Hi. One fo the frustrating things, as I go through the Devonthink Pro tutorial, is knowing where I am in the database. I know how to use the “back” button for files in a certain folder, but what if you go to a link that is a file in another folder? How do you get back? And how do you know where you are?
I have added the “Go” buttons to my tool bar, but they don’t seem to do anything.
One suggestion for a future upgrade (if it is not already a feature that I can’t seem to utilize): have some kind of info panel that shows you where you are, your last seen files, and lets you navigate to and from them…
Use the backward/forward arrows on the left, just above the document text/graphics. Or Command-[ and Command-] to quickly move backwards and forwards among the documents you have viewed.
On most pages in the Tutorial you will see clickable links to allow return to the beginning or an intermediate point in the Tutorial.
The use of hyperlinks and the back/forward arrows is very similar to the navigational approaches used on many web sites.
In fact, with a database that’s organized in this way, selecting the “start” page and then File > Export > As website will create a similarly organized HTML collection, including graphics. Check out http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/tutorial.html, where you will find an embedded HTML conversion of the Tutorial database.
There’s a History panel (Tools > History) that, when sorted by age (addition of the item to the database, or its modification) is not very useful for navigation purposes, but can be very useful for finding the most recently added items to a database. Example: During a certain time interval I worked on different copies of the same database on 2 computers and want to synchronize the 2 versions. Use History to identify and select for export the items added during that interval on each computer. Then on each computer import the relevant export. Now the 2 databases are identical in content.
It shows files I have added, not all documents I have been looking at, searches I have done etc.
It’s useful, but I would like a menu like in Safari: Where every single thing I’ve done is there, not just the documents I have downloaded (or in DT: Added).
How big is your database? My main database is about 20,000 documents, which would make a long scrolling list. On any given day I may do 20 or 30 searches, scan though hundreds of titles in result lists and examine more closely several tens of documents from search results. I may do See Also on several of those, perhaps following similar See Also chains on some of the results displayed in those lists. In the progress of a project I’ll be creating new notes and spending time writing, editing existing notes and linking notes to particularly interesting references. I’ll do some group/subgroup organization for my project notes and replicants of selected references. I’ll probably decide to jump over to DEVONagent and run one or more searches looking for new reference material, and transfer those items (perhaps hundreds of pages) into my DT Pro database to explore and use in the project.
A Safari history menu just lists a bunch of Web sites I’ve visited, with no detail about what I did with the site. That’s a no-brainer to create.
I have no idea how to approach a DT Pro menu that could track what I do in my database, as described above. I haven’t figured out what I could usefully do with it. Any suggestions?
The DT Pro Search view does remember the searches you’ve done recently, which can be useful. Just click on the Loupe symbol to see them. And if one has DEVONagent, the currently loaded search term(s) can be sent over to DEVONagent to assist the user to query the Web.
