reveal the path

DEVONthink Feedback
1

The first thing I do after I open DEVONthink Pro is wonder which group the displayed item belongs to.

I double-click to open only the item displayed when DEVONthink is launched, then command-click the title bar. But the customary OSX path is not revealed, so I then go through the folders listed in the left pane to find just the right one.

I do this all the time. Am I the only one to not remember where something belongs?

What is the trick to reveal where in the heirachy, or in which folder/group a displayed item lives? It would be easiest, for me, with Mac standard command+click on title bar.

2

Easy. Press Command-R to “Reveal” the location of the open document in the organizational hierarchy.

My windows in DT Pro are set up so that the Info panel is always displayed to the right of views and document windows. The Info panel has a Location field that displays the document’s place in the hierarchy.

If you are looking at the document pane of the Vertical Split, Horizontal Split or Three Panes view, the path of the document in the organization is displayed in the title bar.

Or if you are looking at search results in the Search window, the organizational path is displayed under the document name.

3

Which is the info panel?
I’m using a split view, the one whose icon is at the far right of the “view” item, top of DEVONthink’s toolbar, 1.2.1, three panes. The title bar shows two things, the name of the database and the name of the specific document (if that is what it is called) but nothing in between.

I have flipped through the other views, but don’t see a path. The pane on the left shows the folders & nested folders and documents inside, but not in relation to the one whose path I want.

When I command+R with the single page open, it flips back to the split view. When in the split view, it opens the single page.

I think I’m expecting something to be highlighted in the pane at the left, if not a listed heirachy of that item. Something like standard Mac OS.

4

This is along the same line. If I have replicants of a file I sometimes forget where I filed them all. Is there a way to highlight all replicants, or cycle through them in the file hierarchy to the left in the 3-pane view?

Thanks.

5

Question: What do you mean by the “standard” Mac OS? The Finder? iTumes? Mail? They all differ in important ways.

DT Pro isn’t the Finder.

In DT Pro we use the term “location” to indicate the position of a document or group in the hierarchical structure of the database. If you open a document in it’s own window, the location of the document in the organizational structure is directly displayed in the title bar. You don’t have to Command-click on the title to see it, as you do in many Mac applications.

If you select a document in the Three Panes view and display the document in the text pane, the location isn’t immediately visible. But if you press Command-Shift-I to display the Info panel, you will see the location in the Location field.

In DT Pro we use the term “path” to refer to the location in the Finder of a document that’s been captured from a file on a disk, or copied into the Files folder inside the database package file. To see the path of such a file, open the Info panel and look at the Path field. If you’ve Index-captured a file, its Path will be to the file’s location in the Finder. If you’ve Import-captured a PDF file, it’s Path will be to the Files folder inside the database package file.

Every document in your database has a location, as displayed in the Info panel Location field.

But not every document in your database has a path displayed in the Info panel Path field. For example, a note that you create and write into doesn’t have any counterpart in the Finder, so the Path field is empty. Likewise, a Web page that you’ve downloaded doesn’t have any counterpart in the Finder, so it’s Path field is empty – but it’s URL is shown in the Info panel’s URL field. Note: In DT Pro 2.0 every document will have a Path, as all documents will be stored in the Finder and indexable by Spotlight.

I find it convenient to keep the Info panel open most of the time. I’ve sized it’s window to the maximum height of my screen (for my 15" MacBook Pro or my Power Mac G5’s 24" screen) and moved it to the right of my other windows. Note that DT Pro can be set to remember the windows you use, including their size and location. You can see a picture of my setup at http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/default?user=wbdeville&templatefn=FileSharing5.html&xmlfn=TKDocument.5.xml&sitefn=TKSite.2.xml&aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en. I normally have several view windows (topmost and working copies of group and subgroup views such as my Incoming group and Bookmarks group), and one or more document windows, as well as the Info panel.

So I can immediately see a lot of information about a group or document. I can open a PDF under Preview, or look at the Web page source of a text clipping, by clicking on the “@” symbol for the Path or URL in the Info panel. I can lock a document, insert a Wiki-link alias string or set its state if I wish.

When I’m using features such as See Also, Classify, Words or Option-click on a term, I’ll temporarily minimize the Info panel to the Dock, so as to make space for the resulting slide-out drawer, e.g. for a list of similar documents suggested by See Also.

Hope this helps. But don’t feel constrained to make the Info panel permanently visible just because I do that. Simply adopt a working environment that’s consistent and comfortable for your own needs. :slight_smile:

6

You can cycle through the instances of replicants by selecting one and choosing Go > Previous (or Next) Instance.

Note: The Info panel for a replicant lists the number of replicants of that document in your database.

7

By “the “standard” Mac OS” I’m referring to Mac environment since system 6 through the present.

For many years, command-click on a window’s title shows that item’s path in relation to its parent. Most current applications (i.e., Eudora, Safari, inDesign, Photoshop, NisusWriter) maintain function. I don’t know that all applications do that, but not all applications maintained the standard Mac OS copy, cut and paste in apps prior to OS X. I just expect to be ablie to use command-click on the title bar in applications I use. [I’m noting the disctinction between “show” and “reveal”.]

That is why I asked about your reference to command-R so reveal the doument’s path withing DT Pro.

This is not what I am seeing. I see the DTPro database name and the window name. What I cannot see is the location path.

The path field in this panel is blank. When I click the @, nothing happens.

Ah. This may lend to the confusion on my part. Again, I am accustomed to applications showing the path of a document or window. The applications I use a lot, such as Eudora, help me readily see exactly where something within that application is located. Eudora won’t show the path in the Finder, but within Eudora. And, yes, since the Finder is an application, it will show the path, too, a bit tidier for some tasks than revealing with command-R.

.

It is consistently blank.

I know where in the FInder the database is, and how to Reveal it if I lose it. I can find it different ways, without Spotlight.
What I want to know is how to find where in the database a document/note/page, or whatever you call it, is, in which folder.

Thank you for all the info you sent.

8

Although many Mac application with which you are familiar will show the “path” of a document when you click in the title bar, that’s not a universal Mac UI standard.

Counterexample: Apple’s iTunes is a database application that has a rather nice user interface. What happens when you Command-click on the title bar in iTunes? Nothing.

How about Apple’s Mail application? Mail, like iTunes, is a database application. What happens if you click on something, or open an email message, and click in the title bar? Nothing.

So do iTunes, Mail and DT Pro have a bad UI because they act differently than the Finder or some other applications? I suppose there can be endless arguments about UIs, but in fact each of these three applications does provide a great deal of information to the user about where stuff is.

When I press Command-R to Reveal the location of a document in my database, “jumping back” to a Three-Panes view, with the document name highlighted, tells me precisely where in my organizational structure that document is located. All the information is visible for inspection, if you are working from the top level view of the database. If you are working from a view of a group that’s down in the hierarchy, you can either remember its location, or check its position using the Info panel.

If you can’t for some reason determine a document’s location, just search for it by name. The location will be displayed in the Search window. :slight_smile:

I said that all documents have a location. I should have mentioned that location of documents at the top level of the database results in a null (blank) location. We recommend that you do not “file” documents at the top level. Some scripts or plugins may send documents to the top level, but they should be filed in a group as soon as possible, even to an “Incoming” group. In general we recommend that documents and groups or subgroups should not exist at the same level, i.e. mixed. The database itself is a group (top level). The artificial intelligence features will work best with a properly organized database.

Many of your documents will not have a path entry in the Info panel. But if you either Import or Index a PDF file from your disk, there will be a Path entry. However, if you have an old database dating back to versions that allowed a choice of storing PDFs in the “body” of the database, there will not be a path entry. Or if you use a script (Save PDF to DT Pro from UTL) to import PDFs, they will currently be stored in the “body” of the database, and there will be no path entry.

9

Thank you.

10

One more remark: In DEVONthink, a document can have multiple locations (replicants). So, which one to show in the title popup menu? There is no ‘original’ and ‘alias’ like in the file system, all instances of a document are equally treated, just like multiple entries in a phone book for one and the same person.