Messages

151

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 14, 2022, 01:40 PM »

copy-pasting a bunch of text from a webpage makes a bit of a mess. That usecase is important for me. What do you do about it?

-urlwolf (February 13, 2022, 01:52 AM)

Maybe use something else.

-Dormouse (February 13, 2022, 06:05 AM)

Copy/paste from web worked well, but the time I used the web clipper the result was unusable.

-Dormouse (February 13, 2022, 08:02 PM)

This has made me think about my custom and practice. I don't need to do this very often, and it's not usually important when I do. I maintained an Evernote account for a long time, because it had a good reliable web clipper. But I have an imense number of options and no system. Programs have drifted in and drifted out again.

I need some clips to be permanently available. That means local. But this is very rare.
I need a scrapbook. But it's not very important by definition. Preferably easily available.
Some clips I need for a period, but their value is short-term only. If they relate to a project, then I'd ideally have them easily available to programs I use in that project.
I've had a few issues (with Evernote) where images in a clip are only links and change or disappear when the site changes.

I have a Pocket account. I prefer Instapaper, but Pocket saves the original images. That makes a good scrapbook - BUT it doesn't work well on sites that require a login.
In my early markdown phase, I tried a number of markdown clippers. They worked - but turned out to me more of an inconvenience than they were worth.
I have Snagit. It works, but is overkill for casual use. Heavy duty need only.

There's also files. An ideal system would cope with those too.
Obsidian works well as a reception area for copy/paste and for files. So that's fine for desktop. And confidential.
I'll stick to Pocket for Scrapbook.
For the rest, and mobile, I think I'll revert to trying OneNote again. Systemically this time. I doubt I will ever not have a 365 account. Clipper seems okay. Linking works well. So clips should be available in an app that can access it.

152

General Software Discussion / Re: Does this "blog/shared notes" exist?

« on: February 14, 2022, 07:51 AM »

in the end, went with the multiple o/s app "Diarium". Reason was sync was thru Dropbox (she has access to relevant folder), multiformat export capability and a backup function.

-tsaint (February 12, 2022, 11:19 PM)

I use Diarium, though usually for a very small simple set of things at any one time. Reliable and the developer is very helpful. I didnt think of it in relation to your search. 
There's an easy option to export any selection of notes into a PDF, which could be quite helpful for your purposes.

Obsidian would be another option, using one of the free Publish alternatives. I think I've seen some that could be locally hosted. Obsidian is complex if you let it be so, but you can keep it very simple if you want.

153

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 13, 2022, 08:02 PM »

Amplenote can fold bullet lists and you can go wild with those. So if 3 heading levels are not enough, using bullets would get you a bit of the outliner 'features.'

-urlwolf (February 13, 2022, 05:42 PM)

Problem is that the bullets don't have notes with them. My interest is in the text only not in the bullets - they're just anchors to move the text around. So Amplenote's bullets don't help at all.
What I get with Workflowy and Dynalist is import/export with OPML. Amplenote doesn't have that. And no colour, which I use a lot.

I don't think it works for me creatively at all. Better from a research/zettelkasten point of view. But limited view and organisation options. Only one tag per note afaics. It feels more like an Evernote or OneNote competitor than Logseq, Obsidian or Roam. Copy/paste from web worked well, but the time I used the web clipper the result was unusable.
Compare Amplenote and Evernote:


The four categories in the left panel are Jots (ie Daily Notes), Notes, Tasks and Calendar. That looks like a business oriented productivity app. Only one of those is aimed at me. I'd expect that sort of program to be smooth and reliable and have a carefully curated set of features. It may be a very good program, but it couldn't replace Obsidian or Workflowy (or alternatives) in my workflows.

154

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 13, 2022, 04:44 PM »

I am especially distrustful of copy/paste

-Dormouse (February 13, 2022, 06:05 AM)

As I've probably written somewhere above, this is something that I consider an issue across all program pairs. Between any given pair, the behaviour is usually stable.
But between different pairs, that's not true:

I'm just testing Logseq. One page, in 'document' mode, I have typed four new paragraphs and a total of six new lines. I indented one paragraph. Copied (Ctrl-C) the page.

• Paste into Word produces 10 paragraphs, but correctly picks up the indented lines.
• Paste into FocusWriter, MarkText  correctly identifies the paragraphs and lines and the indents. But also sticks bullets in for each new paragraph.
• Typora gets the bullets, but doesn't identify all the paragraphs correctly.
• I think Obsidian is right.
• Workflowy is correct for bullets in its note, but has no paragraphs. Paste into the outline and it has too many indents
• Dynalist is similar but not identical.

OK, that's all from Logseq which is basically an outliner, even in document mode.

Or paste a small piece from Obsidian with two paragraphs and two new lines added to the first.

• Workflowy outline counts them as four undifferentiated bullets. The note is accurate.
• Dynalist outline has an extra empty bullet for the empty line signifying a markdown paragraph. Again, note is accurate.
• Word and Atlantis have four paragraphs plus an empty one.
• Logseq is accurate, as are FocusWriter, MarkText and Typora.

They were nearly all correct pasting a number of paragraphs from Word.
But Dynalist pasted them as lines in the note, whereas Workflowy correctly identified the paragraphs.

The whole copy/paste thing is unreliable unless you know the detailed circumstances, and is more likely to misfire when switching between RTF and plaintext programs. And programs of different types such as outliners and editors or word processors. (I suspect word processors are better sources because their paragraph and line markers are more explicit.)
And that's ignoring HTML and browsers.

155

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 13, 2022, 03:08 PM »

It's a bug. I'm convinced it's a bug. The concatenation bug.

-Dormouse (February 13, 2022, 06:05 AM)

And it's been going on a long time 2019
the same on Reddit

156

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 13, 2022, 06:05 AM »

In WF copy-pasting a bunch of text from a webpage makes a bit of a mess. That usecase is important for me. What do you do about it?

-urlwolf (February 13, 2022, 01:52 AM)

Oh, I rage inwardly, I seethe, I curse their incompetence, if I had a WF box, I'd kick it.

It's a bug. I'm convinced it's a bug. The concatenation bug. I discovered it and reported it at length when I first trialled WF. I need to have another go at them. Since you have discovered it, complain please.
It pops up in a number of circumstances - I'm very wary of working with WF except using OPML for import/export, and using paragraphs in notes. I am especially distrustful of copy/paste though it seems to work fine at times.

Then I do something else. Maybe use something else.
But using Workflowy there are two options.
1. Use the Chrome/Chromium Workflowy extension which allows you to paste the selected text anywhere into your outline. That preserves the formatting.
2. Images I will do indivisually or I will use Vivaldi's camera.

157

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 13, 2022, 05:14 AM »

I don't see what the advantage is for the 'big file'. Once you do hoisting to work on parts (which I think is a great idea!), whether the notes are in any file/sequence or in an unordered basket (or network)... it doesn't matter, right?

-urlwolf (February 13, 2022, 01:50 AM)

You can work either way. It's a question of what works best for you and your system.

For me, it declutters the file system.
It incorporates a history, however it is prepared, and the history aids both memory and helps trigger some other ideas from the time it was done.
It is something of a Luhmannesque process where thought is applied to each component and how it relates to other components available at the time.
I find it a massive aid to portability.
All without any loss of the flexible linking with other atomic notes.

I think this is an example of someone overwhelmed by the sheer volume of notes. Which might not have occurred using a different process (ie I don't think it was just down to the program he used).
The Fall of Roam

The other gain of large notes, is that they are ideal for anything that is actually structured - like, for instance, a book. Which means one workflow system can be used for both processes.

158

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 13, 2022, 05:00 AM »

if you remember Liquid Story Binder. LOLLLLL

-superboyac (February 13, 2022, 01:23 AM)

Oh, I do, I do.
And it is still on half price sale.
LOL indeed.

159

General Software Discussion / Re: Does this "blog/shared notes" exist?

« on: February 12, 2022, 03:56 PM »

for long term viewing within the family only

-tsaint (February 12, 2022, 03:52 AM)

I think long-term viewing will require at least some video

160

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 12:26 PM »

amplenote 'works' for me. It's the only one of these 'networked notetakers' that:
is fast
has mobile
is not buggy
you can live-edit with a collaborator
you can add comments to the text (call it footnote, rich or not)
has versioning
has no investors behind and aligns with user needs

-urlwolf (February 12, 2022, 11:35 AM)

Not buggy is good, and pretty rare in the this field. Though I suspect that's related to a limited feature set and speed of development
Mobile is good, but it doesn't have immobile - and I work at my desk most of the time. Most of the apps on the list have mobile too.
Collaboration. Most apps are into that market, though Obsidian isn't.
I'd see Amplenote as targeting itself at a certain group of 'productivity' users who value speed, reliability and maybe collaboration. I doubt there will be much uptake in the academic or creative communities.
Whereas Obsidian is a swiss army knife with the developer community adding a plethora of attachments and a community of users in constant search for shiny new things. And I worry about what will be left when the glitterati move on.

161

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 12:07 PM »

There are people writing on the value of hierarchies (book TOC) and networks (3rd generation notetaking) for years. The answer seems to be you can have both.

-urlwolf (February 12, 2022, 11:35 AM)

I personally believe that both models are wrong. Potentially there are hierarchies; potentially there are networks. But the essence of the state of play is ignorance. So software needs to promote flexibility and many possibilities. Entirely disconnected notes living as their own islands are bad, but so is anything that fits them into a given structure, weather that be hierarchy or network. That's a problem with Obsidian notes - there's usually a rigid structure of some sort. One of the advantages of outliners is that things can be moved around quickly and easily and endlessly duplicated - it's not the outline that's valuable, it's the ease of switching models.

162

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 11:59 AM »

How you go from the network to a finished 'big work' (a giant blog post, a book) is an exercise for the reader. An easy way: just concatenate notes. One per heading. This is also what scriverner does. Scrivener (and for documentation Archbee, gitbook etc) have the concept of 'book', these notetakers don't.

-urlwolf (February 12, 2022, 11:35 AM)

Always struggled to get on with Scrivener. It's too rigid. Too focused on very small links; the intention is that a very big chain of links will be produced, but it has few features than concentrate on the chain.

163

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 11:48 AM »

Dormouse, it looks like your usecase is a very long file, like a paper. That's better written in an outliner. These notetaking apps believe in splitting ideas in 'atomic' chunks that you can link to each other.

-urlwolf (February 12, 2022, 11:35 AM)

No. I've always liked atomic notes (and more recently zettels) and disliked outliners. And that hasn't changed. But you need ways of searching and accessing atomic notes. I very much like using links and backlinks, and what I call fuzzy tags. But you still need a way to store them, and after trying a variety of approaches, I've decided that long files work best - there's no reason why the contents can't be disparate atomic notes; search is faster and more easily managed in one file than many.

PS
I like Workflowy for two reasons: its wikilinks and mirror systems are completely effective even without being part of an outline structure.
And because it also contains such a structure, it is very suitable for producing an output that is intrinsically linear.

164

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 11:34 AM »

Also interesting on that site:

First-generation apps (2000-2010): OneNote (2003), Evernote (2008), Workflowy (2010)

Second-generation apps (2010-2018): Paper (2015), Bear (2016), Notion (2016), NoteJoy (2017)

Third-generation apps (2019-present): Amplenote (2019), Roam (2019), Obsidian (2019)

The first-generation apps tend to be weaker on mobile, but two of the three have immense overall feature sets at this point. In the case of Evernote, the breadth of its feature set was arguably a direct cause of its decline.

The second-generation apps are (mostly) the ones that people are excited about today. Notion has been the runaway success of the bunch thus far, given the breadth of possibilities afforded by their embedded, data-type-aware tables.

-urlwolf (February 12, 2022, 11:22 AM)

I'm not sure about the conclusion. Notion has clearly done very well.
Bear appears to be waning. There's a lot of excitement about Obsidian right now, Roam is looking a bit "Soo last year", but still has a chance to get its act together again. OneNote seems stable enough, Evernote in presumably terminal decline. I see far more excitement about Logseqa and Athens than I do about Amplenote. Compare reddit group memberships.

Workflowy has turned round. Been in maintenance mode for a long time, but rewritten from the ground up and now going forward strongly. Kanban, mirrors, wikilinks, colour. At the moment, it's working better for me than any of the other apps.

165

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 11:25 AM »

Interesting performance comparison:
https://www.noteapps..._app_considerations_
Note count: 2000

-urlwolf (February 12, 2022, 11:15 AM)

I simply have trouble believing results funded by Amplenote. Especially as the testing is not clearly defined.
And you have the independent third party Gödel's pkm performance tests. Many reasons not to put to much weight on those either, but at least it is easy to say why.

Roam is supposed to have become much faster. Were these tests before or after?

166

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 11:16 AM »

I'd say reevaluate amplenote.

-urlwolf (February 08, 2022, 12:47 PM)

OK. I signed up - since they have opened a Free tier in an attempt to move out of loss-making.
But, tbh, it just looks like a better Evernote, (and the better is an assumption based on the extent of Evernote's decline). Four icons on the left - Calendar, Tasks, Jots (like Daily Notes) and Notes: for me that puts it solidly in productivity territory as does the email they sent me today publicising Shu Omi's video.
All of which makes me feel that it's not a good fit for me, and any comments I make are likely to be a result of bias and not investigating in depth rather than a reflection of a normal users' reality.

But, here we go:

• It's not rich text - doesn't do colour
• It's not markdown - doesn't understand HTML or headers 4, 5 and 6.
• The note pane isn't one I'd write in. (I know I don't usually write in Obsidian, but that feels like a choice).
• I'll be honest, it seems underpowered and not that intuitive.
• And web only.

They 'invented' rich footnotes

-urlwolf (February 08, 2022, 12:47 PM)

I'm very happy with the feature

-urlwolf (February 09, 2022, 10:42 AM)

Aren't these just a link with a location?
Seems to me a bit like a sub-bullet in an outliner, but less intuitive to trigger and much more clunky/rigid in accepting files - instead of drag or paste it insists on file selection through an explorer pane. I suppose sub-bullets are a bit like footnotes.
Probably my reaction is just bias and dislike of the design. I find it hard to motivate myself to look deeper because of that.

I probably ought to maintain a closer watch on Logseq when I have the time.

167

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 10:57 AM »

I have disliked word processors for a very long time

-Dormouse (February 12, 2022, 06:15 AM)

But, hey, things change.
Docx converts back and forth to opml as well as markdown does.
Word outlining is much improved - 9 levels now. Behind org-mode but ahead of markdown.
I can't imagine doing more in Word than necessary, but word processors are a perfectly functional option in general.

168

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 12, 2022, 06:15 AM »

Hadn't really finished my Obsidian comments:

Despite being very keen for the mobile apps, I find that I haven't used them at all. I use the vaults, but I haven't used Obsidian to do it when I'm on mobile.

I think most users who don't need WYSIWYG (like me) will reduce their friction level by avoiding it and sticking to legacy editor. The new editor is a requirement for some plugins to work on mobile, but has substantially increased noise and friction. There are bugs, and some iffy design decisions, some from CM6, some from Obsidian. I personally encountered a short-lived one when insider Obsidian was updated to Electron 17 (quickly pulled because it was buggy). And the noise from plugins not working, changed ways of working doesn't seem to have reduced yet. I substantially switched to LP (more future proofed), but not for important workflow areas. But the noise from it all on forum and Discord is overwhelming.

I'm still attached to my OPML & md system. The plaintext large md files, should be accessible by a large number of programs well into the future; and their structure, and links are embedded within. But I've stopped regarding the md version as the day-to-day canonical version. Sometimes they might be, but only when I have good reasons for using them rather than an outliner. The one area where the markdown file will have it is in areas requiring privacy and security that I won't put on line.

Which leaves me with a docx unknown. Most files sent to me are in docx or PDF formats. Most of my destinations are happiest with docx and PDF. I like using colour when editing. Using HTML in markdown has always been a bodge from design onwards. The whole review, comment and version change system in Word etc is infinitely better than anything I have seen anywhere in markdown. Which leaves me thinking that markdown is maybe fine for notes, but simply not functional enough for actual documents in progress. And Obsidian's insistence on .md rather than .txt gives it a very low place in the interoperable league. Makes me feel a bit heretical since I have disliked word processors for a very long time.

169

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 11, 2022, 05:52 PM »

good 'ole Keynote

-BGM (February 11, 2022, 09:33 AM)

Interesting to see that the format is still being read, though I'm not sure for how much longer. I'm not sure if I still have any files anywhere. And stopped using RightNote quite some time ago. Such a great program in its day.

170

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 11, 2022, 05:49 PM »

My personal experience isn’t that things that don’t work, but that the experience of using Obsidian is rougher than it was when my expectation had been that it would become smoother as little issues were addressed.

-Dormouse (February 04, 2022, 07:24 PM)

I have come to realise that Obsidian is a high friction program, and is likely to remain one for some considerable time, unless you have a straightforward workflow and rarely venture far from it. There seems to be a permanent race between features being added, usually through plugins,  and enabling easier usage - again mostly plugins but also core. There's also a substantial time cost to investigating new or expanded features. This can be considered good (massive expansion of features) or bad (irritation and time consumed). I have no idea whether a point of balance will be found at any point in the next few years. The open API abrogates control.

There's actually no good information or note management. Using small notes produces an immense number of files, and create a dependency on Obsidian to manage them. It has some features to manage large files, but they're limited and clunky. My interest in plaintext, such as it is, relies on an assumption of long-term accessibility. But the system here seems very based on Obsidian as a program. I noticed BGM'sz post drawwing attention to Keynote NF which can still read the original databases (though I'm not sure for how much longer that will be, although RightNote can apaprently read them too - mostly). I think the big files will work well enough long-term - but Obsidian isn't the best short-term manager for those.

Internal features such as search are useful and effective - but less powerful than file utilities like grep.

As I'd already given up writing directly into Obsidian, I'm left with the question of what I should use Obsidian for now. The linking remains a strength (though I haven't tested what happens to block links if the database is deleted - I have a feeling that they can't be reconstructed automatically and rely on the database; and, of course, the block link format is understood only by Obsidian). In a few years, it may be super-great, but I need to avoid that friction now. I think it comes back to the linking on a base of local files. Workflowy is as good at linking, but that's only while the database is up and running. Overall Workflowy is a better front end and a better manager of large files (even if I need to use OPML conversion to access it).

171

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 09, 2022, 04:15 AM »

This is it:
https://www.amplenot...ng_depth_write_in_3d

-urlwolf (February 08, 2022, 12:47 PM)

Thanks. I'm afraid I get very turned off when developers start to talk about brains. They clearly don't have the remotest idea about how the human brain functions and my ability to attend to what they are trying to say disappears.

I will look at the footnotes bit sometime. But, from what I read, it seems as if it only works when published on the web. I don't do that, so as a Utilitarian, it wouldn't be of immediate interest to me. I also have a feeling that their thinking about it is wrong. Just from the way they talk. But I will get there and look.

172

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 08, 2022, 04:35 PM »

I hadn't realised
that Logseq was so embedded in China

173

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 07, 2022, 05:57 PM »

The PIM aspects of TreeDBNotes were never fully worked out, I think.  I only ever use the notes part, but I love it.

-BGM (February 07, 2022, 04:20 PM)

Agreed. x2.

You can output to epub or html, really, that's sort of it.

-BGM (February 07, 2022, 04:20 PM)

Wow! Really? I hadn't remembered it being that limited.
I suppose you can do quite a lot with both of them. I remember writing letters and documents with it at one time.
iirc another program claimed to be able to import from TreeDBNotes (AllMyNotes?) but I have no idea what its export options were.

It's a pity it was abandoned. The notes component anyway (though my preference has shifted away from that two pane outliner design). It a lot of features that made it comfo9rtable to work with. You certainly seem to have been making the most of it.

174

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 07, 2022, 12:09 PM »

I use TreeDBNotes - and I've not seen anyone discuss this

-Dormouse (February 07, 2022, 09:34 AM)

I always liked TreeDBNotes. And I'd agree that it is still performs better than many newer alternatives.
I haven't mentioned it at all because it's a database, which was against the thrust of what I have been trying to do.

I stopped using it, partly because of that (I can't remember now what export options it has), but also the closure of the forums and then development stopping. I don't mind development ending, but I like to believe that the developer still cares enough to keep it working. iirc, when he was still communicating, he was also wanting to take it in a direction that didn't suit me - a PIM rather than an editor). I know some people reported data loss (when the forum was still open), but that wasn't a problem I ever experienced myself.
Windows only as well iirc

175

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: February 07, 2022, 11:53 AM »

The one thing on my Android that I tried to avoid was having to sign in to anything ever just to record my thoughts.

-BGM (February 07, 2022, 11:17 AM)

Makes sense. I very rarely want to dictate quick notes now, so I don't have a workflow for this at all, but I'd agree that easy and fast are the key elements. Not that dictation is ever that easy for the program.