Hi,
I’m new to devonthink, discovering new features from day to day…
I’d like to understand the “finder-comments” (I’m using the german version - there they are called “Finder Kommentare”). Where is this information stored?
When I add a comment there, I can’t find this comment in the information-window in the finder - and vice versa. On the other hand, there can differend pieces of information be stored in these two locations.
For some files, I’d like to add small parts of information - but I’m not sure, if the “finder-comment” section is the right place for that, unless I know how this works…
Thanks for your support!
David
Welcome @chilipalmer
The Finder Comments can be used for any arbitrary text you want to put there.
If File > Database Properties has Spotlight indexing enabled, you can do a Spotlight search for comment: myTerm. You can also search comments in DEVONthink using the same search prefix.
However, the metadata isn’t written to the filesystem until you export the files or you’re working with indexed files. ith indexed files (and no, they’re not optimal becuase of this), the comments are written out when the comment is entered.
Hi Jim,
and thank you very much for your very helpful reply!
Although I’m almost exclusively working on indexed files, I eventually did all of my testing on imported ones… But the described behaviour is very comprehensible. (Although I’m wondering why the finder-comments aren’t assumed after importing a file with finder-comments…)
There are two more questions popping up:
Are there any limitations (e.g. in field size) or recommendations to the extent of use of finder-comments?
Can you give me a hint on " (and no, they’re not optimal becuase of this)" - I think it’s the impact on performance because of the files have to be rewritten completely if a comment is added?!
(I’m asking, because I’m bound to use indexed-file-databases - due to the nessesarity of accessing my files on windows machines…)
Thanks in advance!
David
The size of the comments inside DEVONthink is unlimited but the exported Finder comments (see Finder’s Info window) are actually limited to 256 characters or bytes.
You’re welcome 
I was referring to Finder Comments being immediately applied to indexed files not being the reason someone would start indexing files. Indexing should be carefully thought through since the integration with the Finder is much tighter in DEVONthink 3.
May I ask which one should I prefer - Annotations or Finder comments? I scanned many books and want to enter the summary/description of the book from Amazon
Generally, I would use Finder Comments for this. If running the Pro or Server editions, I might use a custom metadata attribute.
