Simple Scan and UUID or X-url?

Other Agile Tortoise Apps
1

Simple Scan is a really handy little app that is unfortunately prevented from realising its full potential by the operating system (like many other apps).

The Files format suffers from the fact that it is still not possible to simply save files in a folder of another app.

At the WWDC keynote next Monday, we will find out how iOS/iPadOS will become “more like” macOS. But since, if the leaks are correct, it seems to be mainly about iPadOS, there will probably be a focus on the user interface and once again not on basic functions such as the file system.

Hence my question whether Simple Scan can also get a UUID method. This would make it possible to save in folders at least of apps that allow access to the UUIDs of their folders.

It would be even better, of course, to have full X-url(-callback) support. With which you could also pass data such as the create date, tags etc. if the target app supports this.

If the user interface of Simple Scan remained unchanged, maybe there would have to be a variable for the data type in the X-url.

Example: In DEVONthink To Go, my favourite target app, many different file types can be created, the X-url would have to contain explicitly which one.

This is how the X-url part of my “Send to DEVONthink to Go” action in Drafts looks like:
x-devonthink://x-callback-url/createmarkdown?title=[[created|%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S]]&text=%0D[[draft]]&tags=[[tags]]&destination=[[destination]]&label=[[label]]

The createmarkdown part would be the result of the variable if Text is the chosen format (or at least that is what I would prefer over simple txt), if the chosen format was PDF it would be createpdf etc. The user would somehow have to set this. True, this contrasts the “Simple” in Simple Scan. But the actual scanning would indeed become simpler, just not the setting of the Custom Destination.

Of course, you could create three DEVONthink To Go related Custom Destinations, one for PDF, one for an image, and one for text, but it would be better if you only needed one and the X-url would be automatically adapted to the file type by Simple Scan.

2

It is not possible to send files via URL scheme, x-callback-url or otherwise. URL schemes work like the equivalent of GET type http requests, and cannot pass data, just some string-encoded parameters.

3

Thanks for the explanation, agiletortoise. I see now that URL schemes can only pass string parameters and can’t transfer actual files. Using UUIDs or shared folder references might be a workaround to let apps like Simple Scan save files in other apps’ folders without sending the files directly. This wouldn’t require embedding files in the URL but would rely on the OS supporting folder access between apps. Hopefully, future updates will improve how apps can share files or metadata more seamlessly.

4

I see. Thank you. What misled me was that DEVONthink’s URL scheme directory actually lists createPDF (not image, of course). However that works.

So no x-url. Or x-url only for text? Which also would allow to pick the file extension like .md instead of .txt.

Well, UUIDs work, at least with some apps. You might want to take a look at how Funnel handles it, specifically with DEVONthink as the target app.

Funnel’s approach is to offer a limited (yet constantly extended) number of target apps with optional settings for each app. This is in contrast to Simple Scan’s open approach. If you implemented UUIDs, the question would be how to integrate them into the clean user interface without cluttering it up.

And since I mentioned tags in my original question about x-url—how about tags without x-url?