Hi, I just bought DT (coming from Together) and started playing around with it for a few minutes. There are a ton of things I really love, but there are a couple glaring omissions that I would really like to see added. Most of my requests come from one page of Together’s preferences:
Universal Import Shortcut
With Together, I can hit a keyboard combination in the Finder, Mail, Safari, NetNewsWire, etc. and the selected or frontmost item is imported into Together. I know I can import selected text with the Sorter using a keyboard shortcut, but I think that should work for arbitrary content. I also like having the option to open the “Shelf” or Sorter when something is imported so I can add Tags, etc.
Move Files on Import
I really don’t like that files that are dragged into DT are only copied into its database location. I would like the option to move the file, since I always want to delete it after importing anyway. The option to automatically add files from a certain folder is also a nice touch.
Default Link Behavior
I like to import web pages as PDF files so that the content is stationary, portable and fast-loading. I can’t find any setting to set the default import option for URLs to PDF. In Together, you can even change the default behavior while dragging in a link by holding a modifier key.
Email Importing
Finally, text in email messages need to be selectable in DT. I don’t know how Together does it, but it can import .eml files from mail just fine, and all the text is searchable and selectable. This is absolutely essential to having a complete information-management system.
I’ve very happy with the advanced features and possibilities of DT, but these few features make it almost unusable for me. I’d really appreciate any tips for achieving what I want with the current feature set and would be grateful to see these things added to a future release. Thanks!
You could use the included folder actions for this.
The “Clip to DEVONthink” bookmarklet and the similar Safari/Firefox extensions let you choose the format. In addition, there are also additional bookmarklets/scripts for various formats.
Just switch to the alternate view via the navigation bar or View menu.
Ok, I’ll do that, but I think it would be nice to have that as a simple option in preferences.
Yes, I do have different bookmarklets for the various formats, but I import web pages most frequently from applications like NetNewsWire, where I can’t have bookmarklets. I think this is another place where a simple option to set the default handling of imported web pages would work well.
I’ve seen screenshots of how this works, but I don’t have this option for some reason. Couldn’t we just have the text be selectable by default? At least with Together it doesn’t change the look of the email, so there’s really no downside.
FYI, Dtech (as they’ve stated in other threads) usually eschews adding preferences.
There’s an “Add news to DEVONthink” script for adding NNW articles to DT as HTML documents. Pretty sure I modified that to add them in web archive format but I’m not on the system where it might be to look for it. And scripts can be assigned shortcuts, e.g. using FastScripts.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll try to set that up. In general, I’m sure I could hack together all the functionality I want using a combination of AppleScript and third party software. I’m just saying that there is some nice functionality in Together that I really think would improve DT.
It’s frequently suggested, which you may have already noticed or surely will after hanging out here awhile or just seeing the number of topics/posts in DT Scripting subforum.
Some of Together’s functionality/interface is more appealing to me than DT’s, but for me DT’s performance/stability/support is superior and more important.
I haven’t been using DT for very long, but that was the reason I bought it. DT is definitely more powerful. I just hope some of these things can be added in the future, or it will be a hard transition…
fyi you will find that “hacking together all the functionality using a combination of applescript and third party software” is the modus operandi for DEVONthink users.
Not saying you shouldn’t ask for features, I’m just saying that if you want something, you’ll have much better luck if you do it yourself
Well, I’m not sure if I can be much help with this, but you should have that option. Just let me confirm, when you’re viewing an email, there is no icon of a page with the corner turned down? Like so?
But you can in DT Pro easily open the email under Mail by selecting the message in the list and clicking the “Open Externally” icon in the Toolbar (customize the Toolbar if it’s not already there). Or Control-click on the item in the list and choose the contextual menu option, “Open With…”.
In Mail, of course, you can select text and copy it to the clipboard.
Re requests for added preference options, DEVONthink does a lot more than Together and there have literally been requests for hundreds of new preference options. Christian’s view is that this would make Preferences almost incomprehensible to new (and experienced) users. I tend to agree.
That’s really not an option for me. I consider being able to select text in an email to be basic functionality that shouldn’t require going to another application. I’d be more understanding if I was using some rare file type, but this isn’t the case. I also don’t think I should have to even click a button to switch to a view that would allow me to select text. As I’ve said before, Together allows me to select text in emails natively and without any extra steps. I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect this level of functionality in DT.
I realize that DTPO2 has lots of email-related functionality (at no small additional cost). Nevertheless, I view the lack of simple ability of DTP2 to copy text from eml files (without the use of a “helper” app) to be a form of “holding my data hostage”.
DTP1 used to import email as plain text files, in which text was copy-able and even changeable right within DTP itself. In my view, the current “improvement” in DTP2 is a definite misfeature.
