Are you doing creation inside DEVONthink as well? I agree that applescripts for daily notes and such are super nice, but I still dread actually editing in DEVONthink. And opening the files in other editors means I can’t use DT3 features while writing. Also constantly opening and closing notes is annoying.
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I edit in DT much of the time. It’s fine. The Markdown editor is lacking some features I like but it’s easy enough to open an external editor where needed. And I don’t find it difficult to open documents – what problems are you seeing?
I find it great that I can use “other editors” on files inside or indexed from DEVONthink.
Specifically, what DEVONthink features are you prevented from using when opening the files in other editors? Are some features blocked?
Isn’t that the same user experience as opening and closing files from Finder, or Dropbox, or any other repository?
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I think the internal app linking works pretty well. I cross-link between notes all the time. I say this not having use Obsidian so in comparison it may be clunky. One limitation was linking to other programs or out to the finder. I was hoping Hook would solve this but with the new version of Evernote they disabled Applescript support. I’ve put in a request/suggestion that the Hook developer switch to JavaScript which is more universal. It also seems like Apple is telegraphing that is the direction they are going.
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I’m now playing with Craft. I don’t know whether I’ll stick with it, but it’s fun.
And I’m intrigued by the idea of using another app as a front end to DT. If Craft doesn’t stick for me, I think I’ll try agenda – again – next.
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Writing from the future, I thank you for the handy link!
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You’re welcome, person of the future!
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I’m now over half done with my quitting of DEVONThink.
A year ago I was still a DT fan and had been using it for over 10 years. After losing files too many times I bit the bullet and started moving out of DT.
Several things I’ve discovered along the way. I did (as expected) have a lot of cruft and junk in my DT system. I’m averaging about 8 good things to convert out of every 10 I had saved.
Emails are the absolute worst to convert and I still am not happy with my solutions.
Rich text is the next hardest to convert.
Most of the PDFs I had in DT were actually duplicates of ones held elsewhere in other locations and could be deleted. I had typically inported PDFs into DT when I needed them so that my databases were either all imported files or all indexed ones.
Most of my DT notes have turned into multiple notes in Obsidian. In DT notes tended to be 1 long one with sections. In Obsidian I make each section a separate note.
Linking or at least adding them to a MOC or TOC type note is important. I do use the graph view to locate orphaned notes and fix their links.
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out of curiosity: what are you replacing it with?
Obsidian
I’m finding I use more of my archive because of the linking I am doing which is easier than it was in DT esp for my old notes.
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Exactly. And that is the major issue for me. I lost things I only rarely use and only found out they were gone when I needed to access them again. It was at least 2 years back that the files got destroyed so off the end of my oldest backups. I have tings I only need or refernce every couple of years. I depend on my data being there when I do go back and look at it.
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Recent versions of DEVONthink have builtin functionality to let you know when it corrupts files.
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To help ensure databases are healthy, DEVONthink now stores checksums for all files and lets users verify the integrity of their databases, manually or via AppleScript. This makes sure files have not been modified outside of DEVONthink’s control.
Would this protect against modifications within DEVONthink’s control, viz., corruption or loss caused by DEVONthink? Not sure, but I’d bet not.
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I’ve done the same and a couple of weeks ago I went as far as deleting DT altogether. Now, I have only one place as a GTD General Reference Filing app: Obsidian.
I know where to look for anything that’s not scheduled on my calendar or a task. I’m in GTD heaven, when you compare it to having to search two apps, and no more lost files!
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I deleted DT of all my mobile devices. I still have about 4000 items tomove out of it on my macs and gettting there.
I loved Obsidian for about 10 months, but eventually gave it up and went back to DevonThink because of Obsidian’s poor native support for PDFs and Office files.
So yeah now I’m back to being all in on DevonThink, and hoping this wasn’t a bad idea.
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You can have your cake and eat it too.
Obsidian for notes, DT for storage.
DT can also index you Obsidian notes so it’s like they are “in” DT too.
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This does really worry me too. I am so close to going all in on DT as my paperless cabinet but missing files would make this pointless. Yes I can use finder but I want t be able to access the data on any device… iCloud could work. Dropbox may be better but is expensive for my needs… any suggestions anyone?