I want to import old content from other systems into Bear. I really don’t want them all to have their creation/modification times replaced by the date on which I do the import.
For this and other reasons I really with the Bear APIs (URL scheme, scripting/shortcuts) allowed setting the creation/modification dates of items. This is most critical on the actions for creating a new note (for importing old content), but I often wish it was possible to do in general, e.g. when I accidentally edit something or change tags and cause the dates to change spuriously.
This matters because dates are so central to how Bear organizes notes (and how I like to organize them, which is part of what makes Bear a good fit).
Thanks! It’s great to know that the option exists via the GUI-driven File > Import process! I’d still really (really) like to be able to control this when creating notes from Shortcuts / the URL scheme to allow my own automations to do this.
For example, I have workflows by which I send Drafts to Bear while processing them, often days later, and I’d like their creation dates in particular to be able to be carried over when firing a Drafts action to create the new Bear note.
I’d also like to be able to make programmatic (or sometimes even manual) edits to my notes, e.g. to correct how certain things are formatted, without changing their mod time.
I consider this metadata an important part of my notes database.
Simply having the ability to set the creation and mod time via APIs would enable lots of workflow flexibility for all these use cases.