Remember Open Groups

Hi. There’s an option to automatically expand & collapse sidebar, and that’s checked. There’s a retain view for interface as well. I’ll play around with these.

Thanks

Disabling this option should help.

None of the settings seem to help, though I’m likely just missing something. DT continues to expand a random path of folders when I open it.

Do you open just a new window or launch DEVONthink?

I’d like to inform that I am also aware of this issue, and the Automatically expand & collapse option is unchecked.

I have tried:

  1. manually close the group that somehow always expand each time I launch DEVONthink
  2. relaunch DEVONthink

Until now, each time I launch DEVONthink, the same 3 specific groups (and some of their specific children) will be expanded even though in the previous session I have collapsed the groups

Screenshots before quitting/after launching would be great plus a screenshot of Preferences > General - thanks!

first open DEVONthink:

then I press ⌘, for preferences

then I close and relaunch


Edit: the preferences show that all is ticked, but it is the same if unticked

Are these the correct screenshots? Because the first and last one are actually identical (and therefore it would work as expected).

sorry, I just noticed that you expect a screenshot before quitting (with the groups collapsed)

here they are, you can check the image name for timestamp:

Before - After

more information @cgrunenberg:
I just noticed that the groups that are auto-expanded on startup are Increment with specific three of its child groups, and MacStories. The other groups will remember last session’s expand/collapse state.

Is a verification of this database successful?

yes, Verify & Repair Database outputs success

I tried to be a little “out-of-the-box”, I created new Group New Group, then I put the Increment and MacStories group inside it.
I quit and relaunch and verify database a couple of times, then tried put those two Groups in the original place and deleted New Group.

Still the same :smiley:
This is not even a mildly annoying issue, but after I monkey-tested this for a while, I started to accept the way it is now.

I tried to be a little “out-of-the-box”, I created new Group New Group , then I put the Increment and MacStories group inside it.

When you quit and relaunched, was the New Group expanded?

no, it is not expanded.
after I relocate them to the surface of the database, the auto expand continue the exact previous behaviour tho (Increment and MacStories expands)

Leave the groups in the root of the database and try this…

  1. Quit DEVONthink.
  2. In the Finder, press Command-Shift-G and paste: ~/Library/Preferences . Leave this window open
  3. Copy the com.devon-technologies.think3.plist to your Desktop.
  4. Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and paste: defaults delete com.devon-technologies.think3 and press Return.
  5. Type: exit , press Return and quit Terminal.
  6. Relaunch DEVONthink.

If all looks as expected, quit DEVONthink, drag and drop the copy on your desktop into the Preferences folder and overwrite the new file. Then relaunch DEVONthink.

Are the groups still expanding on launch?

hi, unfortunately deleting defaults don’t fix this issue. I also tried cleaning my mac with Onyx and it don’t effect the groups’ expansion state. (I did that with the logic that Onyx cleans the directory open state in Finder in list view).

fortunately, my last resort finally fix this issue. I remade the parent groups.
I did Ungroup Items then Group Items with the same previous parent groups’ name.

I think this final approach —while it seems not a best practice— is safe to be also done by the post starter @TeacherBart, as this won’t affect item linking or classification AFAIK

anyway, thank you for your helps and proposed solutions @cgrunenberg @BLUEFROG !

No problem and thanks for the assistance. :slight_smile:

I’m suddenly having the “opposite” problem:

Until now, all was good: In the Sidebar, across my twelve databases DT3 has had no trouble remembering the exact expand/collapse status of all my groups, a feature that is very important to my navigation routines.

Now, I’ve just made a lot of changes to one database (adding a lot of files, changing group structures around), and now upon quit and reopen, DT3 always collapses all the groups. In Preferences, expand/collapse all groups in Sidebar remains unchecked, and this problem is specific in this database only; the Sidebar remembers the expand/collapse structure in the other databases just fine.

I’d be grateful for any troubleshooting suggestions, thank you.

[EDIT 2 days later—problem solved?:]

Update:

I tried creating a new top-level group and moving all the sub-groups (including all the nested groups within them) into it at once, then I deleted the old top-level group. That did not solve the problem.

Then I tried creating a new top-level group and moving each sub-group (including the nested groups within that specific sub-group) one at a time into the new top-level group. For now that seems to have fixed the problem. Now when I quit and reopen DT3, it correctly remembers and reproduces the expand/collapse status of all the groups in the Sidebar.

Thanks for sharing this. If the issue recurs, please try your fix again and see if it’s consistent.

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