I’m still testing DT Pro and DNote, both of which I intend to purchase when the evaluation periods expire. I have exported all the data out of SOHO Notes and will be bringing most of it into DTP over the next month or so.
SOHO – hmmm, the most beautiful, desirable woman you’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, she spreads gasoline around the house and torches the place while you’re asleep upstairs, then raids your bank account before hopping on a plane to go find another sucker. SOHO Notes is the most attractive but deadly Mac database I’ve come across. I lost work and a lot of hair while we were together. I hope she’s locked up real soon. There are plenty of us suckers out there.
But then I found DEVONthink and DEVONnote. For what they’re worth, here are my thoughts on both applications:
There’s been discussion in the forum about making the interface more attractive. It would certainly be nice to have more modern icons in the toolbar, but please do nothing that will compromise the stability of the program. I’ve had enough of beauty. DT Pro and DNote work.
DEVONnote is marketed as a kind of DEVONthink Lite, but I believe it deserves to be given a little more individual character. I’d be interested to know how many DT Pro users also use DEVONnote, and what their reasons and experiences are. As a writer/journalist I’ve found it almost perfect for drafting articles or chapters using the very basic outliner (which behaves as though each topic is hoisted) allowing me to have my research notes and interview transcripts open in DT Pro on the other side of the screen, before cutting and pasting into one note in DEVONthink Pro. But might it be possible to actually have a very basic outliner available in one single DEVONnote note, something that works like an outlining page in Circus Ponies NoteBook for example? Then I would be able to see my completed article or chapter without piecing it together in DT Pro.
The only issue I have with DEVONthink Pro and DEVONnote is the length of time the applications take to open, but hopefully this will be addressed in a future update.
Thank you for the feedback! Both DT and DN should launch quite fast as long as the databases are not huge or there’s not enough RAM. In addition, please check if disabling the automatic check for update (see Preferences > Update) speeds up launching.
That’s just what I do. Devon Think (the PE-version) is my repository, full of articles and facts -rtf, pdf and occasional quicktime files - I have collected from the net or recieved with mail. Most of it in English.
In Devon Note I write my articles (in Swedish) and archive my articles, other articles in Swedish together with contact details, mails and clippings that do not belong in Devon Think, which is my research base.
This way I have two separate databases in two languages, one for research and one for my own writing. If my writing and my archive had been in one and the same languages, I’m not sure I would use two databases, though. As it is now, I can start writing and press “See Also” and get a list of my own (and occasionaly my Swedish collegues) writing on similar subjects. I would love to be able to press “See Also” and get into my full repository of stories and facts on the Middle East, which is my field of work and interest.
If I would work with only one application, I would chose Devon Think in whatever flavour, as I have a lot of pdf files and also want to be able to archive my radio-stories.
Devon Note and Devonthink PE has lately come in the backwater of their corporate use siblings. My hope is that the Devon team start taking an interest in us “light users”. Perhaps by merging DTPE and DN into an easy to use “prosumer” product that can archive pdf and qt, with smart files and perhaps a full screen mode for concentrated writing.
I would love to see DN handle pdfs… It would then be perfect for “domestic” notes, clippings and todos. Many receipts and statements come as PDFs… would love to store them in DN. I could then use DTPO for the “heavy lifting” work and research.
Just a little input… What to work on “next” is always a tough choice!
I may not be understanding you correctly, but you may open several windows in DNote and then set one in outline view, another as a file view, and another as a blank file for writing rich or plain text. The limit of open files would be your screen space and avaliable RAM. The command is File: New Window.
I recently put together a detailed itinerary for a long trip on which I gave lectures and taught classes, keyed to the places visited. Each day was a folder for URLs and files. (Wikipedia is especially good for compiling travel research).
In a separate window, I wrote out my lecture and teaching notes, arranged by calendar dates. Then I duplicated those notes (Option-drag) to another folder. I exported that set as RTF files and opened them in Word for final outlining and polishing.
The whole operation was easy, because I did it in one application, DN, using its multiple windows before exporting to Word.
Since I wrote this, I have tested an application called WriteRoom, which also includes a system wide plugin called “Edit in WriteRoom”, that makes it possible to open any text in a cocoa application, edit it in full screen mode and save it back to the original application - i.e. provides Devon Note with a full screen mode with a simple keyboard command. WR:s default full screen mood is a geeky green on black, but fully customable.
Now I just need smart files and to be able to save doc, pdf and qt files in DevonNote, or whatever the “prosumer” product Devon seems to be cooking might be called
