DEVONtechnologies has issued DEVONthink 3.9.11, another maintenance release, while DEVONthink 4 evolves to beta 3. The maintenance update enhances Markdown editing with improved indentation on lists and improved escape functionality when converting plain or rich text or pasting rich text; improves the appearance of the Customize Metadata panel and promotes the command to the top level of the View menu; fixes a bug that prevented URLs in HTML, Web archives, and Markdown previews from loading when DEVONthink is offline; ensures the Copy command for the color well in the Info > Generic inspector works as expected; and improves the efficiency of the Add Linked Images to DEVONthink scripts for DEVONagent, Google Chrome, and Safari. ($99 new for DEVONthink, $199 for DEVONthink Pro, and $499 for DEVONthink Server with a 15% discount for TidBITS members; free update; release notes (hover over the version number); 135 MB; macOS 11+)
I have been using DevonThink for decades. On one hand, I feel I should support them by purchasing an extension to my DT3 license to support (upgrade) to DT4.
On the other hand, I really have only one use, but it’s a very important one for me. I am an academic researcher/writer. I use Bookends as my reference manager, keeping all my reference PDFs in Bookends, in iCloud. This works well with my word processor of choice, Mellel, and for accessing references across all my devices and OSes. I have created a DT3 database of the Bookends iCloud folder which updates automatically. I then use DT3 to search across all 2000 or so PDFs when I am preparing a research article. This lets me, for example, track down all mentions of “conceptual overlap” across all PDFs in Bookends.
Has anyone used the beta of DT4? Are there new or improved features I should note?
I once tried using DT3 to archive Mail messages. It works well, I just don’t feel I need it. And now, I am beta testing the new MailMaven (by the developers of Mail Act-on, MailTags, etc., SmallCubed). I am really liking it even in beta, and have switched to it for daily use already. I don’t know when or if DT4 will integrate with MailMaven (but, as I say, I may not care about that in the long run).
Any thoughts about all of this, and experiences with DT4, would be most welcome.
I own v3 but don’t use it much and won’t therefore upgrade. I’m sure there will be new features in v4…if those interest you then perhaps upgrade. If they don’t, don’t bother. You as a licensee don’t owe them anything beyond your original license fee. OTOH…depending on the upgrade price…there is some consideration to making sure the company remains viable…but TBH it’s not worth it unless you need want the new features.