?
Did I say it wasn’t a hierarchy?
1 Like
This thread is too hard to follow now and I can’t find the intital comment. The discussion has become interesting to me for other reasons. Ones I think you share to some degree. I was looking for somebody here who wanted to file in different folders. A lawyer. I was going to point our ‘replicants’. Part of the issue seems to me, on this 3PV topic to be solvable by exploring some of DEVONthink 3 's other features. Replicants was a perfect example. You can’t ‘school’ folk though I have found? I find DEVONthink 3 indispensable now, do you? Out of interest?
I would note that one person’s “user error and poor strategic thinking” is another’s necessary structure do to the nature of the task at hand. Some of it is no doubt due to projects that stretch back to the quill and parchment era as you put it, but even giving due consideration to that perspective different tasks need different tools.
One may need to give up bleeding edge optimization in order to be able to deal with all the different stake holders, legal and regulatory requirements, historical structures around fields of knowledge that everyone uses as a foundation for communication, you name it.
I would also note that quill and parchment methods are very resilient. Yeah no tags and other kool kid stuff etc etc, but to be blunt software tools come and go, but the hierarchical file structure, for example, is for ever and does allow the user to easily find what they need no matter what tools they are using.
I am not a lawyer, but I do use DT3 extensively as an expert witness in litigation matters.
Replicants, tags, and AI search features are wonderful for my database of articles that I use for researching my cases. But as for my actual case files, when I am asked by counsel to “submit my file” for discovery or to allow an attorney to “review my file” during a deposition, I want a regular, archaic set of folders and subfolders - it would be way way too much of a distraction trying to explain to an opposing attorney or court how my file with replicants, smart groups, and various AI features is “true and complete.” Not to mention what happens if there is a software update between the time I submit my file for discovery and then when I go to court; if there is a change in smart group/replicant processing and I show up in deposition with either additional documents or missing documents, then I am in big trouble.
3 Likes
no, but it wasn’t clear to me thus the question. 
1 Like
Since I have dived into this thread, which I seem to do every few weeks looking for the latest on the topic perhaps a bit of where I am at on the issue.
Putting aside IT philosophy, being a quill and parchment sort, professional tools need to support the features that professional users grow to depend on. IMHO total reinventions of a tool are all fine in the consumer sphere, but my professional use of DT goes back to 2006. As built it has worked very well in accessing very large, what ever large is, data sets in the manner that my industry and field expect to be able to use the information inclusive of making those data sets easily useable by non DT users.
Key to that as I have noted before in this thread is the 3PV. Consequently removing 3PV has had a significant productivity impact on my work and has forced a move to less effective methodologies. To be blunt I am not going to sit down and spend weeks of time moving to what ever the hot organizational tool de jure is when I have a working system that is 40 years old and survived the move from paper and pencil to computers. Needless to say I have seen a LOT of hotness come and go.
So where am I? I have dumped all my databases into dropbox to support cross platform access of the information. I am currently indexing them in DT as system wide search in the various OSes I touch every day sucks. I view this use of DT as temporary however.
Why temporary? The justification to continue support Macs, despite their decaying software and hardware quality (as Apple consumerizes all their products) has been the power DT used to bring to the table. Moving to Windows or Linux is seriously on the horizon and when I can squeeze out some time I will be looking for better than system level search tools to experiment with.
It continues to be my sincere hope that 3PV comes back and that Apple comes through on their promises to care for the professional user again, but I do not want to be locked going forward (yes I do understand that my data is not trapped in DT, user since 2006 you know.)
They are not solvable. You’re trying to find answers to something you’re exploring. As the original moderator I’ve made roughly eight lengthy objective arguments. Scroll 300 some comments and you’ll find them. Please feel free to elaborate and present your opinion. Try to keep the narrative originally presented unaltered rather than analyzing it from the perspective of your needs and what works for you.
2 Likes
Yeah I get similar problems. One day the whole legal/academic/security system will collapse under its self generated mountain of information and marginalia. I just re-file ‘as needed’ regarding third parties. I find little friction. I will say I had similar problems with excel and spreadsheets some time ago. The issue of how underused and badly used Spread sheets are is another story though: because of the bottleneck of the least IT savy operator. I appreciate, as you do, that it is a ‘real’ problem. IMHO, as you say, it should be addressed directly as a STEM education problem: we are not.
Short of telling you everything I actually do, which I won’t and can’t, I can’t amplify more. However I confess I don’t have the mountains of stuff some of you have. As I have said, IMHO, most of us, including myself have way way way more than we need or can actually ‘use’ in any meaningful sense.
Sorry. Took your question as snarky and responded in kind. Oops. 
I don’t have strong opinions on the concepts in this thread, but to clarify, while the stack of arbitrary date-based folders I described is a hierarchy, I don’t think it’s what people here are looking for. A typical folder hierarchy follows a content-based conceptual organizing system. What I suggested isn’t that–it simply resolves potential performance issues you’d encounter if you left the number of documents I’m talking about in a flat structure.
@tudoreynon I don’t know that schooling is necessary or even warranted. While there’s always more than one workflow to accomplish a task, it’s clear that 3PV was the best option for many people for a particular task. I can see that you’re passionate about about critiquing this assumption/offering alternatives, but I doubt that that’s a great use of your time.
Personally I’d like the DT team to restore 3PV if for no other reason than to allow all of the folks in this thread to focus about other ways of improving (their workflows with) DT3!
My answers are directed at other users. I have followed this discussion for some time and spent some of my own time looking at other users set ups, as I can understand them anyway: as a matter of fact too much of my own time.
I was a 3PV afficianado. I changed my view for the reasons I give. I am of the view that anything anybody could do on DEVONthink 2 they can do better on DEVONthink 3 or as well, if they think it through. I can’t engage with every user variation thrown up to ‘prove’ otherwise. Sorry. I am actually not only done with this discussion but losing interest in it altogether.
1 Like
I like the app, I rely on it and wish to see it thrive: and I think the critique put forward here is unfair to the developers, I am not ‘passionate’ in particular about it I don’t think? I appreciate that is an Americanism that I don’t quite latch on to. It has been said to me in other contexts. I find it distorts my frame of mind and my intent very often and suggests that I have a ‘bee in my bonnet’, I don’t on this one, I do on some things I think: I know the term has a more positive connotation to some. However I think it best I leave this thread. I see nothing whatsoever being achieved by continuing after this remark to your interesting comment.
I think we will have to agree to differ on the ‘schooling’. I said in fact that it is not possible to ‘school’ on here. I have had several periods where I wish I could have schooled folk on several tech matters. In one case I was allowed to, with some success.
In some cases where real serious issues could have been avoided. Some strategies are, as I said, in my view, objectively better than others, there are grey areas of course and this might be one of them. Maybe rather than Quill and Parchment I have used another tech example and we should have started a discussion as to whether DEVONthink 3 should incorporate technology to read punch cards?
I think DEVONthink 3 team might well bring back a simulcrum of 3PV by the way. I don’t see it making any difference to my use though or the functionality of the app.
I agree on the line of your closing comments. Like one puts ‘trainer wheels’ on a bicycle, mostly there so one ‘feels’ stable.
1 Like
no problem from my end gentlemen. I know I get passionate about good tools!
One more thought based on your comments and then I need to get back to work. Concur re flat file systems. True hierarchy has value and 3PV integrated well with it, especially when navigating large databases of legacy information.
One example that made me a DT true believer from back in the DT2 days. The ability to search and navigate large data sets helped me save a client a million bucks by finding a 60 year technical paper I probably would not have found other wise.
So I am passionate about DT, tools like 3PV etc so will continue to lurk here with hope.
tudoreynon I first programmed on a PDP-11 using punch cards, just sayin’! 
2 Likes
Folders are so 1990ies. Labels are the new thing.
PS: I programmed punch cards with a PDP-8 hehehe.
2 Likes
…for some users.
2 Likes
I am primarily interested in what you consider to be ‘the new’ or the preferred way of using DT.
Folder handling is getting worse, labels are not the new thing and tags are not implemented in a way that they replace a folder structure.
Also, I don’t want to constantly use search and use AI to navigate trough my documents.
I think everyone has a basic organization in the form of a folder structure, some have a smaller and some a more extensive structure. But for decades the basis has always been a folder structure and I don’t see any new approaches to question them and pay less attention to them… at least not as long as new approaches do not offer better possibilities.
So where does DT stand - what is the concrete best practice approach that DT pursues? In this context I don’t want to take part in (philosophical) discussions about data management - the fact is that DT3 offers a lot of new features, but regardless of the many features, the organizational levels have deteriorated. You can’t deny this and discuss away with workarounds - its just missing and many many users are having problems with it. This has to be taken serious.
Something was taken out and not implemented with an adequate replacement - so instead we are now discussing about my data management. So I think DT assume that the product is used and organized differently…but they don’t say anything about it. That’s the sheer horror when you consider the crucial role DT plays in everyone’s sensitive data.
2 Likes
I do a little bit folder organization but mostly I rely on tags, labels and search. Don’t see a problem with that and DT3.
Looking at two other big organizational tools many tech companies use today, Confluence and JIRA. For both cases folder level organization is there but we mostly use labels, smart searches and tags and do not rely on folders for finding information. Especially labels are god-send as I could put labels on critical JIRAs and find them in quick search at meetings, all across multiple ‘folders’.
Stuck record territory, but it’s the conflation of the sidebar and the second pane that is so fiddly and cumbersome and “mood breaking” for many of us, and no combination of tags, labels and search gets around that with the simplicity that a feature from the halcyon days of DT less-than-3 that was touted by DEVON as a major plus offered.
I obviously still use and very much appreciate DT3, but it would be so much better for me (and once again, others who also liked/relied on it) if 3PV was put back. Mashing it all into one UI element is not an adequate replacement.
2 Likes
I don’t have problems with the second bar – if issues file bug reports.
Sorry, I didn’t explain myself well enough. I mean the (now gone) second pane of the old 3PV being combined in function with the sidebar in DT3. I dislike having the databases and groups combined, which is a common complaint (among many others) voiced by me and others in this thread.
1 Like
I also work with jira and confluence and Atlassian has implemented the tags properly - I would love to work with tags only but the concept of the UI clearly shows that this is not intended for the basic organization of the documents (even it technically works).
Since tags do not support automatic classification, I think DT undermines itself by requiring us to find workarounds for folders. Also you run into trouble with DTTG.
So I only use it sporadically for additional information or big slicing of my documents as it’s more complicated in use to work with a combination of tags and folders.
The bad thing is that it’s actually only due to the UI - the basic implementation itself seems to offer everything we would need.
1 Like