An in-depth TheBrain app-praisal !

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 10, 2014 at 07:01 PM

Hugh wrote:
I’m hesitating over TheBrain somewhat less than I was.
> >What has struck a chord with me is Steve’s description of it as a
>“primary project dashboard”. In other words, it sounds as if it could
>perform the function of project “front page(s)”, with the heavier
>lifting (to mix metaphors) performed by, say, DevonThink or the Mac
>Finder itself, effectively behind the scenes. I do need some such tool,
>in order to enable me to (mixing metaphors again) distinguish the wood
>from the trees.

I am finding TheBrain very good for this type of work, as I mentioned. I do want to point out a few limitations, so as to not mis-lead you:

1. It has a nice calendar system that syncs to Google Calendar (I don’t do this, so can’t vouched for how that works), but it does not sync directly with the native Mac Calendar app.

2. The iOS app works well, but does not include the calendar.

3. If you are going to be syncing TheBrain between two or more Macs, note that you will not be able to keep links between external documents in sync. That is, if you’re linking to a specific document in DevonThink on Mac A, that link will not work in Mac B (and I am pretty certain that is the case, even if your DevonThink database is sync’d between the two computers, though I am not sure of that). One thing I haven’t tried (maybe someone else can answer) is what happens if you have the external link leading to a file or document in Dropbox, which is sync’d across computers—my guess is it won’t work, but don’t know for sure.

On the other hand, you can embed almost any type of file within TheBrain and that will sync across computers just fine. Of course, you’ve got to have the proper app on both computers to open and edit the embedded files on each.

TheBrain works for me, because I have one brain for my day job, which I use most of the time on my Windows PC, so I don’t care if the links to OneNote files don’t work on my MacBook.

Anyway, I’m in no way trying to discourage you, Hugh. I just want to make sure I don’t OVER sell TheBrain for dashboard work.

Steve Z.