ps - I figured out how to manually sort in DEVON but I think maybe Eagle hasn’t added the feature yet.
Diane
Here is a tutorial for DEVONthink that might be helpful:
I don’t want to hijack the thread, but after viewing the video @randy2 posted, I’m curious to hear from DEVONthink users, is the main difference to using the Finder for this task (since Finder also has folders, tags, etc.) that you have a good viewer built right in? I’m wondering because I’m curious if this might indicate the Finder’s preview capabilities could use some improvement (Cover Flow, Gallery, …).
Did you try Curio? I’m still not sure I understand what you’re attempting to accomplish, but the more I read about it here, the more it seems like Curio is a tool that will work for you. If it didn’t work out, perhaps saying why will add some clarity.
I did not try it yet - I’m still on Sierra and they say earliest OS is Mojave. I’ve emailed to see if they have older versions.
Diane
I looked at Curio and tried it for a couple of days. In the end I decided that it was too expensive for my minimal needs.
The developer pointed me to the version that works with Safari. It’s fantastic for free-form layout! But not very intuitive 
Units of measurement have to be changed in Terminal, keyboard commands that work in other apps do not work the same here (though Illustrator is no better) and I have yet to get a clean PDF export - which took me 15 minutes to figure out how to export to PDF in the first place. I have two weeks and will continue to play with it. I think if I’d found the app when it first came out it would all be second nature by now.
I am not sure that it would serve my needs for “saving stuff” but it probably would have done my document project beautifully if I knew what I was doing.
Diane
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Probably a silly question, but here goes:
For programs such as these (DEVONthink and EagleFiler), if I were to put a photo into the database, it’s then fine to delete the photo from my hard drive correct?
Also any idea how big these databases can get? So far I’ve been putting mostly webarchives in there, both programs in tandem. DT seems much smaller than EagleFiler, and also seems to have data scattered a bit more.
(I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need to upgrade my MBP from 256gb to 1tb 
)
Diane
It looks like DEVONthink is the winner! While it is a very complex program, I was able to start adding and manipulating data pretty quickly. It allows for minor image editing within the program, and lets me arrange the sort order manually which is really important when working with photos and pages.
It actually fills both needs that I was looking for a couple of weeks ago: filing/organizing and gathering data to export in PDF form. I spent some time with videos over the weekend and learned a lot.
And thanks - I think haha! I also found DEVONagent which looks like it will help immensely in my research.
So unless someone can tell me they have better discounts than the current Black Friday 25% off, I think I’m doing it today!
EagleFiler was a close contender, I really liked it and was leaning that way, but there are a couple of things DT does that it doesn’t, and I think DT will serve me better for the long haul.
Thanks again for all the help!
Diane
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@dianed143 I’m so glad you found DT of use. I love the program but you are right, it takes a large learning curve. But having used it for years it is hard to pass up. The last version packed the program with so many options and made it even more useful, plus it has a much smaller footprint in terms of disk space storage. I particularly like the synch option where I can have selected databases automatically synched to other Macs I’m using.
I tried them about 10 years ago but didn’t follow through for some reason. My research projects of the past few years would have been helpful with it (in hindsight!).
For now I’m going with the standard version. I think (hope) I read somewhere that I can upgrade to Pro in the future for the difference in price. I think I missed how much it was when I downloaded it a couple of weeks ago 
but I was able to recreate the PDF I was making then in a fraction of time, so I expect to get that back in my time saved. There is so much it can do on the fly - I’m really excited to be using it!
Diane
I was first able to get Devon years ago when they offered it free to not-for-profits, and believe me, the churches I served were VERY not-for-profit. A few years later I went to upgrade and wrote them to ask if they still had that option. The publisher himself wrote me back to explain why they could not continue that, which was fine by me because I was at a church that did not pay with apples and potatoes. We continued communications for a good time following that - primarily because I was so pleased with the basic philosophy of the organization. It was clear he was central to that and we had some great conversations on the basic values to be found in organizations as well as connecting in a personal way across continents. He is an amazing man. If you get a chance, drop by blog on their website, it is well worth paging through.
Oh, and I did splurge for the whole thing and find it such an excellent program. Sort of feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of the program but know for sure I deeply appreciate the quality and philosophy behind the whole organization. And yes, DEVONagent is a fantastic resource - saved my bacon many times when I was researching information for both teaching and writing.
Doug
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Do you feel good about being able to get your data out if anything ever happened? EagleFiler files are pretty easy to get into in the OS itself.
Diane
I have the DT databases saved to the Databases folder on my Mac. I regularly back those up to external drives both with Carbon Copy Cloner and a CCC file to an additional drive. It is also saved via Time Machine. The program is really stable and I have never had a loss with it. There is no way, that I have seen, to export an entire database to some other format or export. I can export individual items by using the Export command File, and can also export a Zip file for a whole database archive.
I have set up a separate file for the DT database backups, then I click on a database, select File/Export/Database Archive… (option at the very bottom of the File Export selection). Then I select the folder (which I keep on Dropbox) I’ve titled DevonThink Backups and let save the database as a zip file (it titles itself with the database name and dates the backup date for the zip file). I then go to the next database and do the same thing.
Sometimes, if I’m adding a lot of important stuff to DT I will do a backup first, and put the time just before the date on the zip (for example, 9_05 AM 02-14-2022). I the load in the new material and do another backup with the later time added in. I am a bit of an OCD fan - or so my wife tells me lol.
I also synch DT from my iMac to my older MBP and/or visa versa when working with it. That helps a good bit in keeping track of my data.
Hope this helps.
Similarly to EagleFiler, DT databases store docs in their native format. To get to them, control-click the file for the database, and choose “show package contents.” Look for a folder that has the largest size (given how much data you’ve filed)–this should be “Files.noindex”. Your documents are in folders labelled by the type of doc they are, such as pdf or rtfd. You can copy these files or move them where ever you want…just make sure you’re doing this on a COPY of the DT file because you will destroy your database by removing files in this manner. So, yes, you can get your data out without regard to the state of DT. Even the native app icons are maintained.
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