Since I filled Devonthink (currently version 2) which so many documents and notes, tagged them and organized them groups, often replicating them many times, I was wondering if there was a way for me to export this information (the metadata) from Devonthink in a way that could let me use it in Tinderbox or a graph/mindmapping app. I hope it could help me explore my database and the organisation I’ve created in a more visual way, and find ew links. I tried the opml export hoping that it would contain the metadata (groups and tags), but it doesn’t seem to be the case (plus there’s no option to exclude the full text, which makes that it is basically impossible to use it for a large amount of documents). Any suggestion? Or is this something that will be/is integrated in DT3?
This is not planned for version 3.
Browsing the network of tags based on co-occurrence is also something I wish for.
Maybe @Lawrence has some script (based on a past thread)?
Does it mean that there’s no way to export the metadatas outside DT? I’ve noticed DT was proud of not locking-in users by using proprietary files, and I agree and I think it’s great, but being able to also own or export the work that has been done in DT to organize the files would be even better and probably closer to your word, in my opinion.
Tags and Finder comments are exported, custom metadata is stored as extended attributes too on export. You could also use Tools > Create Metadata Overview.
IMHO, wishing DT to be both a groups-documents-links metaphor and an ideas-connections cognition-metaphor app are kind of like pushing two very different design philosophy together, and I am not sure that’s a good thing. Disclaimer: I am just interpreting the characteristics of difference apps which could be highly inaccurate.
However,
(1) at least you can do this now…
(2) I always wonder what kind of synergy can be generated between devonagent and DT? A group is just like a webpage/website with many links/contents and perhaps devonagent can do something about it…
Hi Benoit
Yes I have succeeded in the past by taking a meta data overview out into csv, splitting the tags column into multiple columns.
Then I have taken it into Gephi. There is a plug in you need to use.
It works well- nodes are then each tag name, and there is an edge linking all tag names that occur together for the same document.
Let me know if you need more info.
seems great, I’ll give it a try, thanks! Does it exports also the tags inheritated from the groups (because the group is tagged or with the name of the group as tag)?
Thx I’ll have a look at it. Good thing there’s a gephii plugin for co-occurrence.
Hi. Sorry for the delay. I haven’t tested what happens to group tags mostly because I don’t use them much. I tend to export in one big group, relying on tags. I presume that the group names are shown, in which case providing you parse them into separate columns, you could treat them in just the same way as tags.