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LEV The main drawback of DevonThink for me (I've used it since it first appeared) has been its refusal to play with Spotlight. This -- because I'm a data slut, never quite sure where anything is -- has meant ≥2 searches for whatever-it-is: one in Spotlight, then one for each DevonThink database whatever-it-is might be in. This was on the point of driving me away from DevonThink... particularly with Leopard's much-improved Spotlight implementation. Fortunately, with v1.5, it now plays very nicely with Spotlight. Still no QuickLook, but at least it means that just one Spotlight search can pull up everything. So once again DevonThink is at the head of the pack. Thank you, Devon Technologies. I'd give it 5 'features' stars now, if only it offered (a) multiple databases open simultaneously, and (b) tagging, instead of enforcing a folder hierarchy and "replicants". Oh, and Boolean searching -- though the AI "see also" function is magnificent. Interface looks a bit outdated now, but works. It's much snappier than before. And the learning curve is steep. (Actually, I think I mean "shallow" -- you spend a lot of time getting up to speed. A "steep" learning curve would be e.g. Yojimbo, where you go from Novice to Expert user almost instantly.) Nor can it import files from some of my most-used applications. Tinderbox and Scrivener I can understand; they are both complex organizational systems -- one XML, the other a package of indexed RTF/D files -- and it would be hard to see how the hell DevonThink would handle their data. But DT's inability to read Mellel or Pages 3 files is a big shame. Not DevonTech's fault, I believe, but outside developers not providing plug-ins. But all in all, with this update DevonThink is IMO still the leader for heavy-lifting of text-based data. (Version 1.5) |