Long list of requested & suggested changes & features

DEVONthink Feedback
1

I’m a new DT Pro Office user, registered for about a week. So far, DT’s pretty helpful and looks to become more so as I invest in structuring my data within it.

Here are some bugs and oversights I’ve noticed, and also some suggested new features:

Little things:

•	Add ability to preview OpenOffice spreadsheet docs ( ".ods" format )
•	Make "Reveal" command part of both regular, and contextual, menu structure.
•	When creating a new Note, the note location should default to whatever the currently-selected database Group is. (If one is selected.)
•	In RTF and other document edit / display windows, show a visual indication of the current zoom level. (Without this, it's not easy to tell whether a font is *large* or simply just zoomed in.)
•	Make zoom level when viewing URL's & web-content in 3-pane view persistent. (Currently, after applying a zoom level, if you change items and then return to the first item, the zoom reverts to default.)
•	When doing "Split Document" contextual menu item, new document should appear in the same group as the current document, not the Database INBOX.

Bigger things:

•	Everywhere in DevonThink: Allow fully-customizable keyboard shortcuts for any / all menus and contextual menus.
•	Take Note field:  Add ability to change size and background / window / text display color.
•	 Labels: Add ability to create an arbitrary number of labels
•	Add ability to customize contextual menus, including adding arbitrary folder sub-groupings to organize sets of commands within the contextual menu. Making them shorter would aid some users; others would want to make them event longer.
•	Add smooth integration with PathFinder  Finder-replacement utility from CocoaTech. (I.e. to enable "Show in PathFinder" instead of "Show in Finder).
•	"Groups" selector that pops up when importing new items from outside sources - add a quick-search window to allow fast navigation of very large / deep database Group hierarchies.
•	Sidebar: Smart Groups and Favorites:  Allow nesting in sub-folders, and drag-and-drop reordering, just like regular groups (Don't force to alphabetical!) . 
•	 Allow actual nesting of Smart Groups, with corresponding refinement of searches. (I.e. a nested Smart Group is equivalent to a boolean AND operation.)
•	Search Window, --> Advanced Search.. button:  Add "NONE" as an option (boolean NOT.)  In the 4 "date" categories, when selecting "is," allow entering a single arbitrary date. (Currently, the latter can only be done as a greater than / less than or equal to range.)

Best regards & keep up the good work,

R

2

about the smooth integration with PF. that already works. it still says “Show in Finder” but it opens in PF.
you have to check “Set PF as the default file viewer” in the preferences of PF - Reveal

3

Thanks for the tip about “Reveal in Pathfinder.” I configured as you suggested, then quit / re-opened both PathFinder and DEVONThink, and it now works as expected.

4

+1

+1

+1

+1

5

Any reason why the “Keyboard” system options in OSX can’t be used to do this?

I wonder if this might not be easier to implemented as an option for tagged items. Make a background color for the title optional for the first tag in the list.

Neat idea.

Tom S.

6

yes, yes, yes. this is super annoying, makes the entire import process tedious. importing via Clip to DT does not provide any group features (e.g. last used).

furthermore, quick-group-search for switching to a group by using the keyboard should be available too. or i just don’t understand how to navigate DT with the keyboard (which i probably really don’t :wink:)

7

Some items are only on the context menu, and for some reason, aren’t picked up by OSX shortcuts - for example, Capture PDF. Others functions, such as the “Move to” button in See Also also don’t have a menu equivalent.

There are a few other areas where there’s room for tweaks in usability for mouseophobes: using See Also for classification of a lot of documents could usefully be streamlined, for example. (I posted a request on this elsewhere: [url]Keyboard shortcut for Classify when Auto-Classify not trigge])

Similarly, it would be good to be able to work your way through the documents in a series of groups sequentially. (Yes I know you can highlight the groups to see all the documents at once as a workaround.) I’ve started to use Keyboard Maestro to get round most of these limitations.

These are only minor irritations, but it would be nice to see native support.

8

but why would you need a keyboard shortcut for a context menu? to get to the context menu you need a mouse, which renders the keyboard shortcut useless?

9

Because typing that shortcut bypasses the mousing? (The shortcut invokes the contextual menu item without ever looking at that menu.)

10

yes but the contextual menu depends on the actual mouse position. i for one would like to use DT without any kind of mouse usage.

as for context menu, you could simply use Keyboard Maestro and map everything the way you like.