I use Devonthink on my laptop, but sometimes I plug my laptop in to my widescreen monitor. When I do that, I have to move the columns around in Devonthink to fit. When I unplug and go back to my laptop, the columns are still the way they were for the widescreen, and I have to adjust again.
Is there any way for Devonthink to remember my setup for each display so the columns don’t need to be changed each time an external monitor is connected or disconnected?
I‘d like that. Currently I solve the issue using workspaces for specific layouts and activate them using keyboard maestro depending on the current screen number and screen size of the main screen. However, that also resets the currently open windows and files.
Couldn’t figure out how to do that in moom yet. If anyone has a solution i would be happy to read a detailed workflow example.
Jim and people way more knowledgeable than me will for sure add their comments - but, I can say that I’ve tried this for years, and the issue is certainly MacOS, not any specific application. Even with both monitors connected, sometimes if my system went to sleep I lost all my nice arrangements, Devonthink AND other multi-window apps. I gave up and now I set my system not to sleep. Screen burns are a thing of the past, so it’s basically the slighter bigger energy consumption. Connecting and disconnecting another display, as it is I would not expect things to stay nice. Sorry to not be more optimistic.
Have you tried setting up workspaces for your two default configurations? Workspaces include what database you’re working in, so you might need to set up the workspaces for either the specific database you want, or for the default global inbox database.
Get Devonthink looking the way you want, then use Go->Workspaces->Add to create a new workspace (setup in DT).
Once you have one or more workspaces setup, you can switch to them with Go->Workspaces->workspace-of-your-choice.
Will that help?
I have, and gave up. Workspaces were not immune to computer sleep / disconnect issues, and I found that things quickly got out-of-hand. Honestly, I now prefer to keep less windows open, and bear with the occasional need to stretch windows, columns, etc. I prefer a bit of harder work to unpredictability. But that’s me.
Nota Bene: I use 20-30 apps simultaneously. Seriously. Very often, a ping-pong between Devonthink, Numbers, 3 or 4 pdf editors (because each does ONE think I really like), a couple of markdown editors, Apple Notes, Adobe Lightroom, Bean, Firefox, Apple Mail, Messaging apps, Script Debugger, Color Sync Utility, and you name it.
I gave up long ago to try and tame these into Workspaces (or a bunch of other apps I tried that arranged windows automagically). Nowadays, it’s the Apple Dock, Bartender, Keybaord Maestro, a variety of shortcuts, applescripts, all Devonthink little utilities, PopClip, Yoink.
We may be talking about two different things. A workspace in Devonthink is just a way of applying a bunch of preferences. Multiple windows aren’t required.
After a Devonthink workspace is applied, all that’s running is Devonthink. I don’t think there would be any additional susceptibility to computer sleep.
However, I see workspaces don’t store the view columns settings. Scripting might help, but I’m not fluent in Applescript. I wish I were.
Ah, you are referring to Devonthink Workspaces. I thought it basically switches between sets of databases, I may be wrong. But even when I select a workspace, I find that a sync will open other databases.
Do you have a Bonjour sync running?
That’s weird, too. When you select a workspace it doesn’t do anything you couldn’t have done with a few mouse clicks.
Using File->Synchronize All Databases, which you see if you hold the shift key down after clicking File, only synchronizes open databases. That shouldn’t open any closed databases.
The only aftereffect of selecting a workspace I can find is for updating the workspace settings. If I select to a workspace called “Main Project”, the workspace list under Go->Workspaces will sprout an option to update Main Project.
That will persist through opening and closing databases. When you exit Devonthink, update Main Project (or whatever) will finally go away.
yep