How to Use Temporary Favorites

[eboehnisch]

If you are working on a project, Favorites can be an effective way to quickly access it. But having too many items in one’s Favorites can be counter-productive. Here’s something you can do in DEVONthink and DEVONthink To Go.

Your needs, just like your preferences, often change. Favorites are not an immutable property of an item. So adding an item to your Favorites isn’t a permanent choice. You can think of it more as a dynamic attribution.

If you have a document or a group you’re actively working with, add it to your Favorites. In DEVONthink, Control-click it or choose Data > Add to > Favorites. In DEVONthink To Go, long-press an item or choose Add to Favorites from the Organize menu (encircled ellipsis). You now have quick access to it, for as long as you need it. In version 4 of DEVONthink, you can even create groups in your Favorites to segregate the favorited items.

When you’re finished with the project, Control-click the favorited item in DEVONthink or use the context or Organize menu in DEVONthink To Go, and choose Remove From Favorites.

As a professional example, I have a group in my Favorites with favorited groups for the next version of our applications I’m testing. When the version is released, I remove that version’s group from my Favorites.

[fredap]

@eboehnisch

In version 4 of DEVONthink, you can even create groups in your Favorites to segregate the favorited items.

The blog doesn’t specify how to add a group to favorites, so I did it simply by selecting a group and marking it as a favorite.

That works, but it doesn’t show the chevron to open the group:

This example has two elements in the group.

Is there a setting to get the behavior I see in the blog post?

[BLUEFROG]

You just favorited a group, which is fine. For grouping favorited items, it’s right here in the Help in Windows > Sidebar: Navigate…

[fredap]

Thanks

[BLUEFROG]

You’re welcome.

[FrankT]

@eboehnisch

Your needs, just like your preferences, often change. Favorites are not an immutable property of an item. So adding an item to your Favorites isn’t a permanent choice. You can think of it more as a dynamic attribution.

Right, but people remember that they once had a particular document as a favorite.

@eboehnisch

When you’re finished with the project, Control-click the favorited item in DEVONthink or use the context or Organize menu in DEVONthink To Go, and choose Remove From Favorites.

Then the favorite is gone. There is another option. Since many people remember that they had a certain document as a favorite, I would make a copy of all the links of the favorites before deleting them, select all then (cmd + opt + control + c).

Now you can paste these links into an RTF document, Favorites from (date). This way, you can quickly find deleted favorites again.

This has helped me many times

Ah, and add this RTF document to your favorites.

[BLUEFROG]

While this is fine if it’s your approach, the point of the article was specifically about using favorites for temporary access.

[cornchip]

Good tip. I’ve been doing more of this lately, with different favorites on each computer. I’m used to ctrl+gmd+g to visit folders but this saves a few keystrokes and reminds me of what I’m probably supposed to be doing in the app.

[BLUEFROG]

Thanks! Since there has been parallel development with 3.x and 4.x, I found it very handy to jump to the version I was working with. It also shows me which is still in process.