redesign the UI

its now cluttered, pls redesign it.
And change scripts to features. They are confusing…

wolfgang
I vote for less scripts and more real features

Any recommendations?

What elements in the UI do you like, and what elements do you dislike?

  1. zoom in zoom out is usually cmd+, cmd-why not in DTP. wher I need oit more than anwhere else (in the pdf and browser view) it works with selected text: inconsistent!

2 as I said somtetimes: less scripts and more real features integrated in a menue as part of the tool

  1. a “rapid fire” brainstorming key. every enter key creates a new text file

  2. add archiv to DTP (from browser) puts the archived page in the inbox folder. Click on it does not show it sometimes. (often I have to click under the folders (sidebar) to see it. Why and when II dont understand it.

  3. select a folder create new folder/text (group current collection) does not open it inside the selected Folder opens it under it

  4. searching(!) is very complicated. Finding is the most important function of a db. I often do not find items iI know they are in. (Christian has promised this will be better, do you know when?)

  5. pdf view is extremly small and there is no short cut for view in or out

8) a " back" btn for all items. (not only in the browser window)

  1. group the items in the “customize toolbar” (now you cant find all the features DTP has)

  2. move an item (folder): left/right increase/decrease and up/down

  3. And again: more undo´s are essential. I have lost a lot of items and infos or throwned it anywhere in the hierarchy during drag and drop

sorry if some GUI feature are still in DTP, but i have not found them in years.

I like the idea of DTP. I´v waited a long time for such a tool.

wolfgang

IMO, a redesigned UI is essential to bring more users to this already strong application. Many of the “devotees” have made similar suggestions.

There are a great many features of DT/DTP that could be made more accessible through a better UI element design.

UI design similar to modern apps such as Yojimbo, EagleFiler, Journler etc would be a big improvement. It does look a bit dated.

I don’t see the problem with using AppleScripts for added functionality. It saves coding time and, of course, money for the developer. Those are costs not passed on to us, no?

Thanks, Wolfgang. I’ll comment on several of those items.

I’ll make an argument in favor of the current usage of ‘Command +’ and ‘Command -’ to increase/decrease the font size of selected text, and ‘Control Command Up-Arrow’ and ‘Control Command Down-Arrow’ to increase/decrease the perceived size of a viewed document, regardless of the file type.

Most of my writing inside DT Pro uses a default font of Times 12 point. That’s so I can easily copy/paste material from my database document to a more competent word processor without continually having to adjust the font size in the material added to the external word processor.

But I find Times 12 a bit small for easy viewing, especially on my MacBook Pro screen. So I adjust the View > Zoom In to make the text easy to read, using the keyboard shortcut ‘Control Command Up-Arrow’. Note: DT Pro will remember the enlarged view next time I open the document.

I’ve got a number of document types in my database: plain and rich text, HTML, WebArchive, PDF, images and QuickTime media.

Those View > Zoom In/Zoom Out keyboard shortcuts are consistent for all those file types, as is View > Actual (shortcut 'Command 0) to return the view to the actual size of the document.

So that does cover your comment 7 - there are keyboard shortcuts for viewing PDFs. In addition, for PDFs and images, there are View commands to Zoom to Fit, Zoom to Width and Full Screen.

We think the very extensive scripting capabilities are useful to many users, especially those comfortable with writing or modifying scripts for their own purposes. This allows them to add or customize features. Note the active Scripting topic in the forum.

There are entirely too many menu and contextual menu commands to fit on a toolbar covering all commands. Note that the toolbars are in fact contextually related to document type, so that the toolbar for an HTML document, for example, contains items appropriate to that file type and that would not be appropriate on the toolbar for a text, image or PDF document’s toolbar.

There are some additional options for each toolbar available under the View > Customize Toolbar option. But I’m sure the developers would welcome suggestions about possibly useful additional options for customizing toolbars.

I can’t replicate that, but then I tend to capture material from journal, governmental and news sites that usually stick to straightforward HTML coding.

Let us know if there are particular sites or pages associated with that behavior, noting the URL so that we can check the behavior.

You’ve got us here! :slight_smile:

Christian has made changes to the behavior in adding new groups in response to a number of user requests. Then other users do not like the change. This behavior is under consideration for modification.

My suspicion is that you are using the Search field at the top of view windows and that you haven’t checked to a) make certain that you are searching database-wide or in the appropriate group and/or b) your search query is otherwise limited by the way the operators are selected.

I prefer and recommend the Tools > Search window, because one can quickly view all of the settings and easily change them if necessary.

The existing search queries are quite powerful. But I’m looking forward to the expanded query formulation, which will be like that in DEVONagent 2.x. This will enable very powerful filtering in searches, such as the ability to combine multiple exact strings with operators such as NOT, NEAR/n, BEFORE/n, AFTER/n and to use Wildcards.

So one could write a query like this:

((“Bob Gruskin” OR “Robert Burke”) NEAR/8 (“Indiana University” OR IU)) AND 196*
Translation: Find items that contain the name of either person, where the name occurs within 8 words of “Indiana University” or “IU” and a date in the 1960s is mentioned.

Once you get the hang of how parentheses are used in parsing the query expression, this is close to very powerful natural language querying.

Enhanced queries probably won’t come before version 2.0.

When you have a document open in its own window, notice the arrow symbols just above the ‘Styles’ button. These are often useful in moving backward and forward among recently open windows. The keyboard shortcuts are ‘Command [’ to move backward and ‘Command ]’ to move forward.

Perhaps that will come in a future version. In the meantime, develop nerves of steel and a steady hand. :slight_smile:

When I’m dragging and dropping things, I like to set up the Groups floating panel, as I can set up precisely the group into which I wish to drop items before selecting and dragging them. That goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of errors. I do the same in the Finder, using two Finder views.

i’m quite sure, the dt-people are clever enough to have a sharp look at the other products on the scene like yojimbo, journler, notemind, soho notes and other apps, that do the same (dtp-)job.

devon technologies put us off for at least 1,5 years with dtp 2.0. i really hope, we may expect a state-of-the-art interface, that combines the best of his competitors.

I hope so too. DTP is great, but it’s interface is lagging behind the competition.

Yes, indeed. I’m not at all professional in this concern, but I must say, that every morning starting with DTPO is really frustrating. It is really one of the two most ugly applications on my desktop.

As mentioned above, I can’t tell you why. But comparing to other applications, I have the impression, that DT-people don’t care very much about the look and feel of their AI.

My problem: I’m used to use it every day, have collected tons of informations and I am scared to migrate all this to another application. Besides, I didn’t found one, which suits my needs.

and that is not the only reason for not to move to another application:
• that dt-guys seem to be nice ones,
• i assume they have the will and the power to keep their application up to date. i wouldn’t be amused to shovel tons of data from one app to another because my favourite software didn’t fit with the recently updated os anymore.
• i really found no other company with such an enthusiastically engaged support and forum.

but it’s true: a creative interface designer would find a lot of work at devon tech :smiley:

Definitely. And we will improve the UI in the future. But to be honest - support, fixing bugs and improving performance is much more important than having a fancy UI.

hi, christian.
don’t get me wrong. i’m not interested in a FANCY ui. i only wish to work with devon think without thinking about HOW to do something. it is enough to think about WHAT i’m doing. :smiley:

devon think makes me very often doubt whether my operations succeed or fail. for me the ease safety of use isn’t less valuable as performance and the multitude of features. in the end it is not the least motivation to buy a macintosh.

I tend to agree about DEVONthink Pro interface: it is not entirely comfortable. I don’t care if it is “dated” or “fancy” but it is definitely not customizable enough for me. For example, the icons in the three panes view are much too small and it’s very uncomfortable for me on my 20" iMac.

Man I hate to disagree with so many people, but I don’t think DT’s UI is so bad as to merit some urgent change. I think there are few things that can improve it, but it is fairly customizable. And as to whether you are unsure that DT has actually performed the action, has it ever let you down? Its never done me wrong.

I think the size of the outline pane icons is a good idea- have a little slider for icon size for those who want it bigger or smaller in the columns view

The 6 buttons for view is a real waste of space- make it one drop down choice like the Actions button.

Perhaps if you have a really template-altering suggestion for UI’s, suggest it to iTunes first. DT and all of its clones have that iTunes feel :slight_smile:

Actual features are way more important- but that’s just me.

I completely agree… DevonThink is great, offers a great performance (other apps don’t, believe-me, Im working with them as well), but its by far the last when it comes to UI.

Journler 2.1 is a great example of UI. Try it here journler.com/download/Journler2.1beta.zip .
Be aware its not free, its donation ware for personal use and paid for compannies and stuff.

Well, I have to add my vote for a UI redesign. It’s not just about looking pretty/fancy/up-to-date IMHO, I actually feel that the current interface interferes with my productivity using DT. As a previous poster said above, I don’t want to have think about how to do something, I just want to do it so I can concentrate on what I am doing.

I have too many functions that I want access easily, so I can’t fit them well into the single toolbar. Other functions, I miss or don’t know about because I can’t necessarily find them in the menus.

User below made a good point. Highlighting drives me nuts–it’s something I use constantly, but it is way too hard to access the function. In Thunderbird (email/RSS) for example, I can highlight/label things by simply selecting them and pressing the numbers 1 through 5 (each corresponds to a different color/label). Compared to that, DT makes it very hard.

as others said: its not a question of “fancy” its question of essential features and GUI improvment.

additional to the earlier mentioned points:
highlight in different colours is complicated
move items: left, right, up, down?
tags?
the “View btn” is big ands needs a lot of space in the toolbar

A lot of other much cheaper tools have all that hence I expect that from DTP.

Christian, dont missunderstand me, DTp is a great tool, and
I would like to use only it for f archiving, researching; unfortunatly its not possible now.

wolfgang

I agree with the posters. With Christian I had some exchange of emails over the time, a lot about details and inconsistencies. I hope these and other problems mentioned will be solved one day, because, as is mentioned in this thread, DT deserves it!

Maria

Yep, and 2.0 is on the way. Soon I hope!

I’m with you danzac. I don’t think DT looks so bad. I’m all for UI interface improvements, when it comes to functionality. But one of the things I actually like about DT is that it’s “look” doesn’t get in the way. It just sits back, makes good use of screen real estate, and lets the documents and files stay in focus. It’s definitely not flashy and this may actually lose some users, but I think serves other users well. Frankly, using DT I sometimes feel relieved after all the eye-candy and “slickness” of so many new apps. Regarding the many UI suggestions here, many sound good, but I just want to say that I don’t personally think DT looks bad.

What’s in real need is DT 2.0, the revised database structure, and things like multiple databases open in DTP at once. Oh, and I’m all for the turning of the functionality in many of the scripts into actual features with a proper UI.

I love the functionalities of DT products, its AI features are awesome. Okay, I’ve said it many times here :wink:

As for the interface, just add tabs and I’ll be happy!