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DevonThink alternative?
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Posted by L. S. Russell
Mar 18, 2010 at 03:26 AM
From time to time I use OSX and have a real boner for DevonThink. My problem is that I also have to use other platforms, and am wondering if there are any alternatives to DevonThink that are cross platform?
Posted by Hugh
Mar 18, 2010 at 09:59 AM
That would depend on what aspects of DevonThink’s functionality you are looking for elsewhere.
The attributes that make it stand out in the Mac world as an information manager are twofold in my opinion: its ability to handle reliably relatively large personal databases (millions of words, tens of thousands of documents), and its so-called artificial intelligence features (which as I understand them boil down to sophisticated concordance-matching, searching and classifying). Of course it offers other bells and whistles in its various versions, but these are the core.
There is nothing on the Mac platform to rival it for these abilities. I haven’t tried all its Mac rivals but those I have tried slow up or choke on quantities of information that DT can digest with ease, and none offers concordance-matching.
In the case of Windows, I suspect there are personal databases or PC search engines that can handle relatively large data volumes, but none that I know of that offers concordance-matching as a search mechanism.
I don’t know about other platforms. But if so-called AI/concordance-matching is important to you, then DT may be the only game in town.
Posted by Hugh
Mar 18, 2010 at 10:11 AM
I should have added that I don’t know of any such cross-platform tools.
Another solution of course would be a multi-user database on a server accessible from different platforms.
That is of course not what DT is. However, I believe the current version of DT Pro Office has a web feature, which I haven’t used but which may be worth your while exploring.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 18, 2010 at 10:44 AM
As Hugh implies, I do not think you will find anything quite like DevonThink that is cross-platform. I can only think of two info managers that are cross platform: PersonalBrain and Evernote. I’m sure you’re familiar with both of them.
I’ve been using PersonalBrain a lot lately, and I am enjoying its totally unique user interface, which is unmatched in allowing the user to both drill-down on information and still see context. It has lots of thoughtful features for exploring and finding information, and it reputedly handles huge databases with ease. While it is cross-platform, and you can use the same database on a PC and a Mac via a service like Dropbox, you have to be careful to never try to use them simultaneously, and you have to be sure to close the database on one computer before opening it on the other.
Steve
Posted by L. S. Russell
Mar 18, 2010 at 01:35 PM
Thanks you guys. That is kinda what I figured. I may give PersonalBrain another go.