I have been a long time DT user and it is vital to managing things like my 23 GB library of technical papers. BUT… My lab instruments typically need windows, my CPA wants windows, etc etc ancient story…AND… given the MCF my 2017 Macbook Pro has been plus Macs being a bit of an afterthought for what has become a phone company, I am in a dither about how to proceed between DT3 coming and the decaying value proposition for using Macs across the board in my company as it grows. It is darn hard to justify planting a Mac in front of an admin who has lived and died in MS Office on windows their whole career when you can spend $700 on a quite nice Dell all in one and they can be immediately up to speed with their normal MS Office tools.
I can dump the databases into a company dropbox and not have too many problems with file names and paths (done it before for a windows centric colleague) and all that but keeping the databases clean and in sync is a PITA.
With DT3’s improved indexing is it reasonable to dump them into dropbox and just index on my side to keep what DT does for me?
Would OneDrive be better since everyone has an Office365 subscription already and it gets pretty transparent for them, which means a hit on making the names and paths windows compatible?
Any tools on the windows side that would provide occasional users of the databases improved search, indexing, and preview?
Depending on what features your other team members need from DT3, the improved web server might work. It allows access to your database from any browser and any operating system. So you could stick with Mac and others could use whatever operating system they wish.
That said, while the server in beta DT3 is a huge improvement, it also has substantial limitations remaining. I am crossing my fingers that these get addressed in the near future.
If you are referring to putting your DEVONthink databases in a cloud-synced folder, do NOT. This is not and never has been data-safe and we explicitly disallow it now.
I understand the concerns about Dropbox in that sense, but I am now a bit confused. What I have on dropbox currently is the sync store that I use to keep my laptop and desktop synced.
What I was visualizing was not the actual database on dropbox, but rather keeping all the various discrete files on dropbox and just indexing it from DT3 for my use while the rest of the team use the folder in the normal fashion. Is this as dangerous as putting an actual DT database on a cloud folder?
on dropbox and just indexing it from DT3 for my use while the rest of the team use the folder in the normal fashion. Is this as dangerous as putting an actual DT database on a cloud folder?
That is perfectly fine, and a common practice for many. And the sync store is not a database. They are two different entities and the sync store is specifically engineered to work with the mechanisms of Dropbox, etc.