Will the “sorter”, as a menu extra (menubar item) in DT3 always need to launch the main app when it is activated? Seems a bit odd if it will.
Or is this a beta glitch?
I saw this mentioned in a thread that was related to DTPO2 but not to DT3.
The Sorter is not a standalone application any longer. In order to see and use it, DEVONthink 3 must be running. Also, interactions like clipping, etc. will switch to DEVONthink. Development would have to comment on if this behavior will (or can) be modified.
Well I hope development can comment, because that sounds like a retrograde step to be honest. But thanks.
why has the concept of the standaolone sorter been abandoned? technical reasons?
I never see “switching” happen. Over here, Sorter does its thing and doesn’t switch focus to DEVONthink.
Whatever this is supposed to mean, it just confuses the issue for me. I don’t know where “over here” is, but over here, the sorter, as menu extra or as drawer thing, if clicked, always brings DT3 to the front. And using the service “add to DEVONthink” also brings DT3 to the front.
By the way, I’m not “complaining just because I can” I’m just trying to clarify this behaviour, which seems odd if it differs from your set-up 
The Sorter shouldn’t activate the main application. I am not able to reproduce it here so can you let me know if you are still getting this issue after the next beta is released.
why has the concept of the standalone-sorter be abandoned? why is it necessary to have the main DT program running, to use the sorter? technical reasons? I loved the standalone sorter in DT2.
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The new integrated Sorter provides greater integration with DT3 and allows greater scope for future feature enhancements.
The ‘sorter’ only runs if DT3 is running, and I agree with vinschger above: this rather defeats the whole object of having a ‘quick’ way to add things to DT3. If, for example, you were going to take a quick rich text note, you might as well make one in DT3 itself, in the ‘normal’ way.
The integrated sorter is integrated, yes. I think the suggestion is that it’s too integrated; that it would be better to have a way of quickly adding things to DT3 whether the main app is running or not.
But it’s worse than that: If the sorter is set as a menu extra, clicking it in the menubar will evoke its editing panel but also always bring DT3’s main window into visibility. I say “into visibility” and not “active” since, if, say, you’re in the Finder, then after clicking the sorter, “Finder” is still shown as the main running app next to the Apple menu, but DT3’s main window is nevertheless always brought into view (it’s as if one had been using DT3 but had then clicked outside its window onto on the desktop to make the Finder active, though the DT3 window is still there).
So I hope we’re not cavilling over what we mean by “it activates the main application” here - DT3 is not truly activated (actually acquiring focus), but as described above it is always brought into view. Which seems pointless. The sorter behaves more like a way to merely ‘launch DT3 into visibility’, after which you then may as well click on the DT3 window and use it.
If, on the other hand, in DT3 preferences, the sorter is set to show as a ‘dock tab’, then it disappears completely when the DT3 app is hidden. This definitely seems wrong and makes it have no use whatever - you might as well switch to the main app and use that (in fact, you have to).
But I can’t work out which behaviour is the result of a bug and which the result of unwelcome UI design.
These bugs appear to be fixed in 3.0beta3, though it’s still the case that the sorter only runs whilst DT3 is running. I suppose the only alternative to that right now is to write a script that will move selected items to the Finder’s DT3 inbox. That could then be put in the menubar via Butler, and/or used as a service and given a keyboard shortcut System Preferences, or by Keyboard Maestro or some such. But it wouldn’t have all the functionality that the sorter has right now - not easily at any rate.
I suppose the only alternative to that right now is to write a script that will move selected items to the Finder’s DT3 inbox. That could then be put in the menubar via Butler, and/or used as a service and given a keyboard shortcut System Preferences, or by Keyboard Maestro or some such.
That sounds like a lot of effort, but I’m not sure why it matters so much if DEVONthink is running. Are you running many resource-hungry apps at the same time?
It’s hardly any effort, and really it’s quite handy: a keyboard shortcut sends a selected file to the Inbox, ready and waiting as soon as I open DT3. Why not? I certainly don’t have DEVONthink running all the time.
If it works for you, that’s great.
I certainly don’t have DEVONthink running all the time.
Many, many people do. I’m certainly one of them.