For many months I have been using the “status” field as a means of separating items that need attention from those that are filed. I have just noticed that my smart group based on status has thousands of entries instead of just outstanding item. Further investigation reveals that the status field appears to have disappeared from DTP and, of course, from my smart group selection. Is this a deliberate decision or is it an inadvertent omission? Either way, I am now faced with trawling through nearly all the items in the database to see what is outstanding. Not a happy bunny at the moment.
The former “state” checkbox has been replaced by the more common and easier to use flagging during the public beta period last year (actually by 2.0pb8 released in December 2009). I’m wondering which version you’ve been using lately? No public beta from last year should be still usable. Or did you upgrade from v1.x recently?
To add to what Christian said, you will need to change your smart groups to ‘Flag is On’ to return the results that you had in 1.x.
Hi thanks for the quick response. I noticed this change only today and a month ago when I last checked the status flag was still there. I’m using 2.0.3 which is current. I can’t remember upgrading recently, although I’ve been away from home for six weeks and have spent more time on the beach than checking my files! I just woke up to the need to start working.
I can can easily use the Flag field (I noticed that in the smart group I had created, Flag was selected and, presumably, took the place of Status).
Since new stuff coming into the inbox is unflagged, I presume I have to use flag ON for denoting completed/filed items. It would be more logical the other way round, so is there any way to automatically flag imports as needing attention?
Incidentally, an observation. I’ve been using DTP for several years and used to spend a lot of time moving stuff into groups/folders in much the same way I’d file papers in a physical cabinet. Now, with improved OCR and spotlight search, I’ve stopped manual filing and simply create smart folders for frequently-accessed categories. The rest can be found with search.
No, the only possibility would be AppleScript. But incoming stuff is usually marked as unread, maybe that could be helpful?
Yes, I can live with that. I noticed the unread symbol and will see if I can bring this into the system. Thanks for all your help.
Similar to my migration from filer-centric to search-centric usage. If only the physical world was more cooperative with my attempts to do that… 