I started using DT for my filing. But I switched to Eagle Filer because it stored its files in the filesystem, and the ease of getting information into it. Whether you are surfing the web, looking at email, looking at the finder, etc… You just press ‘F1’ and it sucks the current web page, file, etc into the database. Getting things in is half the battle.
DT has better luck searching and finding things, but needs help getting things in.
Also, like Together (and soon Eagle filer), add quick look integration so one can view a wide range of file types.
To each their own. I’m much more concerned about finding information once it’s stored, and that’s the area where DT is head and shoulders above everything else out there.
Comment: I almost never want to capture a Web page as a page, i.e., HTML. Most of the time I capture as selected text and images to a rich text note, avoiding all the extraneous material on most pages. For special purposes I may capture as a WebArchive. What I like is the choice. That’s why I like the contextual menu options in the DT browser and in DEVONagent.
Capturing HTML from Web pages is the quickest capture method. But it gunks up my database with superfluous matter that reduces the efficiency of searches and See Also.
Whether I’m browsing a scientific journal or a news site I never capture everything I see. I spend a great deal more time evaluating the potential contribution of a new item to my databases than in the procedure of capturing a useful item. So I find that thinking is the most time-consuming procedure in building a database, but it pays off. I’m not aware of any keyboard shortcuts for thinking.
And of course if I’m on a secure Web site I’ll capture as PDF.
You’ve got to get the information in for it to be searched.
Then you got to find it once its there.
The critical problem with DevonThink is getting info into it. I had it for months and the inertia to adding stuff was too high, so I rarely added things. I switched to Eagle filer, and now:
Browsing the web? F1…Blam!
PDF? F1…Blam!
Email? F1…Blam!
File? F1… Blam!
Stuff is getting stored, and that is the first step - something that didn’t happen with DevonThink.
Certainly EagleFiler doesn’t have very great relevance based searching compared to DT. But the author is going to add that soon, as well as Quick view, as well as some technologies similar to devonthink.
While these things aren’t there yet, I’m encouraged by the authors responsiveness to suggestions, and frequent feature updates. In contrast DT has been waiting 3 years for substantive changes, and any suggestion brings flippant responses.
I find it important to keep on track while doing research, by quickly storing important papers or websites for later (basic GTD), and moving on to the task at hand. Most of what I store while browsing are PDFs or technical HTML, which tends not to have ads and other junk, so it is not really a problem. I don’t want to cut and paste bits and pieces, because some other elements of the article may be useful for another project in the future.
Devonthink doesn’t play well with other browsers (the bookmark-scripts have never worked after installing on a new Mac, and are a crummy implementation anyway (slow, steals focus, etc). I didn’t like using DevonAgent, didn’t meet my needs, and the theoretical searching improvements that it offers, like all the other context based search grouping technologies I’ve tried, wasn’t as useful as it seemed (after messing with a bunch of these context grouping technologies, I’ve found they aren’t really smart enough to offer any help, and instead are way slower than google, which is why I suspect none of these systems have ever been very successful)
P.S. Even if I wanted to create rich text notes in DT, I found it to be not rich enough. The inability to resize images or make tables, makes it really hard to create to do anything resembling organization with document having lots of images.
I fully agree. When I started using DTPO, I experimented with all the options to import web content and the RTF “Shift-Cmd-)” method is clearly the best for me.
HTML: contains ads and irrelevant sidebars, footers etc. Web archive: same as HTML but slower and maybe not as future proof* PDF: all kinds of formating problems
I select the text/graphic I want and hit the “Import RTF” shortcut. If by any chance some irrelevant stuff is imported (like an embedded ad), I can easily delete it. Sometimes I also do not like the used font or choice of colors. With an RTF it is a few clicks and I have a clean copy with my favorite font for on-screen-reading (Optima).
Sorry if I sounded flippant, but I’m managing more than 150,000 documents among a number of databases and my main reference database holds more than 23,000 documents. I’ve often captured hundreds or thousands of documents at a time with a single command.
If F1 captured HTML from Web pages I wouldn’t want to go bang with it. I use other choices. Yes, I may spend a few seconds per article when captured as a rich text note, but that’s more than repaid by better searching and See Also analysis in the database. I often spend a minute or two deciding whether I want to capture an item, and may even spend ten or fifteen minutes reading it. Sometimes I learn something.
I prefer self-contained databases. But to handle photos or videos for a project I often use Index-capture from the Finder, a choice taken to minimize data duplication.
I can see advantages for rapid-fire collection of data of various file types, using a single keystroke. But I don’t want to be limited to that, when I think there are good reasons for an alternative capture mode. Many users prefer a GUI for captures, such as drag & drop. Choices should be accommodated.
Maybe I used an inappropriate term. What I mean is a general unpleasing appearence. Missing lines caused by page breaks, half the page unused due to a missing or bad implemented print CSS style etc.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with PDF as a format, only with websites that do not implement styles for printing correctly.
And generally I am not eager to preserve any kind of advertisement or unrelated links / text in my database. But that’s just me.
