You could create a script that runs for specific groups (or all groups) that updates the sort order through GUI scripting. It’s not the best, but if you want to (re)set a sort order every once in a while it works fine. The sortOption has to specificed in the exact way it appears in the menu (including capitalization).
Be aware this resets the sorting for all groups; if you want to exclude certain groups (or e.g. a specific sort that you always want to keep) you have to edit the script. E.g. this script looks at groups from the current database, but excludes ordinary tags.
tell application id "DNtp"
try
set theGroups to every parent of current database whose tag type is not ordinary tag
repeat with theGroup in theGroups
set root of viewer window 1 to theGroup
my setSorting("by Kind")
end repeat
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then display alert "DEVONthink" message error_message as warning
end try
end tell
on setSorting(sortOption)
tell application id "DNtp"
activate
tell application "System Events"
tell process "DEVONthink 3"
click menu item sortOption of menu 1 of menu item "Sort" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell
end tell
end setSorting
Unfortunately the “On Open” action for smart rules doesn’t trigger when changing groups in DT afaik, but @BLUEFROG or @cgrunenberg might be able to comment if there are other possibilities to trigger this.
