[SOLVED] MarkDown and tag frustration with DT (and DTTG)

DEVONthink
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My current setup is as follows:

My MarkDown documents are sitting in iCloud, in the iA Writer folder.
I have added this as Vault to Obsidian.

This allows to use iA Writer and Obsidian both on the iPad and on the Mac.
Great.

But I don’t like to have my texts sitting in iCloud, where Apple can scan everything and even feed their AI from.

It may be possible to make this more secure by using Apple’s idea of 2FA, but I don’t like to open my security to a mere email to reset passwords - very bad implementation.

So, what else could I do?

I tried to copy my MarkDown files to an encrypted file system on my Mac and have it indexed by DT.

Then, I could only use iA Writer and Obsidian on the Mac to access the files, as Obsidian can only access local vaults or iCloud vaults on the iPad.

And iA Writer can only open local and iCloud folders and beside this, Working Copy and ShellFish (ssh to remote servers) folder.

This way, I can have my files encrypted, but loose the possibility to access them from iPads.

I could live with this, but then I noticed that DT cannot read the regular MarkDown tags, as it seems!
Those are mostly written in “FrontMatter” or as inline hash-tags.

Most Apps I use, work perfectly fine with this, namely iA Writer and Obsidian, of course.

But not DEVONthink.
And also not DTTG.

This means, I could use DT only as a means to have my files encrypted, both on the Mac and in the cloud.
And i could use both iA Writer and Obsidian on the Mac to access and handle them.

But without working MarkDown tags, DT / DTTG are pretty useless for handling those files …
That is kind of frustrating.

Do YOU have other ideas and solutions, did I overlook something?

If not, a new option to enable FrontMatter and Inline tags for MarkDown files would of course be fantastic :wink:

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Just a quick reply on the tags. DEVONthink can already read these tags, but you need to enable them in the settings. Go to Files > Import and check the box Convert hashtags to tags. You can read about the options in the manual under Tagging Sources.

I don’t remember the details on recognising tags in the “FrontMatter” – usually called metadata headers (or in other apps “front matter” without the weird spelling). You can put hashtags there too, but otherwise it depends on the metadata key you use and how you set it up/want it to be compatible with other apps. There is a lot in the forum if you search markdown front matter or markdown metadata header.

I use a keywords: format for search keywords I don’t want to show in the tag list. (I don’t have the Convert keywords to tags box enabled).

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OMG, you are my saviour!

I was indeed checking for settings in DT for something like this, but I only searched the “Markdown” menu, not the “Import” menu.

But that may mean that this will only be done when actually importing files?
But OK, I should consult the manual first!

i don’t care about “FrontMatter” or plain “front matter” ways of writing this …

About those keywords, if I understand correctly, you use “keyword:someword” to not have “someword” as tag?

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It is even better!

I found the right-mouse menu “Tags” that contains an entry “Convert hashtags to tags”! This way, I did not need to re-import files …

That even works for whole groups!

:slight_smile:

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Indeed, it is always a good idea to check the manual :wink: There is a whole chapter on tags.

If I remember correctly the hashtags update when you change/save the file. So if you have a lot of files it might be necessary to run that command.

It might matter if you want to search for more information :slight_smile:

Yes. (+s and there needs to be a space after the colon: keywords: someword, anotherword)

Many file formats have a “keywords” metadata property. PDFs, RTFs, and more. There is an option to automatically convert those to tags. I don’t want my tag list to be too cluttered, so I leave it off. But the keywords are valuable in search.

DEVONthink can index some multimarkdown metadata headers like corresponding “properties” from other files, and you can search for those. See the fields in Tools > Inspectors > Properties

That means you can search in your database for keywords: someword or author: some author if you add it in the metadata header. I guess it also affects the Classify and See Also functions and such.

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Great many thanks!

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I noticed that you need the option for Import enabled to get the tags updated when you change the text!

So this is not only required for imports, but always - when you want them to be updated when editing.

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Yes. I think “import” here should not be understood as “when you import a file”, but “import to DT’s search index”

Edit: or I guess that’s not right either. (But a maybe an easy cognitive shorthand). The options for New notes and Destination are about new files, and the manual indeed says “tagging of files coming from external sources”.

But every time the file changes, DT has to update the search index – in a sense re-import it.

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