The Hickensian

17.01.07 Yojimbo widescreen view hack

31 comments
Tagged with: hacks, osx, software, yojimbo

Having tried just about every notebook, organiser and outliner app over the last 3 years, I’ve become an eager convert to Yojimbo. Here’s a little hack that makes the main window use a 3 vertical pane view, like the letterbox plugin does for Apple Mail.

Yojimbo window showing widescreen vertical hack

There is a wee bug to be aware of. when you resize it too small, the list pane jumps right and covers up the preview. Clicking the splitter bar (the bit inbetween the 2 panes with an indented dot) brings it back though.

Download

Yojimbo.zip

Installation

This hack is for Yojimbo v1.4. Please make sure you update before installing this hack.

Backup Yojimbo first. Nothing bad should happen, but belts-and-braces, you know? Also, if you get sick of this view and want the old one back, just replace it with the backup.

To install, ctrl-click on Yojimbo in the Finder, choose ‘Show Package Contents’ from the context menu. Navigate to /Contents/Resources/English.lproj/ and replace the OGMainWindow.nib file with the one in the download.

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No.1

∞ Richard Medek said 1119 days ago:

Thank you, Jon! I’ve been growing pretty fond of the letterbox view for Mail lately, and this tweak to Yojimbo fits right in.

Now the only trick left will be for me to consistently use Yojimbo, rather than continue to demo every other notebook app out there (I think the fun comes in trying the new programs, not actually using them!).

No.2

∞ Peter Cooper said 1119 days ago:

I don’t understand how I’ve never heard of this program before. It’s EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for.. I can’t believe I haven’t seen this on Digg and del.icio.us.. it’s amazing!

I don’t understand three column layouts (although you’ve done a good job), but for merely highlighting this program.. bravo! :)

No.3

∞ Chris said 1119 days ago:

Man, now I adore you even more.

No.4

∞ Stefano Cecere said 1119 days ago:

i am a “notekeeper keep tryingthem all”, too…

now i’m evaluating Mori 1.5

if only Yojimbo had nested folders, i would trash MacJournal and all the others for it…

No.5

∞ Anthony Baker said 1119 days ago:

Jon, have you had any problems with this hack?

I just installed it on my copy of Yojimbo 1.3 (34) and while it displays the widescreen view, I am unable to display content in the viewer window (on left). I just get “No Selection” listed.

I’ve been using Devonthink Pro for some time, but dig Yojimbo’s tagging capability I moved off it, frankly, because I didn’t like not having a widescreen view (among a few other issues).

Would love to get this hack to work.

Any suggestions?

No.6

∞ Dere said 1119 days ago:

Have you ever looked at Journler? It’s really worth a look, and no money is needed.

No.7

∞ Jon Hicks said 1119 days ago:

@ Stefano – Nested folders? Tagging!

@ Anthony – Nope, I’m sorry, I haven’t had that issue. Has anyone else installed this and seen the same problem? If you restore the backup, does the problem go away?

@ Dere – Yes, I’ve looked at that, but it seems to function better as a journal than an organiser. It didn’t have the key features that I loved about Yojimbo such as tagging, quick add and its passwords/serial number functionality.

No.8

∞ Filip Lam said 1119 days ago:

If it’s only notes you want check out Mori from Hogbay too. It’s very sleek.

No.9

∞ Jon Hicks said 1119 days ago:

@ Filip – Its not all I want, and I use Mori too.

No.10

∞ Amit Karmakar said 1119 days ago:

Jon, wonder if you’d be interested in changing the hideous Yojimbo icon to something meaningful? :)

No.11

∞ Fred Nelson said 1119 days ago:

Doesn’t work with v 1.2. “No Selection” is shown on the right and the left hand pane is blank.

No.12

∞ Jon Hicks said 1119 days ago:

Ah! That gives me a clue! This is based on Yojimbo 1.4, so try updating first, and then applying it! Let me know if that fixes it!

No.13

∞ Karl Brightman said 1119 days ago:

Just what i was looking for, excellent. Cheers~

No.14

∞ Peter Cooper said 1119 days ago:

I don’t think nested folders and tagging are mutually exclusive. I’m using Yojimbo now and I think nested folders would be useful since I can see I’ll probably want a whole ton of Tag Collections.. and having them all present 24/7 down the left hand bar will probably be a space gobbler. I guess the best tactic instead for now is to just have different ‘types’ of things down the left then do searches within those, rather than have lots of predefined buckets.

No.15

∞ Jay Welshofer said 1119 days ago:

Sweet! Thank you SO much!

No.16

∞ Richard Medek said 1119 days ago:

Just a note, I tried this hack first on 1.2, then updated…AFAIK it only works on 1.4 (the current release).

And for what it’s worth, I’ve tried every app under the sun and Yojimbo is just so easy. Plus it has a killer Quicksilver plugin.

No.17

∞ Tobias said 1118 days ago:

As for the icon, I have replaced it with the pixelgraphix notes icon. Now I can live with it :-).

No.18

∞ folkert said 1118 days ago:

Great John, thank you!

No.19

∞ Anthony Baker said 1118 days ago:

@ Jon – Thanks for the tip. Downloading 1.4 now. Man, I wish this app had the logic to check for updates!

Couple notes on Yojimbo: I’ve been using DevonThink Pro for some time, but I love the fact Yojimbo allows for tagging, has Quicksilver integration, Spotlight integration, etc.

Will give this a go. I’ve been testing Yojimbo, but moved back to DevonThink Pro because of the “no widescreen” issue, and the fact that DevonThink Pro just seems to run faster overall. Probably based on the differences between how the two apps handle their databases. Am hoping that if I go to Yojimbo that I don’t regret this as my db grows.

Any other DevonThink Pro users giving Yojimbo a whirl? Would love to get some thoughts on their experience.

FWIW, I do dig the Spotlight integration, tagging, and some of the other features found in Yojimbo.

No.20

∞ Timmargh said 1118 days ago:

Ah, good job. Increases my love for Yojimbo two-fold.

No.21

∞ Anthony Baker said 1118 days ago:

I’ll second Timmargh’s comment.

First, it definitely works with 1.4 and it does increase my love for the app. Wonderful! Everyone should go widescreen…

Thanks, Jon!

No.22

∞ Alun Rowe said 1117 days ago:

TUAW has a link here now but the author doesn’t seem that impressed…

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/01/17/yojimbo-gets-a-3-pane-widescreen-hack/

No.23

∞ Sergio Mora said 1117 days ago:

@ anthony baker : I use both Yojimbo and Devon Think Pro. The thing is DTP is more suitable to research and academic work. I used to complain about its lack of spotlight support, but I think that it is better in some cases to does not have spotlight indexing. DTP is very customizable, and with a little of AppleScript I do tagging, adding tags in the comment field and using “smart groups”. If you want to try, I can send you the scripts. I use Yojimbo mainly as an Inbox, it is lighter than DTP and I for small pieces of info, it is more suitable.

@ jon hicks : We would love to see a Yojimbo replacement icon coming from you.

No.24

∞ Phillip Deackes said 1117 days ago:

I use Yojimbo and have installed the QS plugin. The trouble is I have no idea how to use the plugin. Currently I use Quicksilver to launch apps and open folders. What do I press to get the plugin to work? I tried pressing Yo . . . and get Yojimbo in the list, but no sign of any plugin.

No.25

∞ Dave Foy said 1117 days ago:

Hey Jon!

Just for the record, Journler does have tagging, encryption on individual entries (or the whole journal if you like), smart folders that are way more powerful than even OS X’s native implementation of them, and an easy ‘quick add’ feature available via Quicksilver. Plus it handles importing any kind of file very very well.

I know on first impressions it seems to be more of a journal-keeping thing, but I’ve been using it for what seems to be a similar purpose to you for a few months now and I’ve never looked back.

Just to mention – I know you weren’t looking for app recommendations : )

No.26

∞ Garrett Dimon said 1117 days ago:

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Now, if only somebody would do something about that icon. :)

No.27

∞ andrew cowell said 1117 days ago:

i’ve tried journaler before. the one thing that i didn’t like was lack of synchronization with .mac. if it had that, i might be able to give up yojimbo. I love that you can drop any kind of file in there.

No.28

∞ Doug Rogers said 1117 days ago:

Makes this app even more perfect than before. Thanks. Works for me on my Powerboook G4 just fine and makes the best use of the screen space. Iove having the name and comment column long and entirely visable as I frequently go back and forth, up and down that column and I can find recent, temporily proximate items without fiddling with window controls.

No.29

∞ Sergio MORA said 1116 days ago:

@ phillip deackes : Simply, for example, hit “y” in Quicksilver (it would show Yojimbo in the pane)... then push the right arrow of your keyboard, then you will have a list of all your entries… Then, you can search by title typing a chunk of text. I generally add “forum tags” to the titles of the entries, so, far exemple, ”[snippet] xhtml doctype declaration”, I hit ”[snipp” in quicksilver and it will show all your items tagged as snippets… What is cool, is that you can hit TAB and in the action pane you can search for an action, as “copy to clipboard”... Like this, you have a very fast way to copy and paste code snippets, for example.

No.30

∞ Phillip Deackes said 1116 days ago:

Many thanks Sergio. I will have a play.