Morning! I have been using Devonthink for quite a few years, but I am really not sure I know how to use it fully. I discover amazing features once in a while, which leads me to think that I am really only typically scratching the surface. Is there a course you could recommend that would take from the A-Z of devonthink?
Thanks!
Etienne
Did you have a look at the free eBooks (user handbook and Take Control of DEVONthink 3), see DEVONtechnologies | Handbooks and Extras?
Iām unaware of any courses, and probably any you can find would be relatively expensive, or not. Donāt know.
Meantime, as you have been using it for a while and to catalyse your thinking, I would recommend you go to DEVONtechnologyās website and do these things for free.
grab a copy of the āTake Control of DEVONthinkā e-book and read it. Store the file in a DEVONthink database.
grab a copy of the āDEVONthink Manualā and skim it, read the good bits that strike your fancy, and remember the content for future reference when you have a question. Store the file in a DEVONthink database.
routinely read the Blog
look at the Support articles built in to the app, under the āā¦ā thingy in the Sidebar. Read the ones that are new to you and that you are curious about.
Thanks both! All things I routinely forget to do!.. and then when I do remember, I usually find something amazing, and I am struck with āOh gosh, this is so good why didnāt I know that?!ā
Etienne
There was a post a few weeks ago about how to use Devon*-apps. Maybe this is of help:
I do not want to do a advertisment here but my courses for DevonThink, DevonAgent in English comes out early next year.
There is a Field Guide by David Sparks (macsparky):
https://learn.macsparky.com/p/dt
I havenāt seen it, but David Sparks has been providing content for the Mac community for a loooong time and is a well-respected figure. His work is usually of a very high standard. You might be able to find a review online.
Iāve been with this company for 11.5 years and I still learn things 
learn.macsparky.com by David Sparks is the one of the best. Also Kourosh Dini - Taking Smart Notes with DEVONthink.
These are all good resources, but the best of all is this forum. Because DTās feature set is so enormous and its use cases so varied, structured resources such as manuals and online courses (another is DEVONthink for Historians, and on the manual side Joe Kissellās Take Control of DEVONthink is quite brilliant as a stripped-down guide to core functions) will only get you so far. In particular, there are features not documented in any of the above that youāll only ever find out about from this forum ā such as control-option-command-O to open an Annotation file in its own window, which I use all the time. And users here are constantly figuring out ingenious hacks to do things that even the DT team themselves wouldnāt have thought of; the automation-heads here are a genius bar all of their own.
A couple of minutes a day scanning the Latest view for tasks, topics, and functions that could be of use to you either now or down the line is never time wasted; it might only be once a month that you pick up something life-changing from it, but those moments amply repay the time spent scanning. (My own latest āyou can do that?ā revelation was @bluefrogās tip that you can turn an existing file into a document Annotation file by pasting its item link into the URL field in the documentās Info => Generic inspector. Absolute gold. You can even turn Word documents into Annotations!)
Hereās a tip for keeping tabs on these accumulated forum nuggets. Using the current version of the DT manual as your master document, give it an Annotation file in Markdown format (for easy link editing), and whenever you find a useful addendum on the forum, quote or summarise it to that file with a URL link to the original post and an item link to the relevant passage in the manual, stripping out the start and length parameters from the link. (This last detail will enable you to replace the manual with subsequent editions while retaining working links to the relevant passage of the text; see this post for explanation.)
Most shortcuts are shown in the main menu or other menus (in this case in the Annotation popup menu inside the Annotations & Reminder inspector), by the way.
Absolutely ā there are lots of features like this that you can find by systematic (or entirely unsystematic) exploration, but which donāt make it into manuals or online courses. Keyboard shortcuts are a case in point; thereās a good roundup in the manual, but itās not exhaustive, and even the CheatSheet app doesnāt catch them all (including this one, as it happens).
I find out things all the time. Everything I do is in DEVONthink 3 and yet I learn new things quite often, once a month probably.
Sometimes I donāt really know how something works really but I do use the function. For example though I never keep things in it, I think I was told not to at some point, I donāt really understand the Global Inbox at all. Or why it isnāt in my ādatabaseā folder. I do use it all the same and then move stuff out of it, I assume that is what it is really for?
Recently I realized that I had more or less unconsciously learnt to open documents in various ways. Three ways once I have selected a writable file, sometimes I just need a glimpse. I press spacebar it gives some whatever it does, then command + O gives me usually an editor if it is text doc, markdown sometimes in what I assume is the native editor, then Command + shift + o gives me my preferred editor, Typora at present if I want to work on it a bit.
I have been doing this for some time but only realized what I was doing recently really.
Itās excellent. The great thing about David Sparkās Field Guide at learn.macsparky.com is that itās composed of videos that demonstrate what heās talking about, and takes you step-by-step through DEVONThinks features.
I discovered some helpful videos from ScreenCast Online. Hereās a link to the DT3 videos offered there. Much more introductory in nature but I did pick up a few tips from the site. ScreenCastsOnline Search
The MacSparky Field Guide is well presented and covers almost every aspect of DT3. I found it useful ā although perhaps a bit pricey. Sparks is an excellent āteacherā and easy to listen toā¦
My brain went, in order: āWhatās an annotation file?!ā, āWhat?!ā, āThereās a cheatsheet app companion app?!ā I have some catch up to do, apparently!
I think one of the best feature of DT isā¦ its community, really!
Thanks a lot!
I can also thoroughly recommend Kourosh Dini. I havenāt finished his smart notes book yet, but the course on mindful productivity is amazing.
Have a fantastic rest of the week!
Etienne
Iāve just noticed that CheatSheet seems no longer to be downloadable from Media Atelier, though it can still be found here; I hope it hasnāt been discontinued. It plays very well with Houdahās CustomShortcuts, which still links to the old page. Both are free.
Sweet! Thanks!!
They announced earlier in the year that it was not compatible with Sonoma and they were discontinuing it. They recommended users switch to KeyCue instead. (I havenāt, I personally decided to go without for now.)