Classify not ergonomic when AI does not match

-Bring up the Groups & Tags HUD (Tools menu, or control-command-g OR

-Right-click on the document in the See Also section of the drawer and select ‘Move To’.

Thank you. Right, the Groups and Tags view simplifies. But why not have exactly this view in the “group tab” in every main window?

And also : the Groups and Tags Window doesn’t permit to create a new group if you need one !

I do the same thing that Greg suggested. Takes a second.

It is already, isn’t it? The List, Columns, Split, and Three Panes views all display the entire list of groups in the current database. WRT the current database, Groups and Tabs doesn’t know about or display groups that the group panel doesn’t.

when you double click on one group in the group pane in order to open a new window, the new windows has no groups (folder-structure) in the groups tab any more!

Perhaps i should learn to not double-click, but i often have an open window and don’t know where i am (i already opened the breadcrumb-thread for this)

there is a script that moves the selected documents by search.
[url]Move | Duplicate| Replicate selected records [+LaunchBar]]

additionally i modified the script so i simply ‘go’ there (either in the current or new window). saves me a bunch of time :wink:

Maybe I’m dense, but (not a word, korm :wink: )

If the “suitable group” is a subgroup of the AI-found group, why do you need the Classify? I’m confused. Anyways… Why wouldn’t you just right-click on the “wrong group” in the Classify drawer and choose “Reveal” or Open?

Or if it’s identified as the “wrong group” but you known the right group is a subGroup, why not then right-click and select Move > … ?

Of course, you can "right-click, “Reveal”), or “Open”, and then push the new window (the 10th new windows in the session…) a little further because it hides the window you are working in, then drag and drop.

But for a real fast workflow, this is slow.

Why not have the same behavior as the Finder does? I think we all love Mac beaucause 90% of Finder’s Behavior is really quick, fast, neat…

Why should i have ten windows open (or have to click once again to close it, now we have at least 5 clicks for classify one document that didn’t fit with AI), instead of working in the central pane with a column-view similar to Finder’s view?

Actually :
When AI finds the good group: one click, it’s classified. You cannot do better, great.
When AI doesn’t find : 4 clicks or five clicks instead of having an open "Groups and Tags"Pane to do as fast as possible everything that you need to do (create new group, while you continuesly see all the other existing groups…)

uh…oh…no. ever had a look at Path Finder? :wink:
if not, have a look and have your mind blown :wink:

ctrl+c

cmd+m
kitch

not saying you are wrong. but groups and tags without a way to filter is unusable for me and i doubt i am the only one (currently short of 1k groups but 1k+ tags).
i agree about the path selection in the classify list though. that being said, i only have documents in leafs not nodes. using another filing scheme (like you do) seems to feed into this problem.

I did, but i left Path Finder for performance reasons on my MBP. And now with Mavericks Tabs (not upgraded yet) i think Finder will offer one of the biggest advantages of Path Finder, too.


[quote]
When AI finds the good group: one click, it's classified. You cannot do better, great.
[/quote]
ctrl+c

Yes, I know, but I fear those keyboard-shortcuts. But of course, this is still alittle faster than a mouse click.

More i work with DTPO, more i think “downgrade” to a simple nested folder organization .
as David Spark does (Great iBook : “Paperless”)
He also says that Devon Think is a very good program, but he prefers working with nested folder in Finder.

Of course , i will loose

  • AI for classify
  • replicata (they are bette than “Aliases” in Finder
  • integrated OCR from ABBYY

But i win:

  • immediate Dropbox Sync of the whole Database
  • immediate Sync Over the air with the iPhone and the iPad
  • not all the data in one package, but in folders easily visible from outside for other programs (also from syncing apps on iPhone). And also visible for me on the Web-GUI of the Dropbox-Website…
    -Some ergonomics

DTPO would be the perfect solution if :

  • it could work in Dropbox folders (or have a similar Sync working)
  • allow Indexing rather then copying all in it’s own database (right now, you cannot index folders on the Hard Disk, if you want to sync the database : DTPO will Sync all index folders contents in the clients DTPO-Database instead of syncing links.
  • So you could use the AI and other features of DTPO as a big help for organizing your folders.

These are some thoughts, will continue working on DTPO and Dropbox-Folders in the same time for some weeks or months…

This isn’t criticism @saschabur, but DEVONthink doesn’t work for everyone. It seems to be a struggle for you – when DEVONthink is working smoothly, it should disappear into the background and make it easier to work with your documents and stuff, not harder. Maybe a nice folder structure in the file system, augmented by Mavericks tagging and perhaps DEVONsphere Express or some other Spotlight augmentation?

.

because that is absolutely tedious?

hm. i can’t see how this is connected to the question. right-click > move to in the classify pane doesn’t give me a list of the sub groups

:unamused:

I meant right-clicking on the file itself.

roll your eyes as much as you want but its still tedious. sascha is right. how long does it take you to file a document that way? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 15 seconds? more?
anything above one or two seconds is not acceptable imo

I offered a suggestion that is all. I am not going to argue about some personally imposed time limits on file-handling. If sascha or you or anyone finds it too slow, then don’t do it. That doesn’t make it an invalid method, it just makes for one you wouldn’t use.

PS: I rarely confine myself to hierarchical systems anymore and when I do, I let the AI sort it out for me, so… yeah, way faster than 2 seconds.

meaning what? you only use tags? all groups are attached to the root of the database?

you should become a politician. the question was about the AI not sorting it out.
and if you don’t mind, show me how you assign a document to one of 1500 groups in a 6 or 7 level hierarchy in less than two seconds without AI. i reckon you cannot and your eye roll was just the typical nonsense we can expect from devonthink employees when they are called out on the shitty-ness of the app. you guys can’t seem to face an honest look at your app. fine. but don’t insult customers especially when you are too stupid to actually answer the question. thank you.

Civility in discourse is highly recommended. :slight_smile:

Databases can differ in design for many reasons. My database for financial information has more groups and is deeper in hierarchical structure than any of my other databases. I can file any document into it in two seconds or less, because the structure is designed for easily recognized (by me) characteristics and dates of the items filed into it. I don’t use Classify at all, because the groups in that database do not have patterns of contextual relationships among the documents they contain that would lead to fruitful use of the AI assistant. Manual filing is easy.

The database in which I spend most time for writing and research isn’t as highly structured, either in the number of groups or in hierarchical depth. It contains tens of thousands of documents, and is organized into topical groups. Many of those groups have no subgroups. Only rarely does a group hierarchy go down more than three levels. But almost all of those groups contain documents that are recognized by Classify as having characteristic patterns of contextual relationships that distinguish them from each other, so that I do find the AI assistant useful for filing new content, especially when it suggests two or more groups that I think would benefit from replication of the new item into them.

That database originated some 11 years ago, when I first started using DEVONthink. Originally, it had a much more complex structure, with deeper hierarchies. Over time, I simplified the structure rather than making it still more complex. Originally, I had tried to distinguish nuances in content that could be used for structural design. But I found that didn’t actually make the information content more useful to me, but only resulted in more work as new content was added.

I decided that my purpose in creating that database was not to classify documents in detail (although that could be a legitimate purpose of a database), but to use the information in the database for research projects, which often required using the same information in different ways, and that my initial efforts to give considerable granularity to the organization of the documents didn’t pay off for the next research project, and might even confuse me.

DEVONthink provides tools in addition to structural organization to help one identify documents that are useful for a particular purpose. Those include searches (and smart groups), See Also and tags. With those tools I can quickly refine a set of documents that are highly useful references for a research project, without having had to spend a lot of time trying to do so a priori, in a highly granular organizational structure.

That’s why my research database evolved from organizational complexity to a much simpler structure with shallower hierarchies, and in that database Classify filing suggestions are almost always acceptable for my purposes. (More and more often, after glancing at a new document, I’ll invoke Auto Classify.)

But my financial database evolved in the opposite direction, with much more complex and deeper hierarchical structure, and Classify suggestions would usually be of little or no use, were I to bother to try them.

I find it generally quick and easy to file new content into both databases.