Before, I wrote a few complains (https://dellu.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/where-bookends-sucks/) I have on Bookends as replacement for Sente. It has been almost 9 months since that post.
Now, I am updating my experience with the Bookends.
The good news: the latest version of Bookends (12.7.7) has solved one of the major complains I had on the application. That is: it can now extract references from a plethora of sources that the source of extraction is no more a problem.
In addition, I learned in the course of the previous months that the right method of finding references of PDF books is to use the ISBN associated with the books. Once you write the ISBN of the book in the ISBN field, Bookends happily can download all the reference data from Amazon using its Autofill feature. The Autofill feature is a super-feature. One day, I put about 400 PDF articles collected over the years into Bookends watch folder; all of them have their DOIs printed in the first pages of the articles. It was just magic to see all the PDF files find their references filled automatically in a couple of minutes.
I also leaned that Bookends is much potent application than Sente when it comes to managing references. The tools embedded into it are unbelievably rich. It has organizational tools like: smart folders which support REGEX, static folders, labelling (color coding). It has a fully configurable Format Manager which enables the end user to import or export; rename the references in endless ways. The Format Manager in Bookends is the greatest feature I have ever seen in any reference manager. It is a dream come true. It is a liberating feature. I cannot say enough about it.
Bookends has other tools under Global Change. Finder replace that works across the whole library; batch changing of reference types, batch inserting data..and, other many types of manipulation tools.
Attachment handling and file renaming is superb in Bookends. The best part is: files are managed very transparently. You can explicitly put your files in a Dropbox folder without any hassle: while still they are attached to their references.
The Duplicate Finder tool embedded into Bookends is the best in the class. Jabref is great for finding duplicates. But it cannot reach the complexity and elegance of the duplicate finder in Bookends. You will never miss a duplicate with it.
If you are into Latex, it is also one of the most Bib friendly non-bib reference manager. It can assign unique Bibtex keys: and, the Format Manager can be manipulated to export in any of the Bibtex formats (Bibtex or BibLatex). You can also manipulate your format to export distinct (unique) bibtex fields. You don’t even need to export the reference to get your bibliography to work with Latex. You can make Bookends to work with your Latex file directly.
Bookends has AppleScript dictionary. That again opens a world for who are into the scripting.
Integration with other super applications: I have never seen any reference manager as flexible as Bookends (I admit, Zotero could be even more flexible: I just don’t like that app; never tried it seriously.). For me, the fact that Bookends works well with Devonthink and Tinderbox is the best part of the story. Bookends is hand in glove with both Devonthink and Tinderbox. You can export and import in both directions; you can even directly sync them using some scripts (all the three are scriptable). Combining the three power tools is the nirvana for the knowledge worker. The world has never been greater.
The only feature I am still missing from Sente is the reading and annotating capabilities of Sente. The reading experience in Bookends is nowhere closer to Sente. Otherwise, as I am more using Bookends more, I am getting more surprises how a reference manager could be so rich and so capable. In an ideal world, BE would incorporate the annotation tools of Sente.
Dellu 