Due to quite substantial memory footprint (~600MB with my small enough databases) I tend not to keep DTP open at all times. I find myself throwing documents into Global Inbox in Finder or dragging it into Sorter. That works well for collecting data.
When it comes to retrieving a document that I know I have in DTP and need it out quick without starting up DTP, there seems to be no way of accomplishing it.
What I tried was creating Spotlight index for the databases and I can search it with Spotlight or HoudahSpot, but if I want to open the file it only gives me an option of opening it with DTP and ‘Reveal in Finder’ gives me some UUID named file with extension .dtp2, which sits in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/DEVONthink Pro 2/… as oppose to the PDF file itself. I take it as it’s only a pointer to the location of the imported file in DTP database.
My understanding is that all imported files stored in a package, so if open the content of the package in question, I should be able to find the imported PDF there as a file, which I can confirm. I was able to do ‘Show package content’ and navigated to Files.noindex/pdf/0/ and found the file right there and could open it with Preview.
Is there a way to make Spotlight or Houdah (which really uses SL) to go into the package and let me open the file I’m looking for or drag it out into say Mail.app to quickly send it to someone, instead of opening it in DTP?
I usually have plenty of other applications open during my working day and for something as quick as extraction of a document it would be handy to be able to get it out quick with tools that less demanding of RAM.
The document files in a database are deliberately stored in ‘Files.noindex’ within the database in order to prevent direct indexing by Spotlight - so as to discourage too much mucking about with the files from outside, as that could create database problems.
When I do a Spotlight search I usually hit the option to display all results. Those items that are in a DEVONthink database have the little blue ammonite shell icon. If one selects one of these and presses Space, a Quick Look view of the document is provide. A double-click will open the file under DEVONthink, loading the database that contains it if it isn’t currently open.
As they are the actual Spotlight results, dragging them to Mail results in attaching the Spotlight index file rather than the actual document file.
Except for large collections of photos, videos and music, almost all the files that are of interest to me are stored in DEVONthink and not in the Finder, so I always have DT Pro Office open. My other open applications are pretty much limited to Mail, Safari or DEVONagent, ScanSnap Manager and C ocktail (which I keep open to purge inactive RAM and optimize memory), and (temporarily) a parent application if I open database documents for editing. With a set of open databases that total just over 40 million total words in text content, I’ve been working quite a long time since the last restart and have 1,869.2 MB free RAM (of 4 GB total), no pageouts, and so very quick responsiveness on my little MacBook Air. The biggest memory hog of my commonly open applications is Safari, not DT Pro Office. Do a lot of tabbed browsing in Safari and it will really gobble up RAM space.
Most of my working hours are centered in DT Pro Office for research and writing, or in a browser to pull down new database content or to do support work on the forum or with Support queries.
Thanks, Bill! Make sense.
I might just need to review the list of apps I keep running or shell out some cash for a new MacBook Pro with 8Gig of RAM 