I have a question about DA 1.7 and it’s CPU usage. This is a typical situation for me; I’ll have Safari, DEVONthink, and URLManager Pro open and idle and I’ll typically have approximately 8% CPU usage by System and User as reported by Apple’s Activity Monitor - that’s normal for me. Then, I’ll open DA and a new search window comes up ready for input. The CPU usage jumps to approximately 44% - a difference of 36% that DA is using just for being the front application. If I were to switch to another application like DT as an example and DA is put into the background, the CPU usage falls again to 8%. If DA is the front application and doing a search, the CPU usage rises to approximately 65% - this is expected. Once the search is finished and DA is still the front application, the CPU usage falls again to approximately the 44% mark. My question - why does DA use so much CPU whilst being the front application and idle - or more precisely, is this normal behaviour for DA? I would like to use DA as a “search browser” but it seems to me that it is taking a good deal of CPU power to sit idle as the front application and it does impact on background processes on my system. (OS X 10.3.9) I would certainly prefer DA to use as little CPU as possible if it is idle - like it does when it’s in the background. 
Any suggestions will be welcome!
litldream:
I can approximately confirm your numbers for % CPU activity with several large applications open, and with the interesting variable being whether the DA Search window is frontmost or in the background.
OS X 10.3.9.
Applications open: Mail, iChat, NoteTaker, DEVONthink Pro, DEVONagent, iCal.
Idle CPU activity with DA Search in the background: 1-3%.
Idle CPU activity with DA Search in the foreground: 14-20%, occasional peaks to about 44%.
Here’s where it gets interesting. I use DEVONagent as my default browser, so the Web browser window is normally in the foreground, and any open Search window is in the background. In that mode, the idle CPU activity drops down to 1-3%. So I don’t pay any penalty for having a DA Search window ready to roll, so long as a DA Browser window is frontmost.
I don’t know why the DA Search window is hitting the CPU while idle (Christian?) and it’s frontmost, but that activity is suppressed by making the DA Browser window frontmost.
I concur with your observations Bill - the DA browser window in the foreground does reduce the CPU % usage here also - to it’s default value. I too would like to use DA more as my primary browser. Unfortunately I am utterly hooked on using PithHelmet with Safari - the experience of no ads while browsing is very seductive! 
It would be great if PithHelmet supported DEVONagent… from my perspective and probably from most DA users who don’t want to see or “capture” ads with their information!