Only view unread items (RSS reading function in DTPO)?

Is it possible to filter or only view unread items in a folder that contains RSS feeds (DEVONthink Pro Office)?

Thanks.

I tried clicking the flag button to sort by read nature but nothing happened.

I create smart groups to do this, Search In>feed location, Unread>Is>On.

On thing you should be aware of about viewing feeds this way. If you are viewing documents from the file view (Three Pane, Split, etc.) rather than opening each document in a window, the document you are viewing will disappear when the feed updates as the document is no longer considered unread.

Thanks for the help.

I’m slightly confused as to how this works, however. Does this mean that I have to create a smart group for every single feed that I want to view this way (‘only view unread items’ setting)?

No, but you may do that if you wish. :slight_smile:

If you create such a smart group that looks across all your open databases, it will display all unread content from all the RSS feeds plus any other new content added.

If a specific RSS feed’s destination is a specific group, you could create a smart group based on the unread content of that group.

Thing is I have over 100 RSS feeds in my DEVONthink Pro Office database and it would be unfeasible to create a smart group (and navigate to each one individually, and to create a smart group every time I add a new RSS feed) for each one of them.

I was hoping to be able to use a function where I would be able to only view unread items when I am selecting the current feed, rather than creating a smart group for each feed.

These requests are not the same. What I suggested back in June will accomplish what you inquired about back then.

Ok sorry about that. Your solution is perfect for what I had asked then but I have increased in my use of DT as a feed reader.

What I would be ideally looking for would be something like OmniFocus’s Perspective filter, whereby I can apply the setting (Unread: Yes) to the particular feed I am browsing, without having to create a specific Smart Group for every feed.

I have battled with this problem for number of months.

My solutions were:

Initially I had 250+ RSS feeds in DTPO with an update time set to 15 minutes, smart group on RSS feeds, unread - but a timed update would delete ones that I had read too quickly.

To combat this I created a script linked to a hot key that would add to tag “To Read” to those I wanted to read later. A smart group filtered on the tag “To Read” allowed me to view these at my leisure. I had another script that would remove “To Read” from highlighted items. This works OK but the problem was too much info.

Along the way I did experiment with created my RSS feeds inside sub-groups by topic and created smart groups that only looked at unread for those RSS stories in that sub-group.

I ended up removing from DTPO all RSS feeds that were just daily news stories sites rather than articles so now my RSS feed list is down to 32. I use Feedbin to read the rest.

Maybe you like the idea to have a smart group listing all unread of feeds sorted for location, which lists the feeds in their alphabetical order (within their group).

I think a simple shortcut (somewhere – perhaps in the View menu?) to toggle between Read - (toggle) - Unread - (toggle) - All - (toggle) in any selected group – not just RSS – would be useful.

Maybe it’s a distinction without a difference, but personally, I don’t like using Smart Groups as a default viewer. Smart Groups are for dynamic searches.

IIRC, at one point in ur-DEVONthink we could click the Label column header and sort that way. Though that is messy since Label has 4 distinct states, but only shows one at a time.

I’m afraid I have over 87,000 unread feeds (granted, I am not reading all of that), so tagging each item individually would be unfeasible.

For the RSS feeds that I read, I just keep the items that I want to read in the unread state (+K) and then I will look over those items when I have time.

The issue here is that I want to be able to see just the unread items when I am browsing a feed, and as said, creating a smart group for each feed would be unfeasible (and it would be a logistical nightmare, as I would have to keep track of which feeds have groups and which ones I do not, and I would have to create a new smart group whenever I add a feed, and delete the group when I remove a feed).

Having a simple toggle (to hide and unhide read items) would be the easiest.


I have Feedbin as well – I am a founding member and am still on the $20/year price plan.

However, the issue with FeedBin is that there is a limit/constraint on its usage, which is quite annoying (60 day limit, 500 items per feed) due to resource constraints (which makes sense, but would mean I would have to find a different solution, in this case, DTPO).

Thanks for the suggestion.

The idea looks really good, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be able to scale (I have 40-50 feeds in my 1 database).

By the shortcut, do you mean toggling the function, or toggling the view?

Agreed – I think using Smart Groups is more of a workflow hack rather than a good solution to filtering (within a feed) items between the read and unread status.

By Label column header, do you mean the one with the flag, or something else?

icon.png

Also which what other 4 states exist in DEVONthink (other than 1) Flag 2) Unflagged0?

Bildschirmfoto 2014-10-23 um 16.49.44.pnghi,

somehow i cannot create a smart group that selects unread RSS. i’m at a loss what the problem is. i can create a smart group that selects any unread item. this includes feed items. but if i add “type is feed” then the group does not select anything. is there a difference between “feed” and “item in a feed”?

see screenshot, this is what i’ve done and which does not work

best

tom

tom,

switch ‘kind’ from ‘feed’ to ‘html’. As long as your search location contains only feeds, this will not mix with other html stuff.

thanks, that does the job.

so there is no document type “rss item” that one could search for?

your suggestion works fine for me because my feeds are located in only two separate groups. but it is not easy then to have a “global” smart group showing all unread feeds, unless all other unread HTML-docs are concentrated in locations that can be excluded from the search.

thanks again,

tom

Correct.

Correct. I also have my feeds in a group which contains only feeds and later, when I tried to build a global unread group for RSS, I found out, how handy that is. :wink: