course this would get cumbersome; smarter people than me have written javascripts for Drafts that pull a bunch of notes from another app to append to via a user interface).
Things like this work with non-callback URLs, but callback URLs are preferable. I didn’t format it that way in the examples because the syntax starts to get a bit over my head.
To be honest, I’m not sure why navigation URL schemes are useful, but if I look at the documentation for apps like OmnIFocus, Bear, Fantastical, etc. I always see them, and I’m sure there’s people out there relying on them for something.
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Exactly! Not sure why this seems to be a difficult concept to grasp (and yes with callback better but the essence is in basic capability).