The “unread count” I’m referring to in the post title is this:
I’ve rarely paid attention to the number next to Tags (the “19” in the screenshot) and have assumed it was the total count of tags. Yesterday I happened to notice that the number went down from 20 to 19, and I initially thought I had accidentally deleted a tag without realizing. But then I found out I actually had 32 tags, all of which containing at least one item. That was when it occurred to me that the number was actually the total count of unread items in Tags.
Personally, I believe there’s a small visual inconsistency here. In DT’s left sidebar,
Global Inboxes and Databases show the total count of unread items with a pill-shaped white background
Global Smart Groups and Rules show the total count of items matching the search criteria without the white background
Only Tags is the odd one out: it’s showing the total count of unread items, yet without the white background.
If this is a deliberate design choice, then I’m clearly missing its rationale and benefits. IMHO Tags should add the pill-shaped white background behind the unread count as well to be consistent and to avoid confusion (it certainly confused me!).
Thanks for the suggestion! This is actually intentional so far (to avoid redundant display of unread counts) but might change in future releases depending on feedback.
Thank you for the explanation, Christian! The current design certainly doesn’t bother me anymore once I understood it’s an unread count, and I agree that’ll be a great approach.
To me this display makes sense: show unread count unless there are no unread items, then revert to total item count.
I actually thought this thread was going to be about the discrepancy between unread counts on DTP and DTTG, which it seems might bother no-one but me
On DT on Mac, the unread count for a database and its inbox are totalled separately. On DTTG, the unread count for a database is including its inbox. This means the unread counts on the different apps don’t match without the human doing a quick sum in their head. I’m assuming it’s not intentional, but no-one has remarked on it.
This actually depends on if you are unifying the Inboxes.
In both DEVONthink and DEVONthink To Go… if the Inboxes are not unified, the number reported next to the database’s name is the number of unread items in the database’s Inbox.
In DEVONthink with unified Inboxes, the Inbox lists its number of unread items and the root shown in Open Databases shows the number of unread items in the root.
In DEVONthink To Go with unified Inboxes, the Inbox lists its number of unread items. However, the root of the database reports the combined total of unread items in the root and Inbox.
Personally, I think the number should be the combined total of unread items when the Inboxes aren’t unified, i.e., the Inbox is displayed within the database, but listed separately when they are unified.
Changes to this would need to be considered by development.
I fail to see how this is related to my original post. The post wasn’t about unread count versus total count, it was about the visual style of the unread count, i.e., the absence of the pill-shaped white background.
Either way, it was a nitpicking suggestion and I’m quite fine with the way it is currently. I just thought I’d put it out here.
I don’t mind which you choose but I think it should be consistent across the 2 apps so it’s not confusing (and so users like me with hundreds of unread items don’t think we’ve lost something!).
Oh! Sorry, that was not my intention. I merely wanted to point out “this display” as described by @MsLogica was not at all the same problem I initially brought up. Apologies for the misunderstanding, please carry on
