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Mac PIM with Multi-Database Search / Highlighting
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Posted by Chris Thompson
Jun 19, 2009 at 06:16 PM
The two main missing features I was referring to were full tagging (right now it supports tagging in the same way DT 1.0 did) and the sorter (which is not really part of core DevonThink). Global searching works.
—Chris
basilides wrote:
>A clarification, please. According to Stephen Z. and Franz G., DevonThink Pro
>features searches across databases, but Chris T. says the two features I am
>interesting in (global searching and hit highlighting) are not yet available in 2.0
>beta. So who is correct here?
Posted by Fredy
Jun 21, 2009 at 08:35 PM
Hi basilides,
you wrote, “Sometimes a certain UR database becomes ?too large.? So inevitably I would have to create another UR database to hold new data, so now I have two very large UR databases.”.
Since UR is one of the only two ( ? ) Windows outliners that rely upon an SQL database ( and the one that isn’t in beta stage only ), thus promising to manage real large databases, I am electrified by your post. Could you share your experience with us, giving details of the overall size and of contents ( repartition of sizes and number of documents, formatted text mainly or web sites and / or photos e.g. ), and details of your “living with it” :
When ( size ) and why ( response times in going to a given item, and / or in searching ) got your database “too large” ? I had been hoping that UR would permit to have databases as large as 1 GB, with acceptable response times ( and perfect stability ) : Have I been dreaming of impossible things ?
Since UR isn’t quite dead, so a lot of folks besides me should be as highly interested in your experience, so thanks for detailing !
Posted by basilides
Jun 22, 2009 at 05:49 AM
UR is a great program, one that can handle huge amounts of data, but I’ve got several encyclopedias with thousands upon thousands of entries (nodes), so I found it to be easier to divide up the data I need stored into several UR databases. This is just an idiosyncrasy, not a UR limitation.
Posted by Fredy
Jun 23, 2009 at 09:33 AM
Thanks a lot for answering. But I’m still wondering :
Since UR has hoisting, for sheer reasons of a better overviewd, cutting a big file in half would not make much sense, and all the less so since you are not cutting a big file into several distinct to-be-published-books or something like that, but you are speaking of one big file which in its end use would be one big piece of work, not two or three.
So your not being so much happy anymore with your very big file should have some reason(s) with response times, be it in navigation ( i.e. showing of the contents in the panes after clicking on the items in the tree, or even unfolding of sub-trees ), be it in searching ( i.e. simple searches but over hundreds of MB or rather elaborated ones ( which are possible in UR )).
I think several hundred MB, spread into 100.000 or more items, should NOT be of any problem with response times on a “normal” pc in respect to these two critical factors, and if it is not, I do not understand why cutting all those things into several files would be helpful or satisfying in any way, since UR’s USP IS ( or should be ) the capability of holding all your stuff in one place, thus avoiding hampering with a hundred or so different outlines ( which is my problem with ActionOutline ) -
except for declining response times or whatever, and I’m really interested in that whatever :
Since the background of my question is : Is it a good idea to switch to a SQL-based outliner, once and for all ( or let’s say, under the condition your stuff will ever stay under 2 GB ), or will response time problems ( or stability problems ), occurring when you get really big stuff in your software, cause in a way the same problems you’ve got now, with no-SQL-based outliners, i.e. the ( more or less ) “necessity” to cut files into pieces.
Hence, my question, have you encountered slowing response times from 10.000 items to 60.000 items or more ; ditto from a file size of 10 MB to 200 or more MB ? What ARE the response times, anyway ?
You ARE aware that your kind answers would be crucial in any serious verdict upon UR ? That’s why a detailed answer of yours would be so much helpful to the community…
Besides, Chuck, asking for deep links and critisizing the lack of speed of development, is right :
in general, yes, that feature should be ubiquitous by now ( item to deep-link, deep-link to deep-link and deep-link to item, and even item to item : since today, in most programs, when you do a link in your tree to another item ( in another tree or even in the same ), when you rename or delete the other item, your link is not updated but hanging… ),
and in particular if I may say, since when asked for deep links, UR developers answered, we have cloning, but deep links are too complicated to implement for us, so be happy with clones for the time being ( of course, I’m paraphrizing, but it’s in their forum ).
Besides, that’s one of the points I had in mind when saying, create an outliner for the masses, and they will be happy to make their employers buy it for them, but bear in mind the numerous appeals MS Works has for thoses masses : If in the outliner, “it’s not there”, people won’t switch in numbers, but continue to hamper around with MS products.
Posted by Fredy
Jun 23, 2009 at 09:36 AM
paraphrasing, gosh, ugly !