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I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

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Dormouse:
For me, the sections and subsections make much more sense of how it works. It means that he had 3 ways into his notes: the sections/subsections, the keyword index and the structure notes (usually, it seems, close to the 'front' of a subsection but also quickly accessed through the index).

The sections/subsections are easily replicated with tags (or folders).
The keyword index not quite so easily. Tags could be used, but the number of words in any index is too many for a reasonable tagging system. Text search will find to many notes unless there's a way or restricting it. Luhmann wrote keywords on the cards; combining that with text search would be able to replicate Luhmann's system (keywords would need a prefix so that they are easily identified).
Structure notes can be done in exactly the way Luhmann used them.

Dormouse:
And the direct links can be conceptualised like this:

-parent(s)-other linksNOTE source(s)-child(ren)-
there is a reference link on nearly every (first collection) or nearly every second note (second collection) on average.
Three types of linking can be distinguished:
a)References in the context of a larger structural outline: When beginning a major line of thought Luhmann sometimes noted on the first card several of the aspects to be addressed and marked them by a capital letter that referred to a card (or set of consecutive cards) that was numbered accordingly and placed at least in relative proximity to the card containing the outline. This structure comes closest to resembling the outline of an article or the table of contents of a book and therefore doesn’t really use the potentials of the collection as a web of notes.
b)Collective references: At the beginning of a section devoted to a specific subject area, one can often find a card that refers to a number of other cards in the collection that have some connection with the subject or concept addressed in that section. A card of this kind can list up to 25 references and will typically specify the respective subject or concept in addition to the number. These references can indicate cards that are related by subject matter and in close proximity or to cards that are far apart in other sections of the collection, the latter being the normal case.
c)Single references: At a particular place in a normal note Luhmann often made a reference to another card in the collection that was also relevant to the special argument in question; in most cases the referred card is located at an entirely different place in the file, frequently in the context of a completely different discussion or subject. -Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity by Johannes F.K. Schmidt
--- End quote ---

So the main zettelkasten has one link for every two cards.
There are sub-sequences (not parent-child necessarily, but most will be) where the first card contains something like an outline and look like the draft of a paper. So using the zettelkasten as part of a writing workflow rather than simply thoughts and information.

tomos:
Like Sphere, I'm following this thread with great interest, but will have to read it more closely.

I'm currently not actively using any app. I used use InfoQube (IQ) for structured work projects -- currently I'm using it as a dumping ground, mostly for web-clippings, or I email it directly with a link, a couple of keywords, occasionally a thought, or a photo of hand-written notes.

Some possible ways of connecting entries/items in IQ:
[*]as parent or child or sibling item -- supports multiple parents
[*]via tagging -- tags can be hierarchically organised (with parental inheritance; tags can also have multiple [tag]parents)
[*]as related items -- related items will show as a list (links) in the info pane -- items can be mutually related
[/list]

Most of what I save is related to thoughts, ideas, but I have yet to try and structure it meaningfully. The idea of only saving info with related thoughts, or at least an indication of relevance is very logical -- I'll have to try and do that more consistently. Like you here, I have to figure how to go about all this more specifically.

Dormouse:
I'm sure IQ is one of the programs that is most capable of working a zettelkasten system.
So long as you can adjust yourself to the workflow required.
Once you have worked out what that is in your case. I'm pretty sure that a lot of ways will work, even if they don't tick all the purist boxes. I'm going to try to ensure that all the boxes can be ticked in my method and then just go from there.

Dormouse:
I've gone through a few stages now.

The reading, highlighting is as usual.

Writing fleeting notes about the highlight is easy. I paste the highlight into the note as an extra; no obvious reason why not.

The next notes - the first stage permanent notes - are tedious but straightforward.

But the next stage is hard. Distilling the totality of what has been done into a proper long-term note, one note per thought. Some first stage notes contribute to more than one of these, some combine onto one note. This is the bit that requires concentrated thought. Unfortunately, I think it's essential. The power of the system must come from the thinking here. Working out a way of doing it isn't necessarily easy either. What I'm doing is writing on a single WriteMonkey page (reading the notes in DocFetcher because that is much quicker than opening the files). Headings for each topic/thought. Then writing under each until I have been through everything. Folding the notes so that I only see the headings except when I'm working on an idea. Then pasting each part separately into single notes. I think it is this level that forms the basis of the parent-child sequence.

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