DT Pro/Office 2.0 and Time Machine

[Ursula]

Could you give us some information about the function of Time Machine and the future version DT Pro/Office 2.0?
There are contradictory postings in the forums:
Christian wrote in the German forums regarding DT 2.0 and Time Machine:

@cgrunenberg

Sowohl Spotlight als auch Time Machine bevorzugen Dateien, nicht Datenbanken, weswegen Version 2 entsprechend angepasst wird.

I read: For being able to use Time Machine in DT 2.0 without copying the complete database every hour, DT has to change his database structure. DT programmers are working on this. Right?

But I found also an answer by Annard, regarding Time Machine and the database package in 2.0:

@annard

… I’m not sure if this will change for DT2, the package system will not go away.

Another posting by Eric Boehnisch (German forums, same day as Christians statement about adjusting the database structure) makes me believe, there is no possibility to make the database readable for Time Machine:

@eboehnisch

@aikonch

Ich würde mir vorstellen das Backup via Time Machine funktioniert, ohne immer die gesammte DB backuppen zu können.

Dies ist leider der Preis dafür, dass DEVONthink Pro im Gegensatz zu unserem Wettbewerb, mehr als eine Datenbank anlegen kann und Sie diese zudem an jedem Ort im Dateisystem ablegen können. Es wäre also an Apple, hier die Behandlung von Paketen (Ordnern, die wie Dateien erscheinen) in Time Machine zu verbessern, da auch sie selbst daran leiden, z.B. in Aperture.

My interpretation of these two statements: Because DT Pro is able to handle more than one database, you cannot change the database structure. Only solution could be Apple changes Time Machine, because they have similar problems with their Aperture databases too.

Are DT Pro/Office programmers looking for a solution to make their database package readable for Time Machine or are they waiting what Apple is doing?

Thank you for clarification.

Ursula

[cgrunenberg]

@Ursula

I read: For being able to use Time Machine in DT 2.0 without copying the complete database every hour, DT has to change his database structure. DT programmers are working on this. Right? […] But I found also an answer by Annard, regarding Time Machine and the database package in 2.0:

Both statements are correct. Contents like RTF/RTFD or web archives won’t be stored in the .database files anymore. All contents will be stored a separate as separate files in the “Files” folder.

This means that we will still use packages but won’t create huge database files anymore. Therefore it’s up to Apple to treat packages (used by many applications, e.g. Pages, TextEdit etc.) in the right way.

[Ursula]

Thank you, Christian, for helping me to understand.
How small will these databases be?
For instance: My 10 databases within the DT package are now around 2 GB, 300 WebArchives, 30.000 RTF, 4000 HTML documents. Will these documents be converted into the new file-system and therefore tidy up the database? And enlarge the files-folder? (Now 1,6 GB)

So far I had no problems with the packages created by Pages or Scrivener. (I don’t own Aperture.) Are there no problems using these applications and Time Machine because their databases are so much smaller than those of DT Pro? Are they using another package, i.e. database system?

I really understand nothing about programming, I know. But I have to decide, whether it is worth waiting for the upcoming release or if it is time to finally make the switch to another application. My database is growing and growing, sometimes I have the impression I spend more time with all these workarounds creating Backup Archives and splittings databases, importing and exporting and reimporting and arranging files and folders, than really working and using the collected data…

Ursula

[cgrunenberg]

@Ursula

Will these documents be converted into the new file-system and therefore tidy up the database? And enlarge the files-folder? (Now 1,6 GB)

Yes and yes. But if Time Machine is smart enough (and hopefully it is), it won’t back up the complete Files folder all the time whereas the database files of v1.x are backed up almost all the time as they’re modified quite often.

But I have to decide, whether it is worth waiting for the upcoming release or if it is time to finally make the switch to another application.

All applications using a database have the same issues as DEVONthink 1.x and all applications using packages have the same issues as DEVONthink 2 will have.

[Ursula]

@cgrunenberg

All applications using a database have the same issues as DEVONthink 1.x and all applications using packages have the same issues as DEVONthink 2 will have.

What willl be the issues for DT 2.0 with his database AND packages? Will there be no more database?

[cgrunenberg]

@Ursula

What willl be the issues for DT 2.0 with his database AND packages? Will there be no more database?

There will be still some database files but they won’t contain contents anymore, only meta data and the index for searching etc. Therefore the database files will be much smaller.