Jeffrey C. Long

Following is the text of an ichat conversation I had with a friend who uses Devonthink Pro. What I describe is the single most important change to how I’ve used Devon. It came about by playing with Voodoo Pad lite, and realizing that everything it did could be done in devon. So I have a very wiki-fied devon now.

<snip>

Me: here’s a suggestion: create a group at the top called *inbox. that way it will always sort at the top of the list. then go to preferences>import and at the bottom where it says “new notes:” select this new group. that way whenever you import something, it automatically goes there. i also have an applescript that imports emails into that box.

then, get in the habit of doing all your work inside that inbox. then once you get a project underway in your inbox you can later move it to a different group. in other words, work first, organize later. but that doesn’t work if you don’t corral the work into one place.

if you set that up, i have another workflow idea that could help you. but you’d need to try that first. the second step requires the first. 


Him: I’ve done my preliminary work according to your direction for the Devon class. *Inbox is in force with all info currently in it. 


Me: not all groups. just current groups. and current documents that aren’t grouped. once you are done, there should be no ungrouped documents in your top hierarchy. They should all be corralled inside of the *inbox group. 


Him: Actually, no groups at all. I’ve just been throwing stuff in willy nilly until I get around to dealing with it. You’ve now forced my hand. 
not all data. just current new data. 


Me: the thing that drove me nuts was that everytime i created something new, it sorted it alphabetically in the whole file structure. 
4:05 PM 
Me: so i needed a place to corral new stuff until i dealt with it later. 
Him: I used to have very specific groups; numbered and named before the crash of 05. I have a hard copy list of those groups. 
that allowed me to clean up my overall file structure. 
I like it 


Technorati Tags: devonthink, mac, wiki

Me: the next thing to do is create a document called “*current projects list” inside the *inbox

Him: a text document?


Me: yes. or rich text.


Him: preference?


Me: i always make things rich text because it gives me more options if i ever decide to use them.


Him: rich text.


Him: done. It went to the top of the text files but under one safari doc and one pdf. 
hmm… i wonder why it did that.

Me: here’s where the magic comes from. i learned this trick from a wiki program (voodoo pad lite) and realized i could do it in devon.


Me: we’re going to pretend you don’t have groups yet for any projects.


Him: technically I don’t


Me: ok.


Me: inside *inbox create 3 different groups. “sermon writing” “sunday evening” “men’s ministry” and i don’t mean nested inside each other. 
3 separate groups. 
now go back to your *current projects list. 
type: 
on the first line: 
sermon writing 
second line “sunday evening” (no quotes) 
3rd line “men’s ministry” 
4:10 PM 
click <apple> <s> and tell me if the text for those lines were suddenly underlined. they may or may not. i don’t know if it will automatically create wiki links to groups or if it only does that for file names. 


Him: nope 


Me: ok. then highlight the text for the first line, right click, select “link to” and mouse to “sermon writing” inside your *inbox 
once you get the hang of creating links, the world is your oyster. 
..because you are no longer bound to the structure of alphabetical or date sorting. you can sort things willy nilly. 


Him: Previously I had everything in a numeric system. Didn’t love it or hate. Just used it that way. 


Me: the problem with numeric is when you want to put something in between 1 and 2. 


Me: i was doing that too to try to keep things sorted. i do this now instead. 


Me: i write my sermons hyperlinked now. 


Him: Actually I used 100 for the group name and then 101, 102, etc. for each file name 
4:15 PM 


Me: you can also do this. 


Me: create a text file and name it flibbergooten 


Him: where? 


Me: inside *inbox



Me: then go back to your *current projects list and type the line flibbergooten inside the text document. 
after you’ve typed it inside *current projects list, press <apple> <s> 
you’ll have automatically created a link to the new document you created. 


Me: you can go in the opposite direction too. you can type some phrase, highlight it, right click “make link” and it will make a link to a file that doesnt’ exist. click on the link, and it will create a new file inside of your current group, usually *inbox, linked from that document. 
and you can move these linked documents and files anywhere you like and they are still linked. 
so what this allows me to do is keep a running projects list. but eventually, i sort the groups back into the main directory and out of the inbox. this keeps the inbox clean, and keeps the groups organized. when i need to work on something, i don’t need to remember where i put it, or scroll to it, i just click in the link in the projects list. 


Me: anyway, this completely changed the way i work. 


Me: for example, when i’m writing a sermon, i create a group called “20051030 sermon”for 2005, october 30th. sometimes i add a subject to it. btw, indexing by date is done best by using year, month, day, that way all documents with that naming scheme will automatically numerically sort by year, month, day. If you do it the traditional american way, of month, day year, it will sort by month, but then with the new year, it’ll get all thrown off. 
my first document is “*outline 20051030″
then i start creating text documents for sections as i work on them, but i don’t try to organize them. i just make them. 
i then use the *outline file to create links to the sections of the sermon and i work on each section independently. *outline becomes the outline, with all the content in the separate files. 
then i just cut and paste the completed text into apple pages when i’m done.