I’ve heard from a couple of people who use DevonThink in conjunction with other things. Most interestingly to me currently are people who use DT with Roam Research or Obsidian. @RosemaryOrchard said on one of her podcasts that she’s using Agenda as a front end and DevonThink for cold storage/archiving?
I’m wondering if others of you are using other software for live projects, and use DT as a cold storage or library?
Lately I use DevonThink for research – including typing up interview notes; I’m a journalist of sorts. But I’m doing a little writing in Ulysses, because the ease of breaking articles in tiny chunks and moving them around.
I’m perhaps biased but I use DEVONthink for the vast majority of what I do, including thinking, writing, and doing support. The stuff that isn’t in DEVONthink are things that are far outside its wheelhouse, like design work.
I use Devonthink for live projects, but I use a variety of document formats to edit those files. You can use “Open with” or Bookmarks to store Word files, Google Sheets, Aeon Timeline Files, and lots of others - including Obsidian vaults given their recently released URL Scheme. That way Devonthink is both a repository for “live projects” and automatically becomes an archive when the project is done.
But if you index you cannot open them within Devonthink except as generic Markdown files. Using a Devonthink Bookmark to an Obsidian URL link lets you open the vault fully within Obsidian while using DT3.
@rkaplan Could you say a bit more about this? I’ve been happily using Obsidian with my Vault indexed in DevonThink. This felt like a great scenario as I have the power searching of DT and the ease of the Obsidian interface. But I knew that I was losing the power of the backlinks because after a search in DT, I’d have to go find the same file in Obsidian in order to truly navigate around. Are you using both the internal Obsidian back linking and also the DT link when you make a new backlink in Obsidian?
I’ll also say that I have been very happily using Hook. One of my favorite features is the COMMAND-M to copy a markdownified link to something (web page, DT entry, file on my computer) and paste that link into Obsidian.
How are you using Hook? I’ve thought it’s redundant in the DevonThink universe. I guess you’d use it to create links to documents and other entities that are not inside DevonThink.
UPDATE: I did some Googling, installed Hook, and I can already think of two applications:
Link a daily note to my calendar app. Nearly all of my meetings use automated invitations and there’s no simple way to write a private reminder to myself about things to discuss at the meeting – I’ve always been surprised that Fantastical and other calendar apps don’t include this capability, because it seems like something many people would obviously need. Guess not?). So now when I schedule a meeting with a marketing manager in eight days I can easily add a note just to myself, “Ask him about the Spacely Sprockets contract.”
I got an email this morning from a colleague asking me to review a webpage prior to publication. I opened the webpage but got distracted and had to leave it open on my desktop for a few hours. I finally finished up just now and had to go back and search email for the original message to reply with a thumbs-up. “Oho,” I said to myself. “If only I had tried it this morning!”
So in conclusion I think Hook would be useful to DevonSphere users to create links to items that are not, and never will be, in DT, such as linking web pages and email messages, or calendar entries.
You could try this script. It creates a bookmark in Finder, but with little modifications you could create a bookmark in DEVONthink instead.
-- Create Finder bookmark for selected mail
-- To create a link to a specific reply open the threaded mail and double click the reply to open it in a new window
property thePath : path to desktop -- set to any path of form "/Users/User/Desktop"
tell application "Mail"
try
set theSelection to selection
set theMail to item 1 of theSelection
set theSender to sender of theMail
set theURL to "message://%3c" & message id of theMail & "%3e"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "Mail" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
tell application "Finder"
try
make new internet location file at thePath to theURL with properties {name:theSender, extension hidden:true}
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "Finder" message error_message as warning
end try
end tell
lol, I should have put a disclaimer on my message – because every time I mention this problem somebody replies, “Agenda!”
Agenda is a full-fledged note-taking app. All I want to do is leave the occasional note on a meeting. Using Agenda for that is like driving a tank a quarter-mile to pick up a pizza.
-- Create DEVONthink bookmark for selected mail
-- To create a link to a specific reply open the threaded mail and double click the reply to open it in a new window
tell application "Mail"
try
set theSelection to selection
set theMail to item 1 of theSelection
set theSender to sender of theMail
set theSubject to subject of theMail
set theURL to "message://%3c" & message id of theMail & "%3e"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "Mail" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
tell application id "DNtp"
try
set theName to (theSender & " - " & theSubject) as string
set theBookmark to create record with {name:theName, type:bookmark, URL:theURL} in display group selector "Create Mail Bookmark in:"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
I have been using this “copy message link” script for many years:
In the use case I described above, I don’t want the mail URL to live in DevonThink – or the Finder – mainly because it’s just a throwaway – something I only want to keep for a few hours or days until I have replied to the email and I’m done with it.
In the example that came up this morning, I just needed to take five minutes to review a webpage, declare it ready to publish, reply to the email that asked me to do the same.
Once the email is replied to, I will never refer to it again.
I use Mailmate for email and one of the things I love is that I can simply drag an email message into DevonThink. I use this sparingly because Mailmate itself has a powerful search, but every so often there’s an email that I want to also have in DevonThink.
The first script creates a record of type RTF, however it seems it’s only possible to get plain text from Mail.app.
-- Create DEVONthink RTF for selected mail
-- Note: this creates a record of type RTFb but its content is only plain text.
-- To create a link to a specific reply open the threaded mail and double click the reply to open it in a new window
tell application "Mail"
try
set theSelection to selection
set theMail to item 1 of theSelection
set theSender to sender of theMail
set theSubject to subject of theMail
set theURL to "message://%3c" & message id of theMail & "%3e"
set theContent to content of theMail
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "Mail" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
tell application id "DNtp"
try
set theName to (theSender & " - " & theSubject) as string
create record with {name:theName, type:rtf, rich text:theContent, URL:theURL} in display group selector "Create Mail RTF in:"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
end try
end tell
The second script uses System Events to copy the selected text of a mail. It also creates a record of type RTF, this time with rich text. Doesn’t seem possible to get also images.
-- Create DEVONthink RTF for selected mail (via Clipboard)
-- Note: this is a test script - it may or may not work reliably.
-- Open a mail, select the whole content or only a part, then run the script
tell application "Mail"
try
set theSelection to selection
set theMail to item 1 of theSelection
set theSender to sender of theMail
set theSubject to subject of theMail
set theURL to "message://%3c" & message id of theMail & "%3e"
set the clipboard to ""
activate
delay 0.5
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Mail" to keystroke "c" using {command down}
set clipboardChanged to false
repeat 50 times
if (the clipboard) ≠ "" then
set clipboardChanged to true
exit repeat
else
delay 0.1
end if
end repeat
if clipboardChanged = false then error "Try again"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "Mail" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
tell application id "DNtp"
try
set theName to (theSender & " - " & theSubject) as string
create record with {name:theName, type:rtf, rich text:the clipboard as «class RTF », URL:theURL} in display group selector "Create Mail RTF in:"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
end try
end tell
So it seems you only have the choice between reliably getting plain text (which could be modified with a repeat) or getting a “real” rich text record which might work reliably or not.
If I needed a editable copy of a mail with images I would use this script to create the record with name and url of the message, then copy and paste manually.
-- Create and open empty DEVONthink RTF for selected mail (then copy and paste manually)
tell application "Mail"
try
set theSelection to selection
if theSelection = {} then error "Please select a message."
if (count theSelection) > 1 then error "Please select only one message"
set theMail to item 1 of theSelection
set theSender to sender of theMail
set theSubject to subject of theMail
set theURL to "message://%3c" & message id of theMail & "%3e"
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "Mail" message error_message as warning
return
end try
end tell
tell application id "DNtp"
try
set theName to (theSender & " - " & theSubject) as string
set theRecord to create record with {name:theName, type:rtf, rich text:"", URL:theURL} in display group selector "Create empty Mail RTF in:"
open window for record theRecord
activate
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
end try
end tell
Personally I think of DEVONthink as the central hub for my digital workflows. I don’t think the cold storage analogy gives a sense of how the app helps you leverage the information in your documents and act as a place to create new content, especially the markdown features. The new automation features in v3 add so much value to your data too: it’s certainly not on ice.
Another reason is one of reliability. GTD for example requires a trusted system. I’ve tried quite a few others but none match DEVONthink. Especially because I know it’s not going into a black hole/ bucket.
I think is alright to have more than one system and to flirt with some other apps, like note taking apps for example, but ultimately they don’t stick for me. One exception is when they link in well with my DTP databases. I think the file based method is better all round and being able to find and markup information quickly and easily is a real win.
