I typically do not append a .txt extension on my text files. When I import or index them into DevonThink they
are treated as “unknown file type” which of course makes it impossible to search through them. Is it possible to tell DT to treat a file without an extension as a text file by default?
Or am I doing something wrong? (I am surprised, actually, that DT can’t infer that a file is ASCII text…)
For what it is worth: the MAC OS itself works witht these files just fine: the default application for them is Aquamacs emacs (the way I generate them in the first place).
Thanks a lot – I am in the evaluation stage, learning DT, and being able to import my hundreds of existing files is a necessity for me if I am to jump on the DT bandwagon.
OS X is much pickier about file names than was Classic Mac OS.
Try this experiment. Create a new rich text file in TextEdit and save it. Note that the extension “.rtf” is automatically appended to the file name.
Now duplicate that newly saved file in the Finder. Show the Info panel and rename the duplicated file by stripping off “.rtf” from the file name.
In DT Pro, select File > Index, navigate to the location of your two new text files and select both the original and the renamed duplicate.
What happened? DT Pro succeeded in indexing the file with the .rtf suffix, but treated the other file as unknown, failing to capture the text.
The problem is that there are a great many “flavors” of text files. DT Pro can recognize many of them and capture text from them, by recognizing certain extensions to the file name, e.g., .txt, .rtfd, .csv, .em and so forth. Select Help > DT Pro Help, search for “text” and read the topic “File Formats > Text Files”.
Try this: Append “.em” to the file name of one of your Aquamacs Emacs files. Now DT Pro can successfully index the text of the file.
It’s possible to batch rename many files by appending a suffix. That would allow you to index your files. And within DT Pro if you select one of your indexed documents and invoke Launch Path the file will still open under Aquamacs Emacs (assuming that you haven’t chosen a suffix that “belongs” to another app on your computer).
DT Pro handles certain text file types differently. For example, it will expect that a file with the “.csv” extension will have cells and rows and try to set up a conversion to a Sheet containing Records. So you should avoid that extension for your files.
Thanks for your quick and thoughful reply. Alas, it was the reply I feared… After 20 years of writing text files as a Unix-Emacs user it may be too much to ask of myself to start adding an extension to every file I write (old dogs, new tricks, etc). Have to think about it.
