Unreadable attachments on iPad and other bad surprises

I believe that there is some misunderstanding as to how Keep It works. I first, it is not a container design. The files in a Keep It database are all accessible in the Finder, and I have two DEVONthink databases that consists entirely of indexed Keep It folders. I can edit those documents in DEVONthink or Keep It and the changes are reflected in the other app.

Keep It also handles all the typical file formats-PDF, Office docs, markdown, plain text, rich text, and on and on. Keep It cannot add file attachments to these documents. However, Keep It does have the option of creating a proprietary note (.kptnote) that the user can add document attachments to. I never use that file format myself, as those are indeed not viewable in any other app.

Thank you for kind words, information and warning about how to “escape” from Keep It later on.

But no worry there. I have been “escaping” from apps, devices and whole systems for many, many years. I was working with PC’s when one of the first big upgrades took place: Suddenly you were not limited to 99 files on the floppy disk any more. You became able to create a new thing called “folders”! That was big. - But still, the wonderful Digital Corp Vax Super mini was able to create up to 16 versions of any file you were working on…

The talks we have in here in the Devonthink world reminds me of my working days as a business application IT supporter in fairly large companies. - The Devonthink forum is a bit like if I walked over for a talk in product development department with all the engineers. If I then went from there to sales and marketing departments I would have a different talk about the same issues. And if I walked over to production and shipping there would be no talk at all. They would just want to know how the damn system was supposed to work. And they would complain about always getting the slow hand-me-down computers from Accounting. So there are always different views on things.

Sadly, I had to leave it all at the age of 55 due to extreme stress. I have not touched a Windows machine or anything Windows since then. I became Apple-Only. I could not stand the Windows start up sound any more. So now I have “Apple expectations” all the time.

We went “paperless” in my home many years ago now. It became easy with the iPhone and the scanner app. And I live in a country (Denmark) where the national IT infrastructure is higly developed. A thing like Apple Pay was obsolete from the start in my country. We already had a national payment system working on both iPhones and Android. And all communication with local, regional and national authorities and our health sector is also done by e-mail. We have a closed, national e-mail system and and are ligally required to use that. (There are reasonable exceptions).

So it has been natural to become “paperless” for us. All our data in our home database system are those things which we earlier would havve in neatly organized binders or stacks of news paper clippings with food recepies, invoices for stuff with active warranties, user manuals, notes about what is growing in the garden and how it is growing. There might even be a small recording of bird sounds among those data. And more of such things including documents with legal importence. It was actually a legal document, a will, I could not read on my iPad. That would have been a bad surprise on a day in court.

My wife (65) has been a secretary in the health sector most of her working years. And she has used PC’s for most of the time. And hated it. Until we became Apple-Only. Now she loves using her green 24" iMac for all sorts of things. Because it is intuitive and “just works”. I have the blue iMac, of course.

We stated using Evernote in the beginning of our paperless live. Then we moved to Keep It when it became “good enough” and Evernote decided to recreate itself from scratch. A simple export of .enex files from Evernote and a corresponding import til Keep It worked well. Moving from Keep It was also trouble free. A couple of clicks and the whole iCloud “database” was exported including folder stucture. Import to Devonthinik also worked well. - So I know that escaping from Keep It is trouble free. - Contrary to what would be the case if we tried to use Apple Notes. There is no native escape from that. And, of course, Apple Notes can in no way compete with the three apps I am talking about here.

If I live long enough I suppose that Apple Notes will catch up at least to a level which is useful in my home. And then we will move there. We try to use Apple’s own apps as much as possible. I have to think about how the wife will be able to handles things if her home-it-supporter suddenly is note there. That is why I look at everything from her perspective even when I myself might prefer a more “advanced” solution. It has to be possible for her to continue on her own. Thoughts like this are relevant at out age.

So it was my mistake to attempt to become a Devonthink user. The features looked attractive (to me) and there was an accompanying iPad app. It was Devonthink’s mistake to introduce an iPad app which only works with limitations. Because on the iPad things should “just work”. Like they do with competing apps.

The wife is happy that she got “her” Keep It back because with that she can do “everything” without having to think like an engineer. And that is a good thing :slight_smile: S o, once again, all the stuff she puts into Keep It on the iMac will also be on her iPad and iPhone. Without exceptions. That is also a good thing!

PS. We hava a lot of .kpnotes with attachments. So now that you mention that note type I ckecked the note with the will I could not read in Devonthink To Go. It turns out that the note type actually is such a .kpnote with the will as a pdf attachment. So it seems that we now have the answer to why some notes with attachments are readable/not readable in Devonthink To Go. - This particular “note” was imported from Keep It like all the other notes and is a “rich text document with attachments” Devonthink 3. It can be clicked upon and opened in the Mac’s Preview app. But it cannot be opened on the iPad. And that is the problem in a nut shell. Devonthink was “willing” to accept and import the note in a way which is usable on the Mac. But Devonthink won’t transfer this to the DTTG in a usable way. So DDTG should perhaps be renamed to “Devonthink To Go Or Not To Go”. (Sorry, ouldn’t help myself).

Have a good, but not too hot summer if that is possible where you live :slight_smile:

All’s well that ends well.

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DTTG 3.5.2 released yesterday supports open in place for these files (i.e. changes are saved back to DTTG).