As I was playing around with [Drafts][]{:target=”_blank”} actions, I came across an action that send items to DEVONThink. I had played with DEVONThink a little in the past, but at the time it seemed to be more application than I needed, especially for the cost. I decided to take a couple of hours and re-examine it based on my current needs to see if it could solve my problem.

I was excited to learn that support for multi-markdown was built into the tool and that it could display it in preview mode, editing mode, and even side-by-side mode. As I researched even more, I learned that it recently added support for PrismJS. Since I’ve used PrismJS in the past (most notably on this website), I was really excited about the possibilities. As I read more about the PrismJS functionality I was a little disappointed, since the language support for the built-in PrismJS support was minimal (Currently PrismJS in DEVONThink supports AppleScript, Objective-C, Swift, C, C++, Java, and JavaScript). While I have a bit of Applescript, I do not use the others very much. It also does not include the copy/paste functionality that I want (even though I know PrismJS can do it).

My disappointment disappeared when I learned that it was possible to use my own PrismJS script and CSS by generating them on the PrismJS website, uploading them to DEVONThink, and then including their application links in my markdown (more on that next week). I now have code blocks that are formatted for the languages I use most, have copy/paste functionality, and are the color scheme I want them to be.

I also learned that DEVONThink can integrate with Spotlight and its contents can be made searchable. Being able to search for my notes via Spotlight (and Alfred) is an unexpected but welcome benefit. I don’t have to open up DEVONThink and search for things, I can just use my normal workflow.

With all of these features, I was pretty much sold on purchasing DEVONThink for the storage of all my information, even though it is pricey. What finally convinced me the iOS app. The iOS app includes all the same functionality (that I use/want) as the MacOS app. My custom PrismJS files work/display properly and spotlight search works as well. The only complaints that I have around the iOS app is that there is no dark mode and the spotlight search doesn’t open up the markdown in DEVONThink, but rather as a text file.

I could not be happier with my new setup. It has made creating, saving, and using knowledge-base type items a thousand times easier.