Group-level "exclude from classification"

DEVONthink
1

I have a group containing some DT3 docs and articles with some tips and strategies. I don’t want them to show up in classifications and “see also”, since DT’s documentation is not relevant to my work and other projects. If I check the group they live in without checking all of the individual files, do the documents inherit the exclusion flags? And if yes, is that for new and existing documents or only new documents? And do sub-groups also inherit the exclusion flags, and again if so is it just new sub-groups or new and existing sub-groups?

Thanks!

2

Welcome @scaba
This is easily testable.

  • A group can be excluded from classification; documents cannot as they’re not locations to file in.
  • Subgroups and files do not inherit the exclusions of the parent (though Development would have to assess this as a feature request).

Here’s an example of a file in excluded groups being shown in the See Also section of the inspector…

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3

Thanks for the quick reply @BLUEFROG. It would be great for this to be added as an option on groups, but for now I just wrote a script to automatically set “exclude from classification” and “exclude from see also” to true for any item moved into my “DT docs” group, and that work well enough.

4

You’re welcome and very nice!
Did you create a smart rule with an embedded AppleScript?

5

I did indeed create an embedded script. Despite the weird and not-for-programmers nature of Apple Script. Any chance of Python support soon?

6

Sorry, but no there are no plans for native phyton support outside the normal do script command in AppleScript.

Despite the weird and not-for-programmers nature of Apple Script

Just FYI: I have made a living writing AppleScripts for small to multinational corporations. It is neither weird nor incapable. It is much easier for a layperson to learn (and accomplish things) and is actually a very powerful language when wielded well. :slight_smile:

7

+1 for feature request of an exclude subgroups option from classify. Here’s the use case, I am a lawyer and I set up a top-level group for each client. I think classify works best when limited to top level groups. When I’m sorting through a 1000 or more PDFs in rapid fire filing mode using classify, I like to keep it simple. But I often get what what lawyers call “discovery,” which isn’t organized in this fashion. For example, I might get an extraction of my client’s cell phone taken from the police, and I will drop that in my top level client group. Now the problem is I have this cell phone filesystem download that may have 1000s of subgroups in it that are essentially meaningless to me but pops up in my classify pane, slowing me down. In all fairness, I just this morning started using an AppleScript that Bluefrog provided that does a good job at this1, but I think it would be a very useful for the user to just be able to check a box to accomplish this. This would enable the user to “set it and forget it” at the top level group, without having to repeatedly go back and make sure to exclude new subgroups that are added.