Trickster Integration with Devonthink - New Feature

rkaplan · July 6, 2021, 6:11pm

Trickster Integration with Devonthink seems like a superb new feature - I am very much looking forward to this.

As it turns out, I subscribe to Trickster through SetApp and it appears SetApp has not yet updated to support version 3.8 - hopefully that will happen soon.

BLUEFROG · July 6, 2021, 6:58pm

Interestingly, they are employing a smart rule to accomplish this integration.

devynosborne · July 7, 2021, 5:26am

[ Update: it’s working now. It took a while, but it finally asked permission to grant access / control between DT and Trickster. I don’t know why it didn’t do it immediately, but now it seems to be working.]

I installed this, but can’t seem to get it to work. I must be missing something easy.

I followed the instructions, but opening DEVONthink files doesn’t make them appear in Trickster like they do in their video.

I’m also new to Trickster, actually learning about it via this DT integration, but I think I have it all set up correctly.

What could I be missing?

(I also posted this in the related Trickster thread. I’m a new member there, so my question is awaiting approval.)

eboehnisch · July 7, 2021, 8:33am

As a test, when you close Trickster, then open a document in DEVONthink, does Trickster launch? Have you checked that the smart rule is correctly installed?

cgrunenberg · July 7, 2021, 9:04am

Seems to be working now:

rkaplan · July 7, 2021, 11:29am

Yes - it is working now. According to their dev, there was a bug in version 3.8. Trickster 3.8.1 is now out both for direct download and SetApp and works well.

This is a gamechanger - no question Trickster now is a must-have for anyone using DT3.

As a plus, they have also added similar Trickster integration with Hook, Alfred, and Launchbar.

devynosborne · July 7, 2021, 5:22pm

@eboehnisch, thanks for the reply and the help. Luckily, late last night, it fixed itself:

darwin · July 7, 2021, 6:01pm

I‘ve read it only shows files, that are opened in DT directly, like RTF, PDF or TXT-files. Does that mean, that it does not work with Word or Excel files?

devynosborne · July 7, 2021, 6:19pm

I’ve found that Trickster only registers files opened within DEVONthink, whether that’s with DT’s file viewer or its preview pane.

If a file is opened externally, Trickster does not catch it via the external app. Trickster’s developer theorized that the “approach DT uses to launch an external application may not be registering on the OS level and thus the information doesn’t arrive to Trickster either.”

Further, Trickster only catches DT opening an external file if:

the Smart Rule condition triggers when “Open Externally” is selected (it is not by default), and:
the file is opened via “Open With” in the context menu, not when double-clicking on it

Trickster’s developer has suggested that #2 is a bug in DT, as it should work via double-click as well.

You can see further detail, scrreenshots, and comments from Trickster, in this comment here.

I’ll report this to DT support as well.

cgrunenberg · July 8, 2021, 5:45am

Thanks for the feedback, we’ll check this.

cgrunenberg · July 12, 2021, 7:57am

The next release will fix the double-click issue.

devynosborne · July 12, 2021, 5:12pm

Excellent. Thanks for the fast reply and fix!

Poltiser · July 28, 2021, 4:31am

Unfortunately I cannot find this rule in smart rule folder and it interferes with my DT3 server opening a document and in the menu it is repeated 5 times…
How can I uninstall this “too clever” rule?
I can live without Trickster but I don’t know how to uninstall its rule!
Please advise.

Regards

cgrunenberg · July 28, 2021, 5:54am

Rules can be removed via the contextual menu in the sidebar.

Poltiser · July 28, 2021, 1:29pm

Thank you very much! I missed this completely. It worked.
Regards

DrJJWMac · August 25, 2021, 9:01pm

How do I shut off this integration? It seems that I accidentally initiated it perhaps because I am subscribed to SetApp. I now get an annoying popup that asks me where I have installed the Trickster app. Ugh … please just make it go away!!

—
JJW

BLUEFROG · August 25, 2021, 10:56pm

Remove the Trickster smart rule you installed.

DrJJWMac · August 26, 2021, 12:59pm

OK. Got it. Had to search for this. It would be helpful for the beginner to intermediate users to have this additional information in the manual (where Trickster is installed and how to remove it).

–
JJW

Silverstone · March 17, 2022, 3:01pm

Saw a new DT3 smart rule script lately as a new extra. I’d suggest exclude groups from the flow to make script and rule more stable.
For groups, you may use Date Opened or Date Modified attributes in a separate smart rules. For this to work you need to enable a hidden preference DisplayGroupsInPreviewPane (afair).

Script would then be:

on performSmartRule(theRecords)
	tell application id "DNtp"
		repeat with theRecord in theRecords
			if kind of theRecord is not "group" then
				set itemLink to the (reference URL of the theRecord) & "?reveal=1"
				set thePath to the path of the theRecord
				set {recDB, recLoc} to the {name of database, location} of theRecord
				set recordPath to ("[" & recDB & "]" & recLoc) as string
				set appname to name
				tell application "Trickster"
					add recent thePath source appname displayPath recordPath callbackURL itemLink bundleID "com.devon-technologies.think3"
				end tell
			end if
		end repeat
	end tell
end performSmartRule

jacob-apparentsoft · June 29, 2022, 11:13pm

Hi, I’m noticing that the AppleScript for Trickster integration now throws an AppleScript error while it used to work just fine. Did anything change in DT’s AppleScript support? Here’s the screenshot that shows the error location and text.

P.S. I’m the developer of Trickster, and noticed this while using the latest version of DEVONthink (3.8.4)