Apologies in advance if I’m just being stupid, but I’m having problems making DEVONthink and AppleWorks communicate in any meaningful way. I’ve copied the droplet into Applications, and installed it in my dock. Dragging an AW file onto it activates it (it bounces, launches, quits) - but there’s no evidence anywhere on my harddrive of a translated file.
It might also be relevant that in AppleWorks, the Services/DEVONthinkPro menu remains all greyed out and inactive.
I’m hoping I can make DEVONthink and AW get along, since I have about 12 years of work all in AW - it’s been my WP of choice since I bought my first computer.
What kind of AppleWorks document did you try to convert? In addition, AppleWorks does not support services at all and the droplet is more reliable if you’re using the latest (6.2.9?) version of AppleWorks (earlier versions like 6.2.2 might crash).
Thanks so much for looking at this so swiftly. I had 6.2.7. I’ve just upgraded to 6.2.9… no change, though. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong. I have the droplet in my applications folder and in the dock. I take an AW file drag it onto the icon in the dock. The icon bounces, briefly gets the “arrow” that says it’s live, then quits. The icon stops bouncing… and that’s it.
What should be the next stage? What should I look for?
I still suspect it’s something I’m doing wrong. I’m testing DTpro a lot at the moment with a view to buying a license before the year’s out - I really need something like this.
But I’m encountering more and more problems with add-ons/plug-ins/scripts. For instance, with Mail.app. If I highlight a mailbox and go the Scripts menu and use “Add mailbox(es) to DEVONthink” it works perfectly. But if I just highlight a single email and use “Add message(es) to DEVONthink”, nothing happens. And I’m replicating exactly the same problems on two machines - a desktop and a laptop, both operating 10.3.9.
Could there be some issue with settings - something I should be doing to make these scripts work?
Which view do you use in DT Pro? Maybe the added message is not immediately visible because you’re using three-pane view and a group is selected (and therefore the “root” of the database where messages are added not visible).
Another reason might be that the email is encrypted, is HTML based or contains attachments - due to scripting limitations of (most) email clients, none of the scripts for Mail, Entourage etc. can import such mails. But we’re working on this
Oofy, a few posts “up” in this thread, Christian asks another poster:
Try another view in DT (“vertical split” is my default view); perhaps your document is there after all? I just dragged a file “test.cwk” into my DT database, and it’s sitting there at the top level of the database…
Grayed out… as are all other services. Run through the rest of the services menu to see what I mean. AppleWorks is an older (“Carbon-based”) application, and these applications don’t natively support Apple’s services concept (see, for example, MS Office). To get a good idea of how useful services can be in a more modern (“Cocoa”) application, try the DT services when using Safari.
A droplet is a special kind of Applescript that takes its name from its mode of operation: it’s invoked by dragging and dropping an object (typically, a file) on top of the icon for the droplet. DT ships with a number of very useful droplets in the “Scripts” folder on the installation disk. It can be handy to place some of these droplets in a convenient location; e.g. the Dock.
When I try dropping an Appleworks (6.2.9) text document (be it with the .cwk suffix or without) there’s a warning beep and NOTHING happens. I dropped a tiff into the same place just to check I wasn’t somehow looking in the wrong place and that imported fine.
Hadn’t realised Appleworks didn’t support Services until now. It’s only with DT and DA that I’m using Services at all, to be honest. Never felt the need before though Safari does work well with DT.
As a newbie, I think I ought not to play with droplets and the like until I’m more familiar with the programs. Or do I HAVE to use them to get documents in from Appleworks?
Hmm. It’s possible that your “import” preference settings aren’t allowing you to import “unknown file types”
To find out, open DT’s preferences, look for the “import” tab. When selected, you’re presented with a number of check boxes. Makes sure that the item labeled “Create links to unknown file types” is checked.
DT recognizes many, many file types, but not all. Proprietary file formats, such as AppleWorks docs, Excel’s native files, iDVD’s projects, etc., are typically treated as “unknown file formats.” Rather than being directly ingested into DT’s database, these files are “linked to” in the Finder/file system.
Not required at all . Droplets, folder action scripts, and most of the scripts in general are provided for convenience.
