I am new to this forum and am trying out DEVONthink Pro. I organise my stuff in various folders and currently use Extensis Portfolio to “watch” the relevant folders and update its database when I throw new stuff into the folders or delete stuff from them. Works well for me.
DEVONthink clearly does much more than Portfolio. I am contemplating change.
But there does not seem any way to replicate the “watch” (ie synchronize) feature in DEVONthink Pro.
One post I read suggested that this might be coming in DT Pro 2 but as v1 was only released this week, seems like there might be a bit of a wait on this feature.
Automator would be able to help you out here. Check out the “End Workday” and “Move Existing Files” example workflows in release 1.0 of DEVONthink Pro. A combination of these workflows would achieve what you want to do. It wouldn’t run automatically but would allow you to synchronise the changed and missing files with the database.
Some of the actions were written with this goal in mind: to get the file path of existing records, filter files’ paths against records, import files and synchronise records.
All a bit complicated for my simple brain. I hope version 2 brings in a watch type facility and I think this program will then fit my every bill. I like the views and the speed is excellent.
One thing that is bugging me though is how to get the program to re-index PDFs. If I import a bunch of PDFs and then OCR them, DT does not index them. If I export then re-import after OCR, this jogs the indexing into life.
When scanning PDFs, if the scan process doesn’t include the OCR step, you should save the scanned PDF images in the Finder rather than in DT/DT Pro, then perform the OCR step, after which the PDFs can be imported to DT/DT Pro.
DEVONtechnologies is considering the possibility of a feature that would provide direct scanning and OCR into DT Pro. This would require agreements with an OCR vendor, or possibly a scanner manufacturer. It may become available in a future version, especially if there is significant interest by users.
Currently, you can use a Folder Action script on a Finder folder. DT/DT Pro will then automatically import new contents added to that Finder folder.
Or you can synchronize a group to a folder, which does the same thing. But it is one-way only. Deleting content either in the folder or in DT/DT Pro does not remove items.
Two-way synchronization of a group to a folder will become easier and reliable in version 2, due to the revised database structure.
Also currently in DT Pro, you might explore further the Automator actions that Annard has developed. There’s a little learning curve, but interesting potentials.