No worries but thanks for the self-reflection. 
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What happens when you try?
I took the liberty to change the title in the meantime
@Amontillado, you can connect Devonthink with Obsidian.MD, which (as it is still in beta) is free, and use it and its wonderful (free) plugins for their graphical front-ends.
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I agree with many others here. If you’ve been testing/lurking on this forum for 3 years, just buy the Pro version already. You obviously think you need the software, or you wouldn’t keep coming back to it. Assuming you’re in the app most days it is cheaper than a lot of other software out there. I think I paid around £200, so in a year that’s £16/month, and I plan to use it far longer than one year so that price will keep dropping… if you think that’s expensive you’re in for a terrible surprise when you enter the professional workplace and discover the pricing of [essential] Adobe, GIS, CAD, Microsoft software, etc. etc. Add a few professional subscriptions on top of that to your industry’s magazine/journal, and you’ll realise what a bargain DTP is.
I’d never paid this much for a “non-work” app before (I bought DTP initially to corral my own notes though now use it for pretty much everything) and I did the maths before I purchased it, and thus realised what a bargain it was spread over time.
My only regret is that I didn’t know software like this existed 15 years ago when I was a student. I think of all that “wasted research” that isn’t in a database, and in fact in most cases doesn’t exist now as it was on paper, and then cry inside a little (not wasted of course since it got me a degree and a job to pay for DTP, but all that missing research makes me sad!). If I could be 18 again, my studies would be very different with the technology I now use. Youth is wasted on the young!!
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Hello. Did you know someone has made a script for a graph view, which I think is what you’d like with your “map node view”?
It’s discussed in this thread:
It’s very easy to install, I managed to do it following the GitHub instructions and the comments in the thread. Hope it helps 
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Actually it turns out I have more to say on this (seems I have lots of thoughts on this issue 
). I 100% agree with @BLUEFROG that DTP is an investment, not an expense, and I want to expand on that.
I read a comment recently that talked about how task management and weekly reviews etc only work if you have a belief that your work and your time are valuable. If you believe that how you spend your time matters, you will invest in thinking that makes you use it wisely.
DTP is the same for me. I purchased it because my previous system of organising notes wasn’t working, and hadn’t for a long time. I believed that making notes and saving information was a valuable activity, but my system was failing because it had got too unwieldy (lots of things saved in different places, which slowed me down when I needed to find something). I could have carried on without it, accepting the compromise that modern digital life is messy and complicated and you have to remember that you saved one thing in Dropbox and another thing on GDrive, but on discovering DTP I decided to invest in a system that would remove this annoyance from my life. I believe that having easy access to all my research and notes is important, and I believe it’s worth investing the time and money to use this software. I could have gone on without it, but I recognised the value of building better workflows for myself. I now use it for many parts of my life, so the investment was definitely worth it.
In contrast, I recently had to go without Microsoft Excel for a month due to licence changes with my employer. Google Sheets makes me want to throw myself dramatically of a cliff, and don’t get me started on Numbers… My new licence kicked in this week, and it is SUCH A RELIEF. But, Excel isn’t an investment. It is a tool that I need to be able to do my job. It doesn’t add any value to me as a person or an employee, it’s just the hammer I need to build my work. DTP isn’t a hammer for me. It can be, and probably is for many people, but for me it’s the uniform and toolbox in this terrible metaphor. Opening it up is like flipping open the toolbox lid and deciding what I need today to do good work. And it’s a good toolbox, with little bits squirrelled away, because you never know when that one weird screw you kept will be perfect for a job you have in mind. And as any DIYer or tradesperson knows, sometimes all you need is to flip the toolbox lid and stare at it while you ponder the problem at hand, and the answer will come to you
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This, so much this. Tortured metaphor and all.
Once I split up my databases into some basic categories, I felt more comfortable dumping every weird link or piece of ephemera into what I call “The Scrapbook” which had the knock on effect of everything else being more easily sortable, if that makes sense. Now when I am doing creative things, I have all the notes at hand for those projects in their own database and The Scrapbook is there for wading through to see if there is that one weird screw that might be useful.
I can’t overstate what a change creating The Scrapbook was for me. It was like a Super Category that took away the stress of “I know this will be useful but don’t know where to put it right now” and turned it into “I can easily drop this here, knowing that I’ll come across it later when I am looking for something else entirely”.
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It does; I did the same thing. It’s that one draw for stuff which might be useful but just doesn’t want to fit a category.
Yours has a much better title than mine, I just have a “misc” category where I dump things that are interesting but not relevant to my main fields of interest.
I’ve - almost literally - always had a scrapbook…
I actually thought for a while that such a thing was akin to sacrilege in the digital world of DT; but that attitude left a small number of files always sitting in the inbox. They didn’t belong properly; wherever I might put them, I knew I would not be able to later recollect the logic of putting them there. And so I recreated in the digital world what I have always had in the real world. And it just makes sense.
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Wow! Thanks for the link. I’m going to install that as soon as I can clear away some annoying gainful employment. Work gets in the way of so much important stuff.
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Update - ended up getting the DT3P updgrade and took advantage of the extra seat discount - thank you!
Learning to adapt my research and writing style to DTs system, which is hard because a) I don’t know it inside and out yet, which means that b) I don’t know how that can affect my organisation and research skills when designing research projects. In my case, sometimes too many features causes friction and stops me from just getting into the work and doing it.
But still, it’s nice to play around with and learn how to work with it.
I wish I had known about/used the OCR functions years ago, that’s for sure.
There are still a few little grievances I have with some things, like missing features that seem obvious.
But again, learning to adapt. Thanks for all the help to everyone in other threads I’ve posted in.
Cheers,
J.
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Recommendation: Don’t go over-board “writing” with DEVONthink if your needs are greater than can be done in DEVONthink. While certainly possible to “write” stuff in DEVONthink (and I do a lot of notes and first-thoughts-drafts of things in DEVONthink), for complex and large writing projects I use tools that are better suited, e.g. word processors, Scrivener, etc. to support the whole writing environment. As mentioned before, use the macOS feature of “windows” to put DEVONthink research material in one window, and the writing tool in an adjancent window, … Just a nudge.
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oh yeah of course. Thanks!
Actually I have scrivener as well. I recently abandoned the idea of it as being my sole file management/repository + writing application. But now I use it solely for writing. It got me through my PhD, but it had it’s limits. And that is where I’m having to learn how to readjust my workflow - weaning away from Scrivener as the research tool.
Yes, Scrivener big + for writing, DEVONthink big + for research repository/digging/discovery.
Trying to bend each to your will to do what it’s not really intended to do … tears.
Congrats on the PhD. I’m thinking, despite old age, going in that direction. Anticipating writing a thesis looking to make sure I can do it with Scrivener and its LaTeX features. Looking good. [Very long term project!]
I’m thinking, despite old age, going in that direction. Anticipating writing a thesis looking to make sure I can do it with Scrivener and its LaTeX features.
Go for it! It is quite stressful though. Some people say they are prepared for it, but have no idea the stress it can cause. A PhD is not called Permanent Head Damage for no reason!
But there are of course some who can get through. If you are grounded enough, there is no reason why not. Age is not an issue, its a platform.
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A PhD is not called Permanent Head Damage for no reason!
Hahaha - nice! 
I used Devonthink Pro Office v 2 as a major part of my law practice for eight years for only the original cost of the software. I was constantly wondering why the company didn’t charge more for it.
I judge the cost of business software by how much time it saves me and how much work it takes off my hands. For people who need this kind of software, Devonthink is a blessing. It’s clear to me after using v. 3 for the last two years that a lot of hard work and attention to every detail went into the process of rebuilding it. I am constantly finding new ways to use it and features that make my life easier.
I think it’s underpriced. At some point the publishers should consider a subscription model, which has become common in the industry. I think that it provides software publishers with a strong incentive to keep improving their products.
Ken Cohen
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Welcome @kenco
Thank you for the long-term support and your gracious comments. Development certainly raised the bar with DEVONthink 3, a proud achievement for sure.
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