Stephen mentioned that when they recorded Relay had raised āalmost $600,000ā for St. Jude.
It āended upā exceeding $682,000.
Canāt wait to hear Stephen talk about this, presumably on Connected this week. Amazing.
Update
I believe the final ābumpā (from corporate matching) pushed them over SEVEN HUNDRED THOUUUUUUSAAANNNNDDD dollars.
A great episode. One thing that perhaps wasnāt emphasised is that DEVONthink has some of the best AppleScript integration around. Right up there with BBEdit.
AppleScript can often be very frustrating to work with but it really depends upon the specific app and how well constructed its dictionary is. DEVONthinkās is excellent.
P.S. huge congratulations on the fundraising.
Iām very happy that @MacSparky produced a field guide on DevonThink! Iām sure it will help many people better understand and use a program that has so much power and can be helpful in so many ways. I think DT has suffered from the fact itās a program that has been around for a long time now. As a relative newcomer to the productivity world, It hasnāt taken me too long to figure out that the productivity crowd is easily wowed by āthe new kid on the blockā program, and tend to stampede and obsess over whatever is bright and shiny (such as Obsidian). It took me a lot of reading and hunting around this past year to find out about DevonThink, and when I did I was surprised I hadnāt heard about it before.
MacSparkyās guide will make a great tool much more accessible to many people (including me!) who can benefit from it. Iāve used DT a lot in the past 6 months, but there are tons of features Iām now learning about by working through the DT Field Guide.
I have a few follow-ups:
Integrating DEVONthink and Obsidian
David mentioned how some folks index their Obsidian notes in DEVONthink so that they can open whatever youāre working on in either app. He also mentioned that you might want to link things between Obsidian and DEVONthink using URL schemes.
Well, if youāve indexed your Obsidian folders in DEVONthink, you can use my DEVONlink plugin to deepen that integration. The plugin allows you to use commands in Obsidian to jump straight to the same record in DEVONthink without worrying about links. It also lets you insert the DEVONthink concordance list for the current noteāi.e., possibly related filesādirectly into Obsidian. I also provide a companion script to jump from DEVONthink to Obsidian.
Separating databases
@ismhās approach to separating databases based on large topics surprised meāespecially e.g., keeping Hardware and Software separated. I would encourage you to rethink it, Stephen! Hereās my rationaleāit may help others think through the database divide question.
Bestselling author Stephen Johnson first wrote about DEVONthinkās serendipitous benefits over fifteen years ago. In his pieces, he describes how the appās concordance and see also & classify tools helped find surprising relationships between the ideas captured in his references and notes. Those surprising relationships, he argues, helped him come up with creative insights he wouldnāt have otherwise.
I think the best approach to DEVONthink databases is to separate out āareas of focusā or āresponsibilityā or āinterest.ā Essentially, what are you trying to do with the data youāre collecting? Data related to the same outputs or outcomes should be in the same database.
If some data is helping you to keep and maintain your home and family, create a Home database. The AI will eventually help you sort bills and correspondence and such. If youāre trying to blog about Apple, put everything Apple in one database, and the AI will notice relationships between e.g., the way different press releases frame a certain issue.
I realize that in Stephenās case this will mean a huge database, so I understand the desire to subdivide. But I think you will not find serendipitous benefits if you donāt make space for serendipityāeven if that means a lot of (storage) spaceā¦
Slightly related: you should consider the granularity of your data. This is an area of research of mine; I advanced some arguments about data granularity and serendipity in a recent talk.
I also index my external notes files into DEVONthink (Noteplan), though I donāt have anything near as cool as @ryanjamurphyās plugin. I just use ChronoSync to copy from my Noteplan directory from iCloud Drive to a folder on my Mac mini and have DEVONthink index the folder (telling DEVONthink to index the iCloud Drive files directly kept causing duplicate files to pop up, hence, using ChronoSync as a one-way connection).
Is it worthwhile to use DEVONThink if work exclusively on an ipad? I donāt have a Mac and work exclusively on my ipad.
I bought this course when it came out (first field guide purchase) and have been sneaking away time any time I can to listen. Itās great! I started using DEVONthink 6 months ago for research assistant stuff. Itās a great tool and the course is helping me learn a lot!
Hi All - Ive asked in various was and on various forums, but I figured I would jump in and see what yāall thinkā¦
Does anyone use DT as a teacher ESPECIALLY with google drive ?? I love DT3 and I like to use it to tag, organize and find information in my files ā¦ but I āneedā to be on Google Drive ā¦ I share folders with colleagues and I create documents for students in google docs etcā¦ Any teachers here find a way to get this to work? Iād love some ideas or feedback
I am neither a teacher, nor do I use Google Drive, but I do have some similar experience using DEVONthink as a file repository while needing to collaborate with colleagues using Microsoft OneDrive. My solution has essentially been to accept that my personal document storehouse and things I share with my coworkers are two different worlds. Iāll work on stuff in DEVONthink, then, when itās time to collaborate Iāll drag that file to the OneDrive directory and share it from there. Once collaboration is finished, if I remember, Iāll move another copy into DEVONthink.
Totally agree. Iāve been using DT for about 6 months and itās been great but I know Iām not using it to itās full potential. Once I heard MacSparky was doing a field guide I was so amped. Itās his best one yet and worth every nickel heās charging for it.
Thanks! I think I am heading in that direction! Do you Import stuff or index?? I am thinking Import my stuff and then Index the stuff thatās needed for Google Drive - that makes moving back and forth a little easier ??
With the exception of the folder of Noteplan notes I mentioned in an earlier post, I import rather than index.
I would be leery of indexing a folder thatās synced by any other service. As I mentioned in that earlier post, trying to index an iCloud Drive folder resulted in duplicate files for me as iCloud and DEVONthink fought over file changes.
I agree with @ryanjamurphy below regarding the number of databases one keeps. I understand the logic of keeping separate databases but I found over time it can work against the point of DEVONthink 3.
It is a leap of faith almost though to just throw things into one database and rely on DEVONthink 3 's AI and the search powers of not only the app itself but Houdah Spot and Spotlight that I use too.
It is a leap worth making though I found.
The only doubt I have about doing it is that it commits one to DEVONthink 3 long term, which I am ok with but worry about the app going out of developement.
I keep three databases. I used to have a lot more but, as I say in another comment I found that cut against the point of DEVONthink 3 somewhat. I was quite surprised like you were that David has so many.
I first started using DEVONthink in 2018 and attempted to put everything in one database. Over time, I have discovered that I find using separate databases to be really useful in keeping their individual content relatively narrow in scope. I also find it easy to open multiple databases at once, in case I find scenarios where content is related or connected. For me, itās like the best of both worlds.
I am a university lecturer and I have a database of past courses, a database for each course I am teaching this semester, and then a database of teaching curriculum. Sometimes I open all three, as I want to grab something from the curriculum database, drop it in an individual session folder for this semesterās course, and also reference something about the way I may have used it in a previous semester. But when Iām working with documents kind of hastilyāsay, yesterday in classāI donāt want the āinformation clutterā of seeing past semesters or all of my curriculum at the same time. I just want to see the documents for the current semester. For me, having separate databases makes this work well.
In any case, this is an evolving space: Iāve been using DEVONthink for a few years, but I too am learning from MacSparkyās field guideāas always!āand only wish I wasnāt in the midst of a busy semester, so I could spend more time tinkering and fine-tuning my workflows in response to the field guide.
I use DEVONthink with Google Drive as a teacher, and I will second what @ChrisUpchurch said. Basically, I use DEVONthink to manage everything according to my own workflows and preferences, and then share copies of files to Google Drive folders with faculty/students. I think of these tools as two different workspaces. However, it sounds like you are trying to harmonize them or get them to interact more efficiently. I donāt really like using Google Drive, but canāt you install it locally, so it creates folders in the Finder? If so, could you perhaps use DEVONthinkās āindexā function to allow DEVONthink and Google Drive to āinteractā?
This is great. Thanks. Currently Iām doing just that - using the local drive and indexing ā¦. I was hoping something better existed 
You wrote - āBasically, I use DEVONthink to manage everything according to my own workflows and preferences, and then share copies of files to Google Drive folders with faculty/students.ā
Care to share how you do this ??
Thanks for all the responses so far !!
Iāve considered Devonthink many times before and now this FG is refreshing the itch.
I found it useful to watch the interviews on the FG as they were insightful. That said, I guess the @ryanjamurphy would make for an awesome Interviewee as he seems to really have a good grasp on the art of tying Devonthink and Obsidian together.
Perhaps on an updated version?
Os as a guest on MPU?