Exporting (and Importing)

The YourOtherMind writing environment allows for a couple different export options.

Why Export?

Exporting is useful for backing up files against a failure of the database that YourOtherMind uses. It is also a good idea to create timed snapshots of content — the version of a layout before making major changes to it.

How to Export

There are two export options. Both are available from the NOTES menu.

  • Export Current Layout. The current open layout will be exported. The user chooses a location and name for the exported file.
  • Export Recently Modified. This exports all files changed in the last twelve hours. These files are named automatically and exported into the export\timed folder. NOTE: Any previous export of recently modified files is overwritten.
    Export recently modified works well when paired with a backup batch file. What I do is run the backup several times during the day, grabbing the contents of the timed export folder, and copying them, on the backup media, into folders based on date/time. This keeps a chronological backup of my work, in case I notice an error later.
    This is a snippet from that batch file:

    set direc=s:\_backups\
    set date_=%date:/=-%
    set hour_=%TIME:~0,2%
    set destin=%direc%\pages\%date_%_%hour_%
    mkdir %destin%
    robocopy /s /r:1 /w:5 /maxage:1 "C:\Users\Public\Documents\YourOtherMind\YourOtherMind\export\timed" "%destin%"

    It copies files from export/timed into the new directory created and which is named for the date and time.

If the Worklog AddIn is installed there is also a third, silent export. Whenever more than an hour of time is logged, an export is automatically triggered on that layout.

How to Import

Just choose the option from the menu and then locate the file the user wants to import.
Keep in mind that importing will override any layout with the same GUID!

Format

YourOtherMind exports in plain-text XML format. This means that the data can be opened in notepad, though recovery of written text takes a couple more steps.

If a user finds that they need to extract the rich text from an xml file, please undertake the following steps:

  • Locate the exported XML File
  • Open the file using notepad.exe or a similar plain text program.
  • Locate the desired text. Notice it will be formatted a little strange. This is because it is exported in RichTextFormat. The following is an example of text.

    {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang4105{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Calibri;}}
    {\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.21.2510;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sa200\sl276\slmult1\lang9\f0\fs22 This is an \b example\b0 rtf file.\par
    Second line of the file.\par
    \par
    }

  • The user must copy this text and paste it into a new text file, saving it with the .rtf extension. This file can then be loaded in Microsoft Word or equivalent programs capable of reading RichText documents.

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