Searching DevonThink with weighted results

DEVONagent Tips
1

Hi all,

Reading the plugin from DevonAgent’s DevonThink plugin states the following:

Scans all Web sites bookmarked in the currently opened DEVONthink databases. You can use this plugin to create your private mini-Web with your bookmarks and search only this collection.

I haven’t looked at the code yet for that, but it appears that this would only search the types “Bookmarks” from within DevonThink, and return those.

My overall goal is that I want to use DevonAgent more, but I’m trying to get better at general documentation. What I’d like to create is a search set that is specific to programming. In this case the process I’d like to have done is:

  1. Search DevonThink’s “Programming” database, specifically for markdown and weight it really high (Basically to alert me something is there)
  2. Search DevonThink’s “Programming” database for all other content (PDF, Web Archive) and weight it at a medium weight
  3. Search StackOverflow and GitHub and weight it at a slightly lower-than-medium weight
  4. Search Google and weight it as “low” weight.

The general idea is that I want preference in my results from DevonThink, then by the sites that matter more than others. The overall classification should still happen, and it should be possible that if little is returned from DevonThink that a StackOverflow/Google result would be weighted more.

The long term goal, and what I’m doing now, is when I fix something to basically document it of sorts into DevonThink. The long-term goal is that my reliance on google searches would go down, and more would be in DevonThink. I’m trying to avoid having to search DevonThink specifically, then search online after. Basically automation.

Is there any way of doing this? I don’t mind trying to code my own plugin long term if that will help here. But, if the goal isn’t possible, then I need to think of another way to achieve this kinda thing.

Thanks!

2

The plugin “DEVONthink databases” scans all bookmarks in the currently opened databases, it’s not possible to specify another filetype or to choose a database. The plugin “DEVONthink server” uses DEVONthink Pro Office’s web server and scans all files in all shared databases, therefore this might be more suitable for your search. However, it’s not possible to customize the weight.

Another option might be DEVONsphere Express which can search both DEVONthink’s databases and Google/Bing.

3

Thanks for the reply.

I did notice the running against the server, and I think I’ll try that. Always having the web server running isn’t really what I’d like to have running full time (just from a resources standpoint).

I’m not sure how expandable the plugin system is (since I haven’t seen the code), but maybe there’s a way to create a single plugin that does all the searches. Maybe there’s a way I can tweak how the plugin presents information to try and get a somewhat weighted solution.

Thanks again for all the help. If you have example plugins documented someplace, could you let me know? Anything I create, I wouldn’t mind contributing back to the community.

Edit: Found the “Creating your own plugin” help page in DevonAgent pro manual. Removed part of my original post since it’s more moot, but with one addition question. Is there a plugin system that allows interacting with the engine itself? Seems most of the plugins rely on hitting a web server of some kind.

4

The overhead of the server isn’t significant.

No, plugins provide only access to results but can’t change weights.