One of the strong points of DEVONthink is the ability for me to search specific keywords and find not only what documents are linked, but also where in the document matches were found. I would love for this behavior to extend to the server.
If on the website I search via a key word, DEVONthink Server correctly identifies the documents of interest, but does not show me where in the document the keywords were located. I have to select the document and then use my browser’s CTRL+F shortcut in order to search my key terms. While this works, it’s a bit cumbersome.
Is this kind of thinking (providing more parity between the desktop version and website version) something that will be considered in the nearish future? Or is the intent of the server different (e.g. the goal is to find documents but not much more than that).
No, search hits aren’t shown in the browser. never have been.
Also, you haven’t mentioned what type of files you are referring to. There are more than one and any (im)possibilities would be shaped by the type. We are talking about web browser technology here, not a native macOS application.
something that will be considered in the nearish future
We don’t comment on development timeframes as it leads to problems on both sides of the equation.
It’s a good callout. I tried to keep my question generic as I believe it’s more of a high-level question than implementation specific. In that sense, you’ve adequately already answered my question.
With that said, I’m searching for specific keywords that will live within imported emails or PDF files. The MVP of what I would love is for that specific section of the PDF/email to be highlighted such that it would pop out more. Maybe in the case of a PDF, it could bring focus to the first page of interest.
As you alluded to, the implementation will have to differ per-document type and it would be infeasible to support them all. I feel that supporting at least the major players (pdf, maybe markdown) would go a long way.
As far as the nearish future, I purposefully kept myself vague as I fully understand the concern of timeline. My statement there was more in pertaining to the vision of the server component (e.g. maybe not my feature in particular, but is this space something that is of interest to the developers of DEVONthink).
I figured you’d mention PDF. Those are controlled by the PDF framework used by the browser, not DEVONthink nor the websharing interface. View the same page in Safari and Firefox, for example, and you’ll see a very different view and PDF controls.