An in-depth TheBrain app-praisal !

Posted by Paul Korm
Jul 6, 2014 at 01:25 PM

I use DEVONthink extensively, and I use TheBrain extensively. I suppose they both fit into a “knowledge management”—though that category is a bit like the proverbial nailing jello to a wall.

I integrate DEVONthink and TheBrain in several ways.

In DEVONthink, the results of just about any search or “See Also” display can be selected and exported as a group. I have an AppleScript of my own creation that will take any selection of documents and build an XML file using TheBrain’s DTD—when this “Brain XML” is imported as a child of a selected thought in TheBrain, I now have individual thoughts for each of the documents I selected in DEVONthink, with a link-back to that document. Click the link and the document opens in DEVONthink. So, I can do my research, note taking / annotation in DEVONthink, get to a point where I want to link specific results or suggestions from DEVONthink’s AI to one or more thoughts in TheBrain, and with a click on the menubar in DEVONthink I’m good to go. I find this to be a very flexible procedure that makes good use of the strengths of both products.

(The script is probably posted somewhere in the depths of DEVONthink’s forum—it’s in a horrible state, today, from a development perspective—good enough for me; confusing for anyone else—and needs to be ported to a different language. I might make a SWIFT version of it when Yosemite comes along in its public release.)