Almost worse than Beta (SORRY!)...

DEVONthink To Go Feedback
1

Hi there everyone…

First I must admit that I was one of the guys that grabbed their ipad first thing in the morning after opening my eyes to checlk in the app store if DTTG had finally been released…

I swear I love(d) DTPO which I bought a few years ago.
Last month I even bought the Scansnap hoping to finally realise my paperless office…

So I am definitely not a complainer…

Until today I thought “okay, it (DTTG) is the first release, they will release a bugfix which removes most of the worst bugs…”.

tonight, after having been struggling for the WHOLE WEEKEND with trying to get everything working I think I will give up now. At least for a while until DTTG has reached a professional state of usability and reliability.

I really like this whole devon thing. The nice and friendly team, the way they run their company and so on…
But being honest I have to admit that in all the months I have been using my iPad(s) now I have never had an application with so many bugs!
Actually today I had found more bugs than working features… Sorry!

The last thing that happened just a few minutes ago was that - after syncing for the approx. 1256th time - everything was messed up!
After copying more than 13.000 files (bookmarks, pdfs, unknown format files, textfiles) I noticed that DTTG/DTPO had synced the WRONG “Sync”-Group! So I have “Database X” now on the iPad in DTTG with all the documents from “Database Z” inside… Great…
In other words: “Go back to ‘start’ and start over. Dont miss to pass the bug-corner!”…

I could start over now but I’m fed up. Wasting days in trying to get something working that is supposed to make my life easier is not what I need. By the way, I would call myself a geek and I tried DTTG on 3(!!!) iPads and one iPhone. Same frustration on all devices!

This application has really not anything (so far) that is special.
It is not even useful as a simplpe PDF-reader or some kind of file-reading software. I can buy lots of little apps that do exactly that, just much better…

So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE kick out the first bugfixes these days.
Otherwise I believe many users will delete this (loved) app from their devices! And that would really be a pity!

PS:
Sorry for my bad english and my spelling mistakes…

2

yeah same here. but in their defense: limited resources, devs, time, qa, probably a ton of code we haven’t seen yet, trying to get just the part for 1.0 working, … maybe they’ll bounce back quickly.

gary

3

I agree. I test DTTG only with a database with a few documents.
It nearly always crash when I try to search for something. The search results are bad - especially searching in PDFs - and I only tests words, which located on the first page of a document.

4

Folks - we are listening! Please post bug reports on the issues you are finding. We are aware of issues with Search and some users are reporting issues the data being synced. Filing a report not only makes sure we note our specific problem, but in fact we do have solutions for some of these problems.

5

Hello Mike,

I guess you guys should already be full of bug reports.

I think its better if you cite specifically the things/bugs of which you are aware of and are working on, so users don’t need to keep filing additional repetitive bugs.

I have the issue with the app crashing when trying to create a text note. I have been able to use the app without crashing, unless I tried to create a text note. Lastly the app went into crash mode right after it was started, generating the error message and then closing.

I have a MacBook with the lastest version of DEVONthink (2.0.5), and an iPhone with 3.1.3.

I had to go through the Reset option in the Settings pane of the iPhone in order to be able to use restart the app appropriately again.

My suggestion for further versions of the iOS app, is to implement the ability to write bug reports directly through an e-mail generated within DTTG. Just like OmniFocus does, which will then put the subject with the version particulars.

Sometimes being able to generate bug reports through your web site is not the most efficient for the end user, considering he/she is most likely to be using the iOS device and not a computer with access to a regular browser to go through your bug system form filing.

Regards,

6

Just FYI - when an application crashes on an iOS device, it sends a crash log to Apple (that we can access). That is a bit like viewing an accident scene without know what lead up to the accident, but it helps. We are following the postings here and do take note of the problems our customers are reporting. That said, it really does help everyone if you can eventually file a bug report. Regardless - we are listening and hope to address the most serious issues to an update very soon. Features (and lack thereof) will be our main focus in future updates.

7

I just came back for a scientific meeting abroad. This time I traveled only with my iPad not NoteBook. I put my Daily and OnGoing databases on my iPad using DTTG. The second database has over 10 000 files. I have used DTTG has the main note taking and file access for 7 days in a row. It just works!

That being said:
1- Sync of a large database like this one is difficult. the sync can even crash the Mac DTPO application!

2- Certain files types are not supported. DDTG will tell you that this is a specific file in the database but you cannot access it in DDTG.

3- Can transfer PPT, Keynote, PDF, Number and Excel documents from Mail to DDTG but not Word or Page…Very strange and I already post a bug report, since to me this is a bug.

  1. File ordering can be strange. In my daily database, I have an electronic tickler file (electronic version of 43 folders system). I cannot get the ordering of the days, 1 to 31, right i.e. 1,2,3…31. I can get 1,10,11,12…2,20,21… or the inverse order, 9, 8, 7, …3, 31, 30, 2, 29, 28…

5- For long road trip, not being able to move documents from the global inbox to my databases subfolders is also a missing feature.

Otherwise, I found DTTG quite stable.

Luc

8

The sort results you’re getting look like what you’d expect from an alphanumeric sort. Can you rename the days 1-9 to 01-09? This should then sort properly.