I never used 3PV in DT2…
But after reading this thread I reinstalled DT2 on my spare Mac and… wow! Where has this been all my life?
Please add my +1 for adding this feature back to DT3 as soon as possible.
Now I’m debating moving everything back to DT2 just to play with it.
I’ve stopped using DT and haven’t missed it at all. Spotlight is very capable for search, and HoudahSpot makes it even better. Hazel automates filing and tagging if need be, and is more capable in this regard than DT. For the kind of work I do at the moment, it seems that DT doesn’t really give me anything. If anything, it has been getting in the way instead of helping. I’ve tried several times, and have always ended up deleting the databases and going back to the Finder. But it may depend on the work you do.
My work is academic (humanities based), and DT offered a superb way of organising primary and secondary material together, as well as a rudimentary note-taking workflow that suited me. Now I’m thinking of abandoning ‘bucket’ software altogether in favour of a combination of the filesystem, a decent search tool, and Scrivener. Houdahspot is one that I haven’t tried before, will take a look.
As an aside, I’ve invested so much of my life (personal and professional) in DT over the past 8 years that the thought of extracting all my files fills me with mild dread.
As a second aside, having just fired up DTPO2, I notice that the command to open Preferences, to create new databases, and several others, are greyed out. Is this a consequence of also having DT3 installed?
My work has been in history, and more recently in psychology and counselling. I used DT for a good ten years, if not more, and dumped almost everything into it (though I indexed some folders). No longer.
My bibliographic database is Bookends, and anything that might qualify as a “source” gets put into that. Bookends manages the Attachments folder for this material, which is almost all pdf (I print all sorts of stuff to pdf to freeze it in the state when I found it).
I have come to realise that organising stuff into folders has distinct disadvantages. I have gone over to using tags or keywords as a more flexible way of organising material, which also has the advantage of being incremental – by which I mean that I can add tags at any moment to make a file appear inside a smart search result list, but any previous tagging is still valid, so the file will still appear in other smart searches (which look like folders, of course). This is quicker than moving the file, and quicker than making replicants, in my experience. So I’m happily tagging away in the Finder, Bookends, HoudahSpot, Leap, or any other application that will do it.
As for notes, I have decided to give an extended trial to the Zettelkasten system. I have been using The Archive as a note repository, and have so far found it very congenial. The forum there is very helpful, and there are Keyboard Maestro and Alfred workflows for working with the system. So far, I’m finding it much easier to work with than DT, or Scrivener (though I would definitely use that latter for any long-form writing).
In short, I’ve made the move. The pain came mostly from trying to hang on to DT when I should have cut the cord (though with much regret). It doesn’t take much effort to convert a folder hierarchy into tags, and there are benefits to doing so. The folder paradigm really belongs to the pre-digital era, and there are valid arguments suggesting that other methods ought to supersede it. YMMV.
Exporting a database to the file system is not difficult.
Your exported files will have tags assigned. Duplicates will still be duplicates. Replicants will become duplicates. If you want to get rid of duplicates there are several utilities available in the App Store and elsewhere to locate duplicates on your computer.
I just exported a database with 2,800 document and it took less than 3 minutes to do steps 1 and 2, above.
“Lock-in” is not really an issue. (From a data perspective of course – for other reasons, separation can be an issue.)
Thanks @mbbntu for that breakdown, much appreciated. The Archive looks worth exploring as a note taking tool.
Thanks also @korm, for the tips re exporting a database. I had thought the process of extraction would be much more time consuming, but having just completed one database following your steps, it is a much easier process than anticipated.
Let the separation anxiety commence 
Same here Korm. I’ve still occasionally tossed articles into it, but I don’t regularly access DT anymore. This hasn’t really been conscious on my part, sort of like genetic drift, it has just happened as time has passed. The three-pane view was what worked for me as well; that probably has something to do with it.
Just browsing the forum and saw your reference to zettlekasten. Have you looked at roamresearch.com for your notes? It’s in beta, but inspired by zettlekasten. I promise you it is like little else.
Just to mention that I also tried it out but somehow could not get over the fact that it only works online. I also found keyboard navigation somewhat lacking…
Although less rich in resources, I like Bear. At first, I thought it would not be enough for Zettelkasten, but It is quite fast and I love the flexibility of moving things around simply by changing the tags in the text. The search is also very good.
What none of these apps have though is auto-linking and the alias feature of DT3… such a shame. I use it a lot.
Roam does do the auto linking and back linking, but you are correct. I fought and fought, and said I would not use it for that exact reason, then I fell victim to temptation. Loving it at this point.
Bear was my second choice, though whenever nvUltra comes out, I may have to decide once again.
I thought I ought to observe that it is Zettel, not Zettle, just in case someone can’t find it because they are typing the wrong thing.
Yes, I tried Roam. I think I first found a mention of it on the Zettelkasten forum. Fascinating, but I wouldn’t dream of using it for serious work because (a) I do not know if it will still exist next year, and (b) it is online. I can still open files I created in 1992 when I was using an Amstrad PCW because they were either rtf or plain text. When your personal computing history goes that far back, you have seen a lot of things come and go. Much of the pain I have experienced with DT3 has been because I built a way of working that relied to a great extent on something that was then changed by somebody else, and I couldn’t do anything about it. This has made me wary (though it was my fault for falling asleep at the wheel). In short, I can see why the people over at the Zettelkasten forum are wedded to the idea of plain text. Yes, hypertext and linking would be fantastic, but what if it doesn’t work next year? I don’t want to put a lot of work into something that might vanish at some point. Sure, I would still have the text, no doubt, but if all the work of creating links and associations has gone, where does that leave me? Until we have some widely adopted solution to hypertext and linking – a kind of default that everybody uses and is not going to go away – I would not like to put a lot of work into it. Links are fragile, and they often don’t work on every platform. Hook looks very interesting, and is progressing, but it is not there yet. At the moment, the one feature that keeps me vaguely tethered to DT is the Copy Item Link, which works in iOS as well as MacOs. But the tether is not very strong … If you collect research material over 25-35 years, you will see a lot of changes in software. I believe it is not a good idea to rely on it. Intratextual tags will probably still work when you are old and grey. Other things may not. However, I am probably just showing my age, and I can imagine that others will prefer to look into the future, and are no doubt more adaptable. Me? I’m slowing down!
Interesting discussion on Zettelkasten, and I wonder if a mod or administrator could split this off into its own discussion? It is quite a bit off the original topic, and many members that have tired of the 3P discussion may not see it here.
I reflected as I wrote that we had drifted and that it needed its own thread. So agreed.
Haven’t checked in for a while, but I’d be happy to contribute to a crowd-funded push to pay a dev to put 3PV back into DT. I’d obviously much prefer it to be done by the company gratis in response to the groundswell of support for 3PV shown here, but if that is the only way to do it, I’d be willing to (within reason) stump up some cash for it.
Me too, Every day I find myself slipping back into DT2 to do some task that 3PV made simple but is nota PITA to accomplish.
I think the conversation re Zettelkasten is germane to those experimenting with new workflows as a result of the loss of 3PV (who have yet to “tire” of the discussion), so I’d argue it should stay here as an informative element of this thread.
After reading the Z posts in this thread, I have no clue why Zettlekasten is an alternative to DEVONthink 2 Three Pane View and its absence in DEVONthink 3.
OTOH, Zettlekasten has been discussed in this forum repeatedly for years – so there’s no end of threads on the topic.
I was thinking more that the the discussion surrounding Zettelkasten has mentioned Hook, The Archive and Roam as alternative methods of managing information, not that Zettelkasten itself is an alternative to DT3.
True, but I don’t think kludges with Roam and Hook will replace 3-pane view either. Anyway, whatever happens to this thread is up to the moderators, who don’t spend much time in this thread anymore.
Still looking for that 3 pane view …