Switching between files in "Quick Look"

Explained on page 130 of the DEVONthink Manual that you are reading (ver 3.6.3).

Hehe, I am not yet as deep in the PDF :slight_smile:
Maybe then add a short reference to page 130 on page 8?

I did this and … it is fantastic!

The more I think about this, the more this is exactly the feature that I was looking for in https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/accessing-dt-content-as-volume-in-finder

It mimics the behavior of DTTG where other Apps can access the group hierarchie within DEVONthink.

This would be a reason to go back to what I was doing before - I had all content in the global inbox.

I just now moved everything from the global inbox to 3 different databases :smiley:
I think about reversing this again to have full access from the Finder.

This is a way to get stuff into DEVONthink. I think this would a mis-use of the Finder and Global Inbox. I recall it’s documented somewhere not to fill up Global Inbox and surely discussed in this forum.

I’ll let others comment on your plan. I for one am not supportive. But, there you go.

Me–I have some smart rules set up pointed at the Global Inbox that automagically converts web archives to PDFs (if appropriate), OCRs any PDF that aren’t, use AutoClassify to move to the relevant place (works great most of the time … little intervention now req’d by me), sometimes put a “To Read” label on something, etc.

Many thanks.
I have no smart rules and see not much use in them, as i tend to sort my content manually into a group hierarchy and use other tags sparingly.

From the documentation, I see no difference between the global inbox and any other database.
People seem to use multiple databases mostly to separate content and therefor to split content into different areas to have smaller and separate databases.

But I see no indication about the global inbox not being a totally valid database for any and all reasons.

Are there such reasons?


But as I asked in the other topic, why not add any and all databases to the Finder?
Then all variants of use could be handled!

I just noticed, that this does not work as I thought.

While I can add content and even folders to the Inbox in Finder and the same shows up in the global inbox in DT, the content vanishes from the Finder Inbox!
Either after some time, or because I moved files into a folder, even as this was still within the Inbox!

So, the Finder Inbox is not a view at the DT global inbox, at best temporarily.

This invalidates my idea above.

Sad thing.

EDIT: In a second test, new content directly vanished from the Finder Inbox after I switched to DT and back to the Finder.

:cry: :cry: :cry:

The inbox folder is only intended to e.g. save documents easily to DEVONthink.

The Inbox folder in the Finder is called “Inbox” for a reason.

The database Global Inbox indexes that folder and drags everything in. The idea is that the Global Inbox (database) is a central distribution place—wether the content is moved from there by Smart Rules or manually by the user is up to the latter.

You can set up any folder to be a Finder inbox for any database or a group of a database by indexing it and setting up a Smart Rule to drag everything into that database/group. You could drag the folder into the Finder sidebar if you wish. There would be no difference to the Inbox folder beside that you would have to set it up manually while the Gobal Inbox has this built in.

But also with an individually created folder you could leave out the dragging in. Then you will have access to its content (which could even be a deeply nested folder structure) both via DEVONthink or the *Finder
.

That was a very detailed explanation, many thanks!

The PDF seems to say that only the Global Inbox can be added to the Finder - or again there are other parts in the PDF that have additional information. This is at least confusing.

But what you say is that this would probably work for indexed folders and their content, which is not what I was aiming for.
I wanted to have Folder access to the DT content … as this get’s synced to remote locations. This is not the case for indexed content and of course I could access indexed content via Finder …

Only the Global Inbox’ Inbox folder can be added to the Finder sidebar by the Install Add-ons menu—all other folders you would have to drag there manually and you would have to set up to get indexed manually.

I don’t care about the method, even if it is strange that there are different ways to accomplish this and that there is no right-mouse-button menu entry to do this.

Anyways, my goal was to access the DT content and this is not possible at all.
Sad thing :wink:

When you want to move a folder to the Finder sidebar you would have to have a Finder window open showing that folder. So why should Apple provide a context menu item for moving a folder to the sidebar when the user just hast to drag the folder a bit to the left and drop it there?

DEVONthink on the other hand can not know which other Finder folders beside the Global Inbox’ Inbox folder the user might want to add to the sidebar. The Global Inbox is a special database that indexes a special Finder folder. Both are located in the user’s Library folder (per default invisible to him), sub-folder Application Support, sub-sub-folder DEVONthink 3. For convenience DT allows to move this one special Finder folder with its fixed location by menu item to the sidebar so the user does not have to dig into the Library.

But regarding your goal: You can open items from within DEVONthink with other apps but you have no access to the database content from the outside, unlike DTTG which can be used as a file server.

To allow both DEVONthink and other apps to independently have access to files these files have to remain in a Finder folder outside of DEVONthink and DEVONthink has to index that folder. And if the folder indexed in DEVONthink is part of a database that is synced with DTTG then DTTG will have access to the files in the indexed folder.

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When you want to move a folder to the Finder sidebar you would have to have a Finder window open showing that folder. So why should Apple provide a context menu item for moving a folder to the sidebar when the user just hast to drag the folder a bit to the left and drop it there?

Not sure what to answer here.
I don’t like to drag and drop things. :slight_smile:

I see this only has a strange option instead of using a menu to do the same.
On general, the right mouse menu contains nearly and and all options you could use on a file or folder.
Why no “Add to favorites”, as is possible with copy or move too?

And you give the best example for this: You need to have both Apps open, at best side-by-side to use drag-and-drop … this is so complicated and slow, compared to selecting one or more items and use a right-mouse menu (or top-level menu) for any required command.
It’s a question of speed and convenience …

DEVONthink on the other hand …
About DT, I do not understand what your are saying …
I meant to offer a right-mousebutton or top-level menu entry with “Add to favorites” for any DT item. This way, we could simply tell DT which folders to add to ther favorites, be them any inbox or any folder … just the same procedure for any such item and not different ways, like it is done now.

But regarding your goal: You can open items from within DEVONthink with other apps but you have no access to the database content from the outside, unlike DTTG which can be used as a file server.

I know, and this is what I was asking for in the topic I mentioned: To offer the DT as a regular Finder folder, like this is possible with DTTG.
Would be fantastic.

And no, I did not mean indexed folders, I meant regular imported DT content - and accessing them over a Finder folder from other Apps.

I tried to explain that, but often I am unable to explain what I mean to achieve… to quote again: https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/accessing-dt-content-as-volume-in-finder

Thanks

Menu File > Add to Sidebar

Of course only Apple knows the answer (at best). There is a menu item though—and a shortcut (CTRL-CMD-T) too—just not in the context menu. While removing a folder from the sidebar is possible by context menu … well …

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It’s Menu / File / Add To / Favorites at me.
And it adds a DT folder to the Favorites of DT but NOT to the Finder - and esp. not within the file system:

But this does not seem to be accessable in the file system for other Apps, like a terminal session.
At least, I cannot find it there.
Cryptomator does something similar, but offers regular access over the file system, visible as mounted Volume.

The above method is only a virtual entry, but does not offer file system access.

I think that we have a misunderstanding, because I misused the name “Favorites”.

I meant access to any other application, as I wanted to offer access to DT content in the file system - i used “Favorites” wrong, because the Global Inbox could be added to the Favorites and I thought that this meant the folder to be accessable in the file system, like for Cryptomator:

mini:~ tja$ mount | grep Crypto
Cryptomator@macfuse0 on /Volumes/CRYPTOMATOR_ONEDRIVE (macfuse, nodev, nosuid, synchronous, mounted by tja)

So, the content is accessible in /Volumes/CRYPTOMATOR_ONEDRIVE

I missunderstood the option to add the DT Global Inbox to the Favorites as doing something similar.

Sorry for the confusion

This

refers to the Finder, doesn’t it?

Finder menu File > Add to Sidebar

We still seem to misunderstand.

I meant accessing DT content in the file system, which i thought that adding a Favorite would also give.

Like in my Cryptomator example:

mini:~ tja$ cd /Volumes/CRYPTOMATOR_ONEDRIVE/
mini:CRYPTOMATOR_ONEDRIVE tja$ ls
total 480
-rwxr-xr-x 1 tja staff 1570 Oct 3 2018 THEMES.txt*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 tja staff 55 Dec 11 21:37 TESTFILE_2*
drwxr-xr-x 1 tja staff 96 Jan 29 18:58 ARCHIVES/
drwxr-xr-x 1 tja staff 160 Mar 24 23:06 BACKUPS/
<…>

Access for all other Apps!

That’s possible with indexed folders:

But you can’t access non indexed, i.e. imported, DEVONthink contents from Finder.

This has already been explained in the thread you linked.

Not sure why you think all other users and DEVONthink staff didn’t mention a way to do it if it were possible.

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Yes, and this is what I try to explain again and again.

I meant access to DT content, really imported content!
NOT indexed content, as this is - total logically - automatically available in the Finder and the file system!

And again, this was a misunderstanding!

I thought that this would be possible with the Global Inbox, when added to the Finder Favorites and had the hope, that this way I could access all of the content in the Global Inbox.