Five Newbie Questions

I am looking for a piece of software that will allow me to clip webpages. Right now I’m looking at DevonThink Pro and EagleFiler.

Note: Firefox is my browser of choice, but I also have Safari and Chrome installed.

  1. In the “Records” section of EagleFiler, it seems that I can make folders and then put items into those folders. But if I click “Records” it shows both the folders and the items within those folders EVEN THOUGH those items are already in the folders. Is there any way to stop this behavior/view pattern? And have it work more like the traditional Finder structure that MacOS uses?

  2. If you screw around with the items that you’ve saved in the Finder (moved them around, renamed them, etc.) is there any way for EagleFiler to rebuild the database correctly? Because right now it just gets confused. I was surprised that EagleFiler could import and rescan if you manually added items into the folder structure using Finder (which is the only way I was able to add webpages that were behind passwords using Safari > Save As…)

  3. Is there any way to save a blog post into EagleFiler after using “Reader Mode” on your browser so that it looks like it’s formatted using “Reader Mode”? I have tried doing this with Pocket (getpocket.com) successfully. However, I have not been able to do this with EagleFiler and Safari or Firefox.

  4. Is there an easy way to save webpages from password protected forums in Firefox? When I try to do this with Firefox + “Archive in EagleFiler (Web Archive) bookmarklet” , all I get is “404 Not Found” errors (and similar). The only workaround I have found for this in using Safari and using the “File > Save As…” and then saving the .webarchive to the EagleFiler folder and then within EagleFiler selecting “File > Scan For New Files”, which works but it’s a little cumbersome especially since Firefox 66 is my current browser of choice.

  5. In your humble (or maybe not so humble) opinion, why is EagleFiler better than DevonThink Pro? I’m currently testing EagleFiler 1.8.7 and DevonThink 3.0beta1 and I haven’t really used either to make up my mind, but I’d like to hear why you guys like EagleFiler more (I’m assuming you like it more).

I don’t have very difficult needs. I just want to make Web Clippings from the web and not lose them.

Thanks!

Records is intended to show everything all at once (like when you click on Photos in Photos). If you just want to see the records that are not already in folders, you can use Unfiled. This is described more here.

This page explains what you can and cannot do, to prevent EagleFiler from losing track of your files. There is a way to rebuild the library, but this is more intended to fix a really messed up situation than as a regular operation after reorganizing files. If you added metadata to a file and then moved it, the rebuild will detect the new file and remove the old one, but it won’t be able to figure out that the files are the same, so the metadata won’t transfer. It’s best to reorganize the files yourself in EagleFiler (or via script).

You can select the text and import using the EagleFiler: Import service or via Copy and then File > New Record > From Clipboard.

Yes, you can use the service or print to PDF or save the HTML from Firefox.

As the developer, I’m probably not the best person to answer this. Let me point you to the feature list and some testimonials from people who’ve used both apps.