DevonSphere’s See Also function is only surfacing documents from my DT databases. I’ve already got DT for that, and my understanding was that DS is intended to look at my whole system.
Am I confused?
(Version 1.9.9. Yes, I checked to see that “Documents” is checked in the preferences.)
Where it looks is defined in the Locations settings, pre-populated with a nicely restricted but editable set of typical locations - not “the whole system”. And the file types are handled in the Categories settings.
What are you expecting to find?
Locations includes my Documents folder, Categories includes “Documents.” I think both are set to the defaults.
(Sorry, I was imprecise. By “whole system” I was thinking “all documents, whether in DT or not,” not “everything on the entire disk.”)
Specifically, I’ve written about a particular topic several times. When I open the most recent example in Word, I’m hoping for DevonSphere to surface the other examples.
If the Word document has the current focus, I get no results at all.
If I select a related PDF file in DEVONthink, I get a ton of related DT results, but no results at all from non-DT documents.
I tried rebuilding DevonSphere’s index. Didn’t help.
I just checked my DEVONsphere … version 1.9.9 with macOS 26.5. Looked for a few things by file name in ~/Documents that I knew were there in that folder and subfolder (and sometimes in DEVONthink) and not seeing an issue as you report. A mystery. You didn’t mention the obvious “re-start” the computer, so I thought I’d suggest that?
I did create a new DOCX Word file with only the words “Search test for Kewms”, and DEVONsphere did not find it. Curious. It did find a document in DEVONthink that was a forum post from you a while back that I saved. For me, could be “user error” or something.
Edit: Wild guess, but wonder if this issue might be contributing something to the discourse.
Are you using “Search” or “See Also?” The issue I’m having is with See Also.
Restart doesn’t help.
Not a laptop, always connected to power.
Search works fine for me as well.
See Also is the function I’m interested in, though, and it doesn’t.
Which app is the active one and what’s selected? Is DEVONsphere Express allowed to automate the app and also to use accessibility?
If DEVONthink is active with a document selected, I get See Also results from DEVONthink but only from DEVONthink.
If Word is active with a document open and text selected, I get no results. Same with a browser, my email software, or any other application that isn’t DEVONthink.
As noted, Search results are fine.
I have given DevonSphere system permissions every time it has asked for them. Is there a concise list of the permissions it needs? I wasn’t able to find one in the documentation. Yes, I just checked, and it is allowed to automate and use accessibility.
Which browser do you use? Does it work e.g. using Apple Mail, Safari or the Finder, assuming that DEVONsphere Express is allowed to automate them?
My default browser is Vivaldi.
No results with Finder. With Safari, it gave a (1) DEVONthink result when I happened to have that specific page in my database. Otherwise nothing, and no results outside DEVONthink.
This browser isn’t supported.
Was the selected file part of DEVONsphere Express’ index?
I just tested several different files in Finder:
The “no results” cases said explicitly “no results.” Other files – images, Scrivener projects – reported that they were not indexed.
So it looks like the issue for local documents may be some kind of conflict with Word. That doesn’t explain the issue with Safari, though.
Please try this:
Create two simple DOCX file using TextEdit.app and save them to an indexed location. The contents of both files should be similar but not identical. Now update the index of DEVONsphere Express first, then select one file in the Finder. Is the other one shown as a related result?
If this should be successful, then try this again but this time create the documents using Word.
Created two similar documents in TextEdit. Updated the index. DevonSphere correctly identified one as a See Also result for the other.
Duplicated both in Finder. (I now have four similar RTF files.) Opened one in Word, but did not change it or save as DOCX. Updated the index. DevonSphere promptly froze. Force quit, restart DevonSphere (but not the computer) updated the index again. All four files were correctly identified as See Also results for each other.
Opened the two duplicates in Word, made a minor change, saved them as DOCX files. Updated the index. Nope. Both Word documents give “No Results.” The RTF files still correctly identify each other, but not the Word docs.
Is TextEdit still able to open the DOCX files saved by Word?
Yes.
Word docs (.docx) produced in TextEdit with one minor difference between them. Saved to the desktop. DEVONsphere launched and index updated. Each document is detected by the other via See Also…
Note: DEVONsphere should have asked for Automation of Word and System Events at some point.
Perhaps you need a tccutil reset on it. Is this the first time you’ve been running it?
Ran it for a bit, de-installed because I didn’t find it useful, then reinstalled recently. So it’s possible that it has old preferences files lurking around.
I don’t remember whether it asked about Word specifically or not. Where would I look to see if those are enabled?
It should be in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation.
