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Together on the Mac
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Posted by jamesofford
Oct 4, 2008 at 09:01 PM
Greetings:
A while back I posted on my settling on Devonthink Pro for my PIM on my MacBook. It is still there, but I am using a different program at work. At work I use Together from Reinvented software.(http://reinventedsoftware.com/)
I am working in a company which is mostly Windows, and have a windows laptop. The company is currently piloting macs. I manage to get in to the pilot program and have been using a MacBook Air for a couple of months now. There are some problems with using OS X at work; we have a lot of on line software which is Java based. Unfortunately, it isn’t written in standard Java so it won’t run under Java on OSX. Fortunately, with VMware Fusion I can run xP software, including the Java apps, on my Air. Best of all possible worlds.
The Air is running Leopard, which means I could try Together, which only runs under Leopard. t is very simialr to Devonthink Pro, but I fid it easier to use Particularly in regard to the use of smart folders. I can very easily set up smart folders that look at the content of the stuff I have stored in Together, and there are simple boolean conditions you can use in your searches. Very nice.
I haven’t upgraded my own MacBook to Leopard, but I probably will, just so I can run Together. Give it a try.
Posted by Hugh
Oct 5, 2008 at 03:58 PM
Jim
I’ve tried Together briefly and it certainly looked and felt nice. But I’ve stayed loyal to DevonThink Pro because I now have several thousand documents which DT handles with complete stability, and because DevonThink’s so-called AI functions such as Classify and See Also don’t appear to be replicated by Together (or Eaglefiler or any of the other pretenders to DT’s throne).
Am I wrong? Is Together completely stable with a large and growing inventory? Can its smart-folders be used to manipulate information as DT can? Or do the two applications perhaps serve two different database niches - the one “heavyweight”, and the other “middleweight”?
Would be interested in your thoughts, Jim.
H
P.S. There’s also the point that DT is about to upgrade. Its developers would be foolish if they didn’t make its interface as useable as Together’s.
Posted by jamesofford
Oct 6, 2008 at 12:24 AM
Hugh:
There is no counterpart to the See Also and Classify functions in Together. Personally, I have not found those to be all that useful. I like the smart groups in Together because they work very similarly to Zoot(I can’t remember what they are called in Zoot, perhaps smart folders?)I have a few categories set up and when I drop files into Together, those that fit the categories go straight to those folders.
That being said, all I am using it for is storing PDFs of journal articles. (I am a scientist.)It currently has ~1300 different PDFs in it. For simple capture and storage of information I haven’t used it much. On my home laptop(a MacBook)I use Devonthink Pro and it swallows pretty much anything I throw at it.
Is one more of a heavyweight, and the other more of a middleweight? Can’t tell yet.
I too am looking forward to the new version of Devonthink Pro. The ability to have more than one database open at a time will be great. I am also hoping that the smart folder idea will be improved. I love Devonthink Pro, and other than Together I haven’t found anything like it. Except perhaps Zoot on the PC, but there were too many issues with Zoot. I may look at it again if I have need of something like it on the PC side.
Jim
Posted by Hugh
Oct 6, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Interesting. Thanks, Jim.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Oct 8, 2008 at 06:36 PM
Hugh,
In case you have not yet seen it, there was this update from Eric on the DT blog:
It’s been a while since our last posting about the upcoming DEVONthink 2.0 release, so here’s an update on our development status.
All work is still on schedule and all the major changes to the foundation have been implemented, e.g. the ability to open multiple databases at a time. We are heading full speed towards the first internal beta and plan to release it to the beta tester community this month.
In addition to the already announced features here are a few more that we had not yet announced—And there will be more that we don’t disclose yet. Stay tuned
Global inbox replacing the import destinations chaos
Trash can
Undo/Redo
Tabbed browsing, viewing, and editing
Cover-flow-ish document browsing
Support for Skim files
Much improved RSS feed support
Document templates
Fully overhauled web interface
A few users asked us if the feature differences between DEVONthink Pro and Pro Office will stay the same. Yes, they will. But, DEVONthink Personal as well as DEVONnote will get the three panes view known from the Pro editions.