Global Search Keyboard Shortcut

DEVONthink Tips
1

I am trying to replace my current plaintext note system with DEVONthink. I am currently using nvAlt, which gives me a single keyboard shortcut to search existing notes and create new notes.

I can use the keyboard shortcut for DEVONthink Sorter to create new notes, but I can’t find a good way to bind a keyboard shortcut to bring DEVONthink to the foreground and start a global search.

I can use Keyboard Maestro to bring the DEVONthink to the foreground, but I can not find a keyboard shortcut or a way via AppleScript to search across all open databases.

Is there either a keyboard shortcut I can’t find (or have overlooked) or a way in AppleScript to switch to the Global Inbox and focus the search field? Or is there another approach that I have not thought of or am overlooking?

Thank you :slight_smile:

2

You could use the search window (see Tools > Search…) to search in all databases. However, there’s no global shortcut available to activate this window. One workaround might be DEVONsphere Express which can also search in DEVONthink Pro’s databases.

3

I was trying something similar some time ago. I wanted a new search window in the actual space without activating other DEVONthink windows (and loosing focus on the actual space this way). In the end this worked for me:

  1. I assigned a shortcut [F + CTRL + OPTION + CMD] for the DEVONthink menu „Search…“ in system preferences → keyboard → app shortcuts. With this I can open the search window if DEVONthink is frontmost.

  2. I assigned a shortcut [OPTION + D] in Alfred to this AppleScript, which activates DEVONthink and calls the Shortcut assigned in 1.

tell application "System Events"	
   set A to processes
   if A does not contain "DEVONthink Pro" then
   	tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
   		activate
   	end tell
   end if
   	
   tell process "DEVONthink Pro"
   	set frontmost to true
   	keystroke "f" using {control down, option down, command down}
   	key code 51
   	activate
   end tell
end tell

Perhaps that’s something for you.

4

? The default shortcut is already Command-Control-F.

5

Ah ok, I believe I couldn’t remember the default one before I had the one in Alfred set up and just forgot about it. Always looking to assign shortcuts I already use over different apps, and that gets messy sometimes :smiley:

6

Since this was some time ago I had to update the script to look like this to work.

tell application "System Events"
	set A to processes
	if A does not contain "DEVONthink 3" then
		tell application "DEVONthink 3"
			activate
		end tell
	end if
	
	tell process "DEVONthink 3"
		set frontmost to true
		keystroke "f" using {command down, option down}
	end tell
end tell