Questions from a possible user about workflow

DEVONthink Scenarios
1

Hello to everyone, first of all sorry for my English :slight_smile:

I am a researcher in humanities and I think I 'm in love with DEVONthink :slight_smile: The problem now is that I come from the PC world (with whom I get along very well) and changing my workflow is not so immediate. Let me ask you a few questions, I hope you can help me.

  • is expected in the future a Devonthink PC version?
  • is expected in the future a localization in italian language?
  • At the moment I can not change my pcs with macs. The solution I am considering to use is virtualize maverick in windows through vmware.
    I have to work primarily on desktop PC (at home) and virtual machine (VM necessarily, because it is at work). I then have a netbook with windows 7 and an android phone. The bulk of the work will be done on the 2 desktops, but I’d make the data available as possible. Now I work with simple files inside Dropbox: they’re accessible anywhere and on any platform, this is very good to me. It scares me a little to lock all them files into a proprietary database, for the fact that makes it difficult to access to others (I guess I’ll have to trade the power of DT with its “closure”)
  • Is there an acceptable solution for my needs? I tried the synchronization to dropbox with the sync function (I read it’s better), but - apart it’s very slow - the syncronized files are put in DP in DT format, so I can’t read them for example from my smartphone. I see instead if I put the database file on Dropbox, I can search and read the single files inside it. This would be good, BUT it’s NOT reccomended because of databare corruction.
  • Maybe I can only INDEX my files on DP, that would be good, but I can not accept to not move or rename them because I will lose the link with DT…
  • Is it possible to do an automatic export of the entire database in non-proprietary format, with folders and files, to make it available at any place?

Thank you for your inputs

2

Thank you for your reply korm. What you suggest is to keep the files in DP and use DT “index” mode. This would be fine in terms of availability of the files but - if I understood the “index mode” - the changes between DT and the files will be not synchronized:

  • If I move a file to DP, DT loses the reference! is there a function that allows to find out and reassociate automatically the new path of a file if I move it?
  • If I move a file between groups on DT, this change is not made on DP: this is unacceptable, because in the time it would create an internal DT database that would be very different from the actual file structure in DP.

Is there a way to use the index mode and “mirror” DT and DP?

Thank you

3

Never say never but at least at the moment there are no such plans.

The files are stored inside the .dtBase2 database package which is actually just a folder. Or you could just index/reference external files and not import/add them to the database.

That’s possible via File > Export > as Files & Folders… or by using AppleScript.

4

Thank you (were are korm replies?)

That’s ok, but can I store THIS file on Dropbox(I knew of not)? In this way the files would also be available on Android, and i will sync in DP with the plugin (and not with the folder inside DP!).

5

You could store the database in Dropbox but then you have to ensure that you don’t access the database using multiple Macs at the same time and that you don’t modify the database package on your own.

It’s probably more reliable to store only your files (but not the database) in Dropbox and to index the files.