This chapter helps you get started with DEVONagent Pro. It explains why and when to use DEVONagent Pro, and gives you step-by-step instruction in how to run a first query.
A common misconception is that DEVONagent Pro is a simple front-end to a search engine like Bing. If that's all you need, you can do that in your browser, DEVONagent Pro's browser, or its Menu Extra. But much more than that, DEVONagent Pro is a powerful Internet research assistant that takes over many of the tedious tasks in web searching.
When you start using DEVONagent Pro, you will likely notice searches take longer you're used to. You will also see it returns fewer results than your browser's search engine. Now imagine you hired an assistant and tasked them with doing an Internet search, combing through the results, and emailing you a summary of the useful links. DEVONagent Pro is your electronic assistant, downloading and assessing each page returned by a search, excluding advertisements, broken links, and irrelevant pages. When it completes its work, it produces a set of results, already filtered for you. While these tasks take more time and have a lower yield, the results you receive are more relevant. Also, these things are accomplished while you are busy with other things, improving your efficiency.
Here are a few more things that separate DEVONagent Pro from just using a browser:
- DEVONagent Pro supports a more advanced search syntax, including wildcards and proximity operators, e.g.,
problems NEAR (icloud sync*).
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Scanners limit a search to pages with links to specific kinds of items. For example, Linked Documents only returns pages containing links to PDFs, Office documents, etc.
- The search results, the Digest, or a report can be exported to a variety of formats.
- Searches can be saved to a separate file and loaded again in the future. And searches support the ability to append new results to those already gathered or ignore already archived pages when running a search again.
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Search Sets allow querying and processing multiple resources with one configuration, including your own. Imagine searching DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Wikipedia, and an RSS feed by selecting one search option and entering your search terms.
- For repeated searches, set up a search set to run on a schedule. Archive or deliver the results in several ways, like receiving a summary via email.
- DEVONagent Pro has a built-in WebKit-based browser so you can browse search results without leaving the application. It includes inspectors, access to scanner items like linked images or documents, and even views of the text or HTML source of the current web page.
- From the browser to searches to processing matching pages, DEVONagent Pro has robust automation options unavailable in bespoke browsers.
- You can use the built-in Archive to store curated references to the results of a search. View the text of a result, export it, or use it in a search set.
- DEVONagent Pro is well-integrated with our document/information management application, DEVONthink, a powerful combination for many use cases.
