DEVONthink Pro Office: Image Capture is Back

Version 1.5.3 of DEVONthink Pro Office re-introduces the original scan module that broke with changes in Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard'. Users now have the choice between the built-in scan function and ExactScan Capture allowing them to connect to both Image Capture compliant scanners and via TWAIN drivers. In addition, the original scan module supports document feeders and grayscale scanning now. The ExactScan Capture module and the embedded IRIS OCR engine have been updated, too, improving compatibility especially to Epson scanners and fixing glitches such as the 'blurry images' problem.

Both DEVONthink Pro and Pro Office add a new global script for capturing abstracts from DEVONagent, come with improvements for handling RSS feeds, and enhance the display of sheets.

Finally, all three editions of DEVONthink as well as DEVONnote better support the Camino web browser, create and update the Spotlight cache faster, and feature an improved inline advertisement filter. '.mdwn' files are imported as plain text files and the online help has been made easier accessible.

The updates to DEVONthink Pro (Office) 1.5.3, DEVONthink Personal 1.9.15, and DEVONnote 1.9.15 are free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copies with the new ones or use the applications' built-in update function. (July 24, 2008)

DEVONthink 2.0 Grace Period and a Summer Deal

Starting as of July 1st, 2008, everyone who buys licenses for DEVONthink Personal, Pro, Pro Office, or DEVONnote will be eligible for free upgrades to version 2.0 when it is released later this year. A regularly updated thread on the progress on version 2.0 can be found in DEVONtechnologies user forum. For all other users who have purchased DEVONthink or DEVONnote before the grace period, we will have very reasonable upgrade prices.

In addition, exclusively on July 1st and 2nd we give a 25 percent discount to everyone who buys DEVONthink or DEVONnote. Make sure not to miss this great summer deal! All upgrades also have been adjusted during this timeframe. (June 30, 2008)

Maintenance: DEVONagent 2.3.1

This maintenance update brings a large number of smaller improvements as well as updated search engine plugins, scanner plugins, and default search sets. New functions include the ability to open RSS feeds in the default feed reader and a button for easily saving PDF files directly from the built-in web browser. In addition many functions 'behind the curtain' have been updated including the advertisement and index spam filters, internal filters, and the handling of bad HTML code. The keyboard shortcut for full screen mode has been changed for compatibility with the default shortcut for Spaces on Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard'. Finally, DEVONagent now also automatically downloads and installs updates if told to do so.

The update is free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copy with the new one. (June 11, 2008)

Scanning is back: DEVONthink Pro Office 1.5.2 and more

The newest release of DEVONthink Pro Office introduces a new scan function that allows to use flatbed and, this is new, automatic document feeder scanners. Based on ExactCode's ExactScan it delivers pro-grade scanning functionality in the free update that was before only available separately. In addition, DEVONthink Pro Office 1.5.2 comes with a redesigned iPhone web application that allows to search a published database from anywhere on the Internet. Various other improvements include the option to enable and disable conversion to searchable PDF for incoming files and better compatibility to new versions of Fujitsu's ScanSnap Manager scanner software. All four editions from DEVONthink Pro Office to DEVONthink Personal and DEVONnote deliver minor interface, performance, and reliability enhancements.

The updates are free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copies with the new ones or use the applications' built-in update function. (May 6, 2008)

World-wide license: Desktop Transporter Unlimited Pack

For all those of you who need to control more than just one or two other Macs from a central location, we are introducing the Desktop Transporter Unlimited Pack. This unlimited, world-wide license is available for US$ 199.95 in our online shop and it is the license of choice if you need to equip more than 16 Macs with Desktop Transporter.

The new Unlimited Pack is available directly in our online shop or from the Desktop Transporter product page. (Apr 8, 2008)

Watch your Macs: Desktop Transporter 2.6

If you have more than one Mac and want to stay in control, Desktop Transporter 2.6 even gives you more power now. Its shows live previews of all shared Macs on your network so that you always see immediately what is happening. You can adjust set the update frequency as well as filter the list of displayed desktops in case that you have a lot of machines to manage. In addition, version 2.6 uses server-side scaling and clipping for reducing network load and for increasing responsiveness, and it supports the keychain for saving passwords.

The update is free for all registered users. Just download the new version and replace your copies with the new one. (Apr 3, 2008)

Updates: DEVONthink Pro (Office) 1.5.1 and more

Our first releases for this year bring both a number of new features as well as many internal changes. DEVONthink Pro Office 1.5.1 adds support for version 2.x of the Fujitsu ScanSnap Manager, deletes the original files after they have been successfully imported through OCR, and allows you to resize the input panel for PDF meta data. The embedded OCR engine has been updated to the most recent IRIS engine. Both editions of DEVONthink Pro also come with handy scripts for importing Adium, iChat, and Second Life chat logs as well as BluePhoneElite SMS messages and call logs. Additional scripts back up the database to the iDisk or JungleDisk and archive flagged news articles from NetNewsWire.

DEVONhink Pro (Office) 1.5.1, DEVONthink Personal 1.9.13, and DEVONnote 1.9.13 all use a revised, future-proof RTF storage mechanism, come with enhanced Spotlight integration, with revised Find and authentication panels, and with many more minor enhancements and glitch fixes. Finally, all future versions of DEVONthink and DEVONnote download and install updates fully automatically.

The updates are free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copies with the new ones. (Mar 13, 2008)

Christmas Updates: Spotlight and more

The last updates for 2007 bring a Christmas present for all users who are still waiting for Spotlight support in DEVONthink. All editions of DEVONthink, from Personal to Pro Office, as well as its little brother DEVONnote now natively support Spotlight searches. All databases for which Spotlight support has been activated are searchable from the Spotlight menu. Selecting a search result opens the corresponding DEVONthink database or DEVONnote and displays the found document. Effectively this also makes it possible to search multiple databases at the same time. In addition, the 50-page limit of the built-in OCR of DEVONthink Pro Office has been removed. In all four applications the advertisement filter has been improved as well as the communication with background tasks and the JavaScript support.

In addition, maintenance updates bring compatibility to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for XMenu, EasyFind, ThumbsUp, and PhotoStickies. XMenu comes with new menu icons as well as a new application icon. ThumbsUp creates thumbnails optimized for Mac OS X 10.4 or later, and all four applications have been optimized for the current generations of Mac OS X. XMenu is becoming even more useful now with the switch from folder menus in the Dock to stacks in Leopard. XMenu gives full access to the Applications, Documents, Developer, and Home folders as well as a user-defined folder right from the menu bar. EasyFind and XMenu are now also available in Italian localization, XMenu additionally in Swedish.

All four applications are available as free downloads and can be used for free. (December 18, 2007)

All of us here at DEVONtechnologies wish you and your family a pleasant and peaceful Christmas time. May it be a time of peace and reflection for all of you, wherever in the world you are, whatever religion you believe in, and whatever culture you are part of. -- The DEVONtechnologies Team

Leopard Updates: DEVONthink, DEVONagent, DEVONnote

Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' not only brought us Time Machine and the 3D Dock but also a lot of last-minute changes. These updates for all editions of DEVONthink as well as for DEVONagent and DEVONnote fix the known issues introduced with Mac OS X 10.5 and bring new features and improvements. DEVONthink and DEVONnote now support Microsoft Office 2007 and OpenDocument files on Mac OS X 10.5, accept links to email messages dragged from Apple Mail, support the new Find indicator, and come with minor interface adjustments for Mac OS X 10.5. DEVONthink Pro Office adds support for the CanoScan Toolbox.

Besides fixing some problems on Mac OS X 10.5, DEVONagent 2.3 introduces one-click translation of web pages, an improved history function, and the possibility to export archived groups including sub-groups. In addition, most scanners have been improved and a number of search engine plugins have been overhauled. Of course, all releases also fix additional minor glitches and bring numerous detail improvements.

The updates are free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copies with the new ones. (November 29, 2007)

Freeware Updates: BlueService to WordService

Our free services, from BlueService to WordService, have not been updated in quite a while. Finally, here they are: BlueService 1.3, CalcService 2.3, HotService 2.3, PDF2RTFService 1.1, and WordService 2.7. All services are finally optimized for both Intel and PowerPC processors, a few minor bugs have been fixed, and WordService 2.7 retains alignment when reformatting rich text. HotService does not show the Services menu as a bullet anymore and is compatible to Adobe Acrobat 8.

All freeware services can be downloaded and be used for free. (October 24, 2007)

Freeware Updates: EasyFind 4.0 -- and PhotoStickies

After concentrating on a to-be-released product that is now in internal testing, we are now also updating all our freeware applications. The most important news is: PhotoStickies is freeware again! But, version 5.6 also features many detail enhancements such as combined tabs in the Inspector panel, better ‘TV’ display style, and an optimized and more reliable HTML parser. It's more compatible to certain websites and handles HTTP referrers automatically, too.

EasyFind 4.0 comes with a revised user interface, remembers recent searches, and allows the results list to be sorted by creation or modification date. To-be-searched folders can be dropped into the EasyFind window, email files can be searched, and the underlying search methods are more robust and handle words separated by spaces or non-white separators more consistently.

PhotoStickies 5.6 and EasyFind 4.0 can be downloaded and be used for free. (October 11, 2007)

DEVONthink Pro (Office) 1.3.3: iPhone Support and More

This new release of DEVONthink Pro and DEVONthink Pro Office brings dedicated support for the Apple iPhone as well as a number of enhancements. DEVONthink Pro Office 1.3.3 adds a JavaScript applet that allows to conveniently search any database from the Apple iPhone that has been shared and that has been made accessible on the Internet. In addition, the handling of problematic email messages has been enhanced and the embedded web server has been improved, is faster and is more reliable. Both editions now display the author name in live RSS feeds and create thumbnails of QuickTime movies from the middle of the movie. Finally, DEVONthink Pro and Pro Office update drawers and some windows up to ten times faster than previous versions and are more compatible to the beta of Safari 3 as well as Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

The updates are free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copies with the new ones. (September 25, 2007)

DEVONthink Personal and DEVONnote 1.9.10

And another lap in our updatemania. This time we bring DEVONthink Personal and DEVONnote up-to-date with some of the features and all the bug fixes already released with DEVONthink Professional (Office). Both applications allow you to set the background color of rich text documents, support grouping of found documents directly from within Classify and See Also drawers, and read Finder and Spotlight comments when sync’ing an indexed folder with a group in the database. In DEVONnote, the search field now also keeps the last 25 recent search terms and the Escape or Command-Period key combinations can be used to stop most time-consuming operations. In addition, drag-and-drop is more compatible to third-party applications and many other functions have been improved, too, e.g., the advertisement filter.

In addition, DEVONthink Personal and DEVONnote check for and repair more problems than before, flush the file system cache more often, and DEVONthink uses a background task to make importing PDFs more reliable. As always, many minor internal improvements and fixes make both applications faster and more stable.

The updates are free for all registered users. Just download the new versions and replace your copies with the new ones. (September 6, 2007)

DEVONthink Pro (Office) 1.3.2: ExactScan Support and More

Our second season update adds minor improvements to almost all areas of DEVONthink Pro and Pro Office. DEVONthink Professional Office 1.3.2 supports MailTags 2.0 notes, allows you to set the resolution and the compression of PDFs, and connects to ExactCode’s ExactScan software driving Avision document scanners. For email import you can now set a default encoding, enriched messages support quoting and URL handling, and messages can be imported more than once, showing up as replicants in the database.

Both editions allow you to set the background color of rich text documents, support grouping of found documents directly from within Classify and See Also drawers, and read Finder and Spotlight comments when sync’ing an indexed folder. The Dashboard widgets look way more attractive now, the Download Manager supports the new Microsoft Office documents in XML format, and many other functions have been improved, too, e.g., the advertisement filter.

In addition, DEVONthink Professional checks for and repairs more problems than before, flushes the file system cache more often, and uses a background task to make importing PDFs more reliable. As always, many minor internal improvements and fixes make DEVONthink Professional 1.3.2 faster and more stable.

The update is free for all registered users. Just download the new version and replace your copies with the new one. (August 23, 2007)

DEVONagent 2.2: Workspaces and More

This update of DEVONagent brings enhancements for you workflow as well as many minor improvements. It allows you to save open browser windows in workspaces for various browser-centric tasks such as news reading or database work. Also, it shows the available Bonjour-advertised web services in the Go menu, the bookmarks drawer, and gives access to both workspaces and Bonjour services via the Dock menu. This makes it easy to access, for example, shared DEVONthink Pro Office databases. The Go menu and the bookmarks drawer use web page icons, too.

A new search engine plugin for Apple’s Cocoa Dev mailing list has been added, several other plugins have been improved, and all scanner plugins got a major internal overhaul. DEVONagent now much more reliably recognizes thumbnail galleries, wallpapers (desktop pictures), news feeds, downloadable files, multimedia files, email addresses as well as Office documents. The new XML-based Office file formats are supported, too. In addition, Finnish, Swedish and Polish have been added to the language filter. DEVONagent 2.2 follows links of matching items of news feeds, too, comes with a stronger advertisement filter as well as better filtering of social bookmarking services. Finally, the Dashboard widget has been completely redesigned, the overall performance has been improved, and some minor glitches have been fixed.

The update is free for all registered users. Just download the new version and replace your copies with the new one. (August 9, 2007)

Desktop Transporter 2.5 adds Bookmarks and NAP-PMP

This major update for Desktop Transporter not only fixes a common problem with Parallels Desktop 3.0 but also adds a number of convenient new features that many users have been asking for. Bookmarks make it easy to connect to remote Macs that are not located on the local are network and available via Bonjour. Sleeping Macs can be woken up over the network or even over the Internet, and the Desktop Transporter application can be controlled using AppleScript. If you are using an Apple Airport base station or any other router supporting NAT-PMP, Desktop Transporter can now help you setting up port forwarding if you want to share your Mac over the Internet. Finally, version 2.5 allows you to start sharing your Mac at boot time or when logging in for all users.

The update is free for all registered users. Just download the new version and replace your copies with the new one. (July, 26, 2007)