Just a couple other ideas as I go through it!

[josieduffy]

Starting this in a new thread because on the advice of @BLUEFROG

i think these are in order of (perceived ) smallest to heaviest lift.

1. could “number of pages” be its own column option? there may be a custom way of doing this but i don’t see it. i understand its a “placeholder” option but i don’t know if that translates to a column. (still trying to understand the placeholder thing.)

2. could we add smart groups to our favorites?

3. i know the quote/annotate/highlight script was a third party template (made by korn i think?), but i think something similar would be sooo great. it was AWESOME. and with smart rules, it changes everything. i automatically tag them, label them, and move them to their own database. it’s amazing. but now i can’t make any new ones. (it may be easy to just change the existing one automatically, but its a template not a script so not as intuitive to me to change it.)

4. i’m sure this is something you have in your head already, but there are some really clutch integrations possible now that smart rules exist. for example, i would love to use the quote/annotate/highlight script (or a variation thereof!) and automatically send that annotation to omni outliner. since that script exists, there might be a way of doing this, but i currently don’t know how. if its (relatively) easy, i think stuff like that would be big.

5. running all rules at once would be cool. also i have so many rules already, but some of them i would like to go dormant, basically. but don’t want to delete them because i may want them later and they take a lot of specific qualifiers that make them annoying to build again. (for example, i have one rule about a piece of legislation in california. i won’t need it for another six months, probably. but if i delete, i won’t be able to remember exactly how i built it, and there’s no way to save that info. so it just sits there.) on Hazel, i just export the rules and save them to a folder, and then reimport them when i need them. On DT, this could happen a few ways - turn off the rule, hide the rule from sidebar, export the rule, whatever would be easier for you guys. but my sidebar is already super clogged because i love smart rules so much!

[cgrunenberg]

@josieduffy

• could “number of pages” be its own column option? there may be a custom way of doing this but i don’t see it.

The “Length” column displays either the length of video/audio files or the page count of PDF documents. Sorting by length works likewise.

* could we add smart groups to our favorites?

Smart groups located in databases can be added to the favorites.

* running all rules at once would be cool.

It’s possible to apply all rules to the selection via Tools > Apply Rules. However, Tools > Perform Rules (which doesn’t require a selection and uses all matching items instead) requires the selection of a dedicated rule as this can be dangerous.

On DT, this could happen a few ways - turn off the rule, hide the rule from sidebar, export the rule, whatever would be easier for you guys.

One option is to set the “Perform following actions” event to “On Demand”.

[josieduffy]

oh all of this is such awesome news and soooo helpful. thank you! great news about “length.”

i think i’m still confused about the perform/apply thing, and how it could be dangerous? aren’t you always applying rules to all of their matching items?

re: on demand - yes that’s how i currently have it for all my rules, but it still gets crowded real fast. and currently DT3 is taking up a TON of my memory - 12-15 gbs pretty consistently. i don’t know if smart rules contributes to that even when its just “on demand.” just a plug for some sort of dormant/hide capability eventually.

also, at some point, understanding the way the “execute script: add tags” function works would be great. i read the documentation, but i am not clear on what tags it decides to add? this is more of a suggestion for later, because it looks like a really cool feature but i know on day 2/3 of roll out may not be a priority.

[cgrunenberg]

@josieduffy

i think i’m still confused about the perform/apply thing, and how it could be dangerous? aren’t you always applying rules to all of their matching items?

The automatic execution of smart rules uses only the items of the event (e.g. the imported items). “Apply Rules” uses those items of the current selection that match the conditions of the smart rule(s) whereas “Perform Rules” uses all (!) matching items (independent of the current selection). Whether it’s dangerous or not depends on the rules, their conditions and actions (at least I did something stupid that way once )

also, at some point, understanding the way the “execute script: add tags” function works would be great. i read the documentation, but i am not clear on what tags it decides to add? this is more of a suggestion for later, because it looks like a really cool feature but i know on day 2/3 of roll out may not be a priority.

It’s a really simple script based on the new “extract keywords from …” AppleScript command, see ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.devon-technologies.think3/Smart Rules/Assign Tags.scpt. Right now it looks for both hashtags and tags already existing in the database in the text & title.