so, i have a desktop running windows 7 and a macbook pro – i much prefer my windows machine for just about everything but was definitely disappointed when i found out devonthink is mac-only.
I am thinking about using Synergy (which allows me to use same keyboard/mouse on both my Mac and windows-machine by mousing between the monitors) to basically turn one of my monitors into a dedicated DEVONthink window.
My question is: will there be a way for me to send data easily from my windows-machine to my DEVONthink databases? Are there plugins for firefox on windows? (I am hoping that maybe there are enough mac-users who are forced to use windows-machine sometimes that this is a need that’s been filled?)
Or any general workarounds that are designed for when people are away from the machine running DEVONthink for a long time? Easy ways to email data in? Or ftp data in?
Basically: are there enough platform-independent tools for remotely adding information to the database that this idea could work?
I haven’t implemented @mscottveach’s two-machine approach, but something similar. I run Windows 7 in a VMWare machine and put files into folder(s) that are indexed in DEVONthink and accessible to Windows. (This really has nothing to do with WIndows - since DEVONthink can index any folder regardless of what app is accessing it.)
Is that “sharing data easily”? Depends on what’s “easy”, but it does work.
FTP – though DEVONthink doesn’t run an FTP service, your Mac certainly can. And then you’d put the files into a folder indexed by DEVONthink, and we’re back to the beginning …
@korm, that’s exactly easy! and exactly what i was asking! thank you! perfect…! I downloaded DEVONthink and am excited to try it out now; I’m a television writer so the testimonials of the fiction writers are what got me really interested…
@apb123, well, windows is so much more customizable; there are many windows-apps that I live and die by; and I’m not even talking about OneNote which I think should be enough for everyone to want to at least want to run Windows via Parellels or some such;
I have a ESUS Tablet (think windows equivalent of a Cintiq) running Windows 7 and that plus OneNote has literally changed the way I work.
but the mistake you’re making is assuming that my needs and use are similar to yours; I’ve shown many mac loyalists my 4 24" monitor setup with everything customized with rainmeter (and similar) and their reaction is usually a back-pedaling of “oh, well, y’know I mostly just use my mac for browsing the web and word processing and uh, yeah, I can see why you do it your way.”
basically, i like my computer to look and behave exactly how I want it to look and behave and this is actually one of the VERY FEW criteria by which someone can argue one OS is “better” than another; in this case, “using that criteria, windows is a much better operating system because it’s more richly customizable.”
mostly, saying one is better than another is just asinine and/or a stand-in for saying “I identify with the marketing of one or the other more” or “I am used to one or the other” or “I happen to like the out-of-the-box design of one or the other.”
but, thanks for the suggestion to switch over to os x! if i didn’t have more than a decade of experience using both, that could have been very useful!
@mscottveach, a related approach is to index a Dropbox folder in DEVONthink. Since Dropbox is accessible through Windows, has a public folder (and the possibility of sharing other folders) for collaboration with other people, and will be available even if others of your machines are offline, it might be simpler than ftp and give you a little more leverage … if you know what I mean.
we actually already use dropbox to pass scripts back and forth and whatnot, so this is turning out to be a hugely elegant setup…
…also, the software i’m using to link my keyboard/mouse between the two monitors is able to copy the contents of the clipboard between the two machines… so i can select text on my windows machine, mouse over to my mac monitor and then add clipboard contents into the devonthink inbox… pretty slick.
& not for nothing, now i can finally use Scrivener too! (they finally made a Windows version but left out some of the features i was most interested in)
this is really feeling like the best of both worlds!
When you have friends and colleagues who use Windows only, and who admire and like DT for its capabilities, what alternative programs do you send them to?
This has come up for me today, after I did two presentations (here at the University of Calgary) on the merits of DT for humanities research – and both times, had multiple queries from Windows users if there’s something for them, too.
I don’t wish to step into a minefield here, but Scrivener used to be Mac-only and then created a Windows version. (No idea how well it’s doing, relative to the Mac version.)
Full disclosure: I’m a committed Mac user, but also a committed DT evangelist.
So the broader question is this:
I don’t wish to step into a minefield here, but Scrivener used to be Mac-only and then created a Windows version. (No idea how well it’s doing, relative to the Mac version.)