What other apps do you pair with DevonThink

DEVONthink Tips
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DEVONthink has an awful lot of menu items, and I regularly use Paletro, a command palette for the Mac, to access menu commands with DEVONthink.

I use Drafts as a scratchpad. I usually just copy-and-paste text from there into DT.

Other popular apps that follks use in conjunction with DEVONthink:

External Markdown editors. IAWriter is a popular choice. DEVONthink has evolved into a great Markdown editor in its own right over the last five years, so in my opinion, a third-party Markdown editor is no longer necessary.

Automation tools. Particularly Keyboard Maestro.

Task managers, of course.

Hookmark to capture links and cross-link between apps.

Am I missing anything? Anything you use in conjunction with DEVONthink for iPhone and iPad?

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Mine is certainly atypical as most days are spent with only our apps, including the must-have XMenu, and perhaps Script Editor running, but making appearances as the needs arise…

  • Safari as a default right now. Other browsers when needed for testing.
  • Preview and TextEdit as we use the same frameworks
  • Agenda and Stickies as scratchpads for tasks and ideas
  • CotEditor for more thorough XML processing; BBEdit for middle-of-the-hood looks at documents, i.e., between an editor and a hex editor.
  • Pixelmator and ImageOptim for all manner of images for documentation, blogging, etc.
  • and logically many other apps, depending on the tickets or inquiries I get.
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also Applescript
Edit; added PopClip

Task managers, of course.

My task management is handled within Devonthink
and notes tagged as required; status, due-date, project-id, …
I export task lists to a spreadsheet for a gantt timeline presentation

External Markdown editors

I’m not a markdown user, but I use external editors
Apple Pages for word processing notes,
Apple Numbers for spreadsheets
TextTastic to edit Formated Note html code

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  • Zavala to convert OPML files (mostly from Cloud Outliner) to Markdown.
  • BBEdit and TextSoap for Markdown transformations.
  • Easy CSV Editor and HyperPlan for editing Sheets.
  • PDF Squeezer for compressing outsized PDFs.
  • NitroPDF, PDFOutliner, and sometimes PDFOutline for ToCs in PDFs (on which I rely massively) – but DT4 now has such a nice implementation in-app that I haven’t fired any of these up since the beta dropped.
  • Whatever browser I’m in for DT Server.
  • And most importantly, Custom Shortcuts and CheatSheet to keep tabs on all my vital keyboard shortcuts…
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Keyboard Maestro various popup palettes, mainly for use in other apps. For example, my KM palette for Finder has commands to check if selected file(s) exist in DEVONthink databases already, and, if so, where.

DEVONthink’s macOS Services not really “other apps”, but I think these get overlooked sometimes. The services can be very useful for on-the-fly capture to DEVONthink.

AppleScript I’ve written hundreds of DEVONthink-related scripts for myself and others.

Yoink Useful for getting files in and copies out.

Copy 'Em Pasteboard for copying text out and pasting text and images into DEVONthink documents.

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  • Keyboard Maestro for automation.
  • BetterTouchTool for shortcuts using the touchpad.
  • Yoink for moving files.
  • Popclip to optimize the use of the mouse.
  • Karabiner to remap function keys.
  • Paletro for easy access to menu commands.
  • And last but not least NotePlan as convenient calender interface to DEVONthink for time- and todo-management.

I have grown this setup over 15 years and am still tinkering. :slightly_smiling_face:

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One thing that’s rarely mentioned:

Alfred Powerpack + DEVONthink makes for a great bookmark manager.

The core idea is to have a JXA Script Filter to pull all bookmarks from your DT database(s) at runtime. Enable Alfred filters results for optimal performance. The script filter can be configured to match the name, url, tags, comment and database path of a bookmark. It’s accessible from Alfred’s launcher, from other scripts calling Alfred, and from Universal Actions.

That’s more potent than the closest alternative, Anybox, whose $40 one-time purchase price is close to the Alfred Powerpack price.

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  • Alfred and, to a much lesser extent, Keyboard Maestro for automation.
  • iA Writer for key (Dropbox )synchronised notes between Mac, iPhone and iPad (I don’t use DTTG).
  • Day One for daily diary entries which are then imported into DEVONthink—and which rely on a battery of AppleScripts and one JXA script for modifcations in DEVONthink.
  • Typinator for text expansions—and including, e.g., avoidance of double spaces, automated insertion of things like "°” and "a.m.” and "p.m.”.
  • More recently, Apple Intellgence proofreading—which is not wonderful but is at least helpful on occasion.

Stephen

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Zotero - Principally for bibliographic metadata and bibliography formatting while the PDFs are downloaded to the standard Zotero “storage” folder which is Indexed in Devonthink3. This allows me to utilise Devonthink3’s powerful search against my library of papers and books.

Obsidian - Primarily so I can take markdown notes on iPadOS and iOS. But also because I use Dataview in Obsidian a lot (turning elements in my notes into an unstructured database). I index my Obsidian vaults (the name they give for the folder within which the notes and local settings live) so I have access to them in Devonthink3 when, for instance, I need to search across vaults.

Notability - I use this when I am in meetings because I hand write meeting notes. Sometimes I can also create a recording of meetings (where permission has been given). I then export the note (plus recording if exists) and archive them in Devonthink3 where I keep track of all of my interactions with clients chronologically. Browsing a client Group in Devonthink3 gives me a quick overview of meetings, emails received and sent, documents delivered, documents received, contracts, etc etc.

Notes.app - Similarly, especially if I am reading papers or books on my iPad I take handwritten notes in Notes (or Freeform). When back at my desk, I manually parse the notes and write them into Devonthink3 or Devonthink3 through Obsidian (see above).

Look Up - Apple’s built-in lookup function when you right click a selected word or click through using an Apple Haptic-Feedback Trackpad. Especially useful for medical terms.

DeepL - I sometimes translate whole papers and paste the translation from DeepL as an Annotation of that paper.

Preview/PDF Expert - For PDFs that I don’t want to use Zotero to mark up (e.g. I want the markups to visible across apps), I open it in either Preview or PDF Expert from Devonthink3. I can later get Devonthink3 to summarise the annotations if needed.

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Big fan of LaunchBar. There’s a phenomenal plugin† , which lets you tap-tap-⌘, then types a few letters to go to a DT group or file, through which you can further navigate, open in DEVONthink, finder, or anything else with one or two more keypresses.

Paletro, as mentioned elsewhere, though it does not fully index the scripts menu (yet).

MindNode provides some neat ways to navigate and think though your DT mess, particularly as you can link to x-DEVONthink items.

Tinderbox is also great for outlining and linking between DT items, and generally a neat tool for thinking and organsing ideas.

Hookmark, as mentioned here.

OmniFocus, as a way to link items to reminders.

Ulysses, for longer writing projects - as both this and DEVONthink can work with imported directories of text files (which can be linked to notes in Tinderbox), this has been a great way of working for me.

MarkEdit, a free Markdown editor, for quick markdown edits. It’s very good with the table editor plugin; otherwise, I’m a big iaWriter fan.

I use KeyboardMaestro to launch Ollama and fire distinct models up - I can work though KM launching using a LaunchBar plugin.

I’m kinda lost without LaunchBar, frankly.

I also use Git to provide an extra layer of security (on top of Time Machine) for archives and versions.

† not formally fixed to work with DT4, but I have a fork.

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Bear — to capture and save posts like this one! So much learned here, and thank you for posting, and others for replying with so many ways to use DT with other apps. This one’s a keeper!

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Speaking of clippers, I’ll mention the Obsidian Web Clipper which has numerous customization and templating options, including summarization generated by GPT or Claude, or (most) any other provider that has an API. Clipping to Obsidian is only an option – clipping to the pasteboard or to a new file are other options. I wish the Sorter had the same level of configurability at capture time – but in the absence of that, the Obsidian clipper is a good stand-in.

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I’ll answer this a little differently by saying that I view the macOS ecosystem as being my primary productivity tool. Many apps in this list have already been mentioned, but it would be remiss not to mention that a good proportion of them are available via SetApp for a low-cost monthly subscription.

There are a number of factors that make macOS the best choice for productivity, but two of the main ones are that macOS sits atop a UNIX underbelly and secondly Apple make available a huge number of frameworks that independent developers can build upon to make great apps that excel in highly targeted use cases.

In many ways, the apps I list below build upon the UNIX design strategy itself, of providing many focused routines to solve very specific things; routines such as grep, sed and awk for text manipulations.

Keyboard Maestro is awesome, but much of what makes it great is its ability to lean on shell scripts, and of course AppleScripts. As @korm mentions, macOS Services are a great way to lean into the power of shell scripts, even if you have no familiarity of the command-line. The macOS services provided by Devon Technologies provide many of the same text processing capabilities as TextSoap or the Text Factories in BBEdit.

Another critical factor of macOS itself being the ‘edges’ on the productivity ‘graph’ for its users, is the fact that many such utilities can be running in the background with minimal processing/memory overhead. That way, they’re waiting to be called at the point of need, and then get out of the way, with similar elegant aplomb.

The monolithic software development processes of old has meant some of these essential apps suffer with a long history of feature creep - peripheral features added to justify upgrade sales. But there’s nothing stopping you from sticking to the core features that made those apps great in the first place.

So, my list, in no specific order, includes.

Default Folder X
TextSoap
Keyboard Maestro
Cloud Storage (pick your flavour)
Droplr
Yoink
Dropzone
PopClip
Tot
Antinote
Obsidian
Typora
Floating
PureRef
Hookmark
TextExpander
Alfred
SimpleMind
OmniGroup Apps (primarily OmniOutliner, OmniFocus and OmniGraffle
BetterTouchTool
OpenIn
Hazel
Swish
HazeOver
Curio (strictly as a whiteboard for creative exploration)
BBEdit
Dash
CodeRunner
VS Code
Scrivener
Ulysses
Skim
Calibre
Kindle
Acorn
Retrobatch
PixelMator Pro
GraphicConverter

If you’ve made it this far, I’ll call out a few applications of particular note. I work in the creative sector, so subscribe to the full Adobe suite, however I still find a place for Acorn, Retrobatch, PixelMator Pro and GraphicConverter and that’s because each have strengths when called via Shortcuts or Applescript. And Keyboard Maestro makes it possible to combine these AppleScripts into powerful standalone macros.

Another pair worth singling out are Tot and Antinote. On the surface of things, they each do the same thing, and that’s to provide standalone scratch-pad notes for temporary scribblings. Tot is essential as it has both macOS and iOS apps, which sync via iCloud. Antinote is a €5 pay once delight, which is only available on macOS, but its worth having as it leans into shell-scripting behind the scenes to provide a bunch of clever features which come in very handy in short-term temporary plain text scratch notes. Further info here: Antinote: Beautiful Temporary Notes and Calculations

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@Bluefrog Please tell me more about how you use Agenda with DEVONthink. I’ve been thinking for a few months now that it might make snese for me to find some way to coordinate my meeting notes with my calendar.

@DTlow Do you use DEVONthink’s built-in reminders for task management? How do you handle dated tasks and recurring tasks?

@Leopold How do you integrate Noteplan with Devonthink?

@jonmoore Yes to using MacOS (and iPhone) as the productivity system! It’s tempting to view an app like DEVONthink (or Obsidian, Bear, Evernote, Tana, etc.) as an “everything bucket” and you can make yourself crazy that way. The Apple platforms are the everything bucket.

Previously, I would have said MacOS, iPhone and iPad are the everything buckets, but I’ve been using my iPad less and less lately.

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(a few minutes later) I see now that @Leopold has said elsewhere on the forum that he indexes his Noteplan folder with DEVONthink.

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What a great thread. Reading very carefully. Maybe this one is a candidate for pinning

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NotePlan stores its Data in Markdown text in a folder on the SSD of the MacBook. So it is easy for DEVONthink to index this folder, which allows a seamless interface between these two apps. I use this setup since NotePlan 1.0 from 2016 and am very content for the last 9 years.

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I do include iOS and ipadOS in the productivity ecosystem, seeing as they sit atop a UNIX underbelly too, but it all begins in macOS.

Federico Viticci, may long have sung the praises of iPads as desktop replacements, but it’s too much of a fenced off sandbox to ever be a replacement for true Apple power users.

Having said that, reliable sources on the jungle telegraph are saying this is the year that Apple finally takes off the training wheels off iPadOS. I really hope so, as I dearly love my pair of 13" iPad Pro’s (M1 and M4), but it’s my latest gen iPad Mini that’s the most used in that selection of devices. Mainly because I have gorilla proportioned hands and the Mini is the perfect size for touch typing. I always get Pro Max phones, but they’ve fundamentally been photography devices for my use case, and of course for voice calls - due to my Gorilla proportioned hands. :slight_smile:

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I’ve often thought of dabbling with NotePlan, but always asked myself is it a sledgehammer for the proverbial peanut. By that I mean, is plain text markdown the best medium for calendar, task management and suchlike, but your posts have reminded me to take a look again seeing as it’s part of SetApp.

The important thing is that it syncs with Apple Calendar and Reminders, and having the ability to index its plain text data in DEVONthink, could prove to be powerful.

I’m a Gmail, Google Calendar user of old, and never delete anything (other than the occasional spam message, which Googles otherwise excellent spam filter lets through). As long as you know Google’s search tokens well, you can mine your data with ease (and my data goes back to year dot of Gmail). But since Googles Gemini Pro is now proving to be a very powerful Ai engine, it’s making that task even easier.

Still, I’ve always been a proponent of data portability, and as great the GSuite is, the last thing it provides is data portability. However, seeing as I mirror much of my GSuite calendar and reminders via Apple’s default capabilities, I could probably find a way of syncing that data into NotePlan. Mmm tasty…

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No, I don’t use Devonthink’s built-in reminders for task management

Instead, I tag notes as required; project-id, status, due-date, recurring-time, …
Task list is simply a filtered note list (smart group)
exported to a spreadsheet for a gantt timeline view
An applescript updates completed tasks; set’s status to completed or for recurring tasks resets due-date

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