Smart Groups by location?

DEVONthink Feedback
1

I have imported (via indexing) a ton of files into DT3.

Now, most of them reside in one rather big group with sub-groups, and I want to sort them into various groups on the first level of the database.

I thought I could just create a smart group which shows only those files contained in the one big “Files” group. However, I ran into the following problems:

  1. A smart group can have many conditions, but a very powerful one is missing: “does not contain” !
  2. I want to a condition to check the location of a file (i.e. the group name), but it is not listed in the available items.
  3. In list view, DT3 can display the group path (breadcrumb) of a file, but this location item can’t be chosen in smart group conditions.
  4. To complete the confusion: both the group path of the file and its geographical location (of a photo, for example) are BOTH named “Ort” in the German version… ugh!

So… can I please get “does not contain” and the breadcrumb/location of a file as a choice in smart groups?

Thanks a lot!

2

Just a localization glitch.

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3

Any response about the “does not contain” situation @Stike mentions? I’ve bumped up against this several times.

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4

It’s unclear what exactly should’t contain what.

5

Reiterating:
When I create a smart group, there is the option for example:
“Name” CONTAINS “something”
This works for comment, title, topic, basically anything that is not only numbers and yes/no.

What we are asking for is the feature
“Name” DOES NOT CONTAIN “something” as smart folder criterium.

If we are overlooking something, please tell us.

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6

Just using the negation operator?

E.g. name contains !something

Many operators are mentioned in the help document

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7

Operators/Wildcards can be only used in combination with “matches”. Therefore something like Name matches !word should work.

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8

So “matches” (German version “stimmt überein mit”) plus negation plus word:
!party
works for example - files without party in the name are listed.

Thanks for that! (I’d call it a workaround, but then again… :innocent:)

However, I still can’t use this for group names - or can I?

9

You can but it’s not suitable for your scenario.

10

Suggestion:
Assign tags to any groups to be excluded/included with a tag name that is the same as the group name ( with database properties “Excluded Groups from Tagging” turned on), you can also add a prefix or change the tag color to differentiate those tags from the normal tags. In your smart rule/group, add additional criteria of “Tag is”/“Tag is not" to the tag name of groups to be included/excluded.

With this method, you can (1) search in multiple sub-groups in one smart rule/group, or (2) search in a larger parent group but able to exclude any sub-groups that are not wanted.

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