Recent Posts

326

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

« Last post by Dormouse on March 12, 2021, 03:47 PM »

The Obsidian mobile apps are out in a very limited access, bug-stomping beta. I'm avoiding it for now as I don't want to get sucked into a vortex which will give me no short-term gain.

327

General Software Discussion / Re: Copying internet pages with images on Android

« Last post by Dormouse on March 04, 2021, 05:42 PM »

Of the second order copy/paste solutions, Paper looks like the best choice for me since it will export to markdown.

I'll need to check out the other Vivaldi settings,  but so far I've only got its own notes to save as pure text.

328

General Software Discussion / Copying internet pages with images on Android

« Last post by Dormouse on March 04, 2021, 12:21 PM »

This never used to be a problem. I was aware that some programs wouldn't include images in a pasted page, but the Evernote web clipper worked reliably. That's no longer the case - the web clipper can take ages before I can see what it's done and often gets stuck on sites requiring a login. Quick, easy and reliable it isn't. (Might be a browser issue I suppose but I need something to work whatever browser I'm using. I usually use Vivaldi. Retested - the Evernote web clipper worked in Chrome Canary this once at least, but copy/paste had same results as Vivaldi.)

So, I try Simplified View-Select All-Copy. That works in Gmail and Evernote and Dropbox Paper, but not in most note or document programs which skip the images. Markdown editors don't work, but neither does Joplin or Textmaker. Or Word or Docs.
Is there something I'm not doing correctly? Evernote works, which is good, but it's already multi-stage I'd rather avoid the extra steps involved in exporting it.

329

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

« Last post by Dormouse on March 02, 2021, 02:39 PM »

Org-mode

-wraith808 (March 02, 2021, 09:00 AM)

I looked at this a while ago. Concluded that it was better than markdown but lack of ubiquity made it too much of a lock-in, as with AsciiDoc. As time has gone on, I'm glad I learned markdown and have an awareness of these alternative options, but I've moved away from using them all. Now it's mostly text with occasional Obsidian commands.

I have developed a very barebones approach to Obsidian. No community themes or plugins (every now and then users report data loss from one of them, and I just don't need the aggravation). And nothing confidential (it's moved from json to a database so no longer immediately readable, but still saves in User folders); I could manage it securely but don't want to have to design a system around a still moving target.

As it is I have a highly functional system requiring little effort.

330

General Software Discussion / Re: A good program for transcribe handwritten text to mechanical text in the pc

« Last post by Dormouse on February 25, 2021, 02:41 PM »

OneNote is complicated for me because I don't want to update and give me problems. If I try with office 2016 I may have problems.

-Contro (February 25, 2021, 11:51 AM)

I appreciate the concern. I run 2016 and 365 together on one machine, but fear that 2016 will stop being effective at some point. For now I switch between them depending on what I want to do. Can't say I like the direction of travel and I don't actively use either version now  - only work with some stuff already there that haven't exported yet.

Do you know if goes well under windows xp pro ?

-Contro (February 25, 2021, 11:51 AM)

No idea about that I'm afraid. I do try to keep my OSs fully updated.

331

General Software Discussion / Re: A good program for transcribe handwritten text to mechanical text in the pc

« Last post by Dormouse on February 25, 2021, 11:21 AM »

That works more easily than I anticipated. Looks as if it ought to be possible to load multiple pages. I'll be interested to hear the results of all your experiments.

332

General Software Discussion / Re: A good program for transcribe handwritten text to mechanical text in the pc

« Last post by Dormouse on February 24, 2021, 04:35 PM »

I'm not convinced that FreeOCR will do handwriting. Most OCR programs don't. Of course, if the handwriting is regular enough they might work.

Most programs that will work are specifically set up to process handwriting as an input; OneNote for example. But they don't have a workflow that works well with a mass of handwritten documents. And many only work online (eg Pen to Print).

It seems as if it ought to be possible to have both capability and workflow, but I'm not sure it's been done yet. And maybe it's harder than it seems.

333

General Software Discussion / Re: Sagelight Image Editor v4 returns as Pay-What-You-Want

« Last post by Dormouse on February 18, 2021, 10:47 AM »

Well Rob is back again, so ought to be able to respond to issues. I think he's contemplating best way of taking Sagelight forward.
He also has a 'new' product Sagebox, which seems to be a programmers tool that he developed for his wider consulting work.

334

General Software Discussion / Re: A good program for transcribe handwritten text to mechanical text in the pc

« Last post by Dormouse on February 15, 2021, 07:20 AM »

I thought there were many programs that attempted Intelligent  Character Recognition (ICR), but I've no recent experience of them.

iirc both Evernote and OneNote can have a go. Plus others. How well it works will depend on language and handwriting.

What I do know is that handwriting directly into Android apps works remarkably well (and my handwriting is BAD; and variable).

335

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Explorer "File manager" Alternative

« Last post by Dormouse on February 10, 2021, 05:52 AM »

I upgraded to 11 after holding off for a while, and a little over the time that he gave for free upgrades, 12 came out.  11 works fine, so I just figured I'd wait until the next version came out.

-wraith808 (February 05, 2021, 06:52 AM)

I learned a while ago that the best strategies for me were instant upgrades or skipping versions. Other schedules reduce bangs per buck.
And if you only want to pay when there’s a feature you need, you'll always find cheaper alternatives.

336

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

« Last post by Dormouse on February 01, 2021, 06:29 AM »

Any whole that splits into multiple sections, with highly detailed components, where each section has a similar structure

-Dormouse (January 31, 2021, 06:12 PM)

I've realised that it works for any whole with detailed (markdown) components. Structure is just the way I've been using it.

You could think of it as a large desk covered in documents.
Or you could have a  structure at the top/left/middle with unpositioned documents lying around it.
You could use it like Scrivener's corkboard (though here the documents won't lie on top of each other or overlap, though more than one document to a cell is possible). For me, it could work better than the corkboard because the space is so much bigger, though I'd miss drag and drop (or I would if I used Scrivener).
 

337

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 31, 2021, 06:12 PM »

that's a pretty manual process.  It would drive me nuts lolll...

-superboyac (January 31, 2021, 04:39 PM)

Indexing, I basically use the classic zk of idea of creating a note that links to all the sub-topics.  So i create an index note.  Multiple index notes can link to the same sub-note, that's fine.

-superboyac (January 31, 2021, 04:39 PM)

I think the  difference here is that this part of my process has nothing to do with note-taking or zettelkasten. It's about planning, writing and organising an MSS. If there will be enough for more than one book, moving parts between them so that each one is well structured. Making it easy to see gaps that need filling. Ditto for generating multiple articles from one research programme. And that's the same for a series of articles on aspects of the same issue. Irrelevant if you're hand-to-mouth but essential when you're in a position to plan the series.

If you're a pantser writing fiction it has no value at all. Though, when I think on it, if you write lots of bits it might help you stitch them into coherence.

Has to be manual because all the decisions require thought.

And at the end, you do have an index. If there’s a book series, and each column is a book, with scenes on the rows, all that's needed is to copy a column, put a ! In front of the wikilinks to insert the transclusions, and then export/print the whole MSS.
You'd have other columns in the spreadsheet of course. Word counts, targets, appearance of characters and locations, whatever it is that's helpful for planning or editing/reviewing. But you probably only want that in the spreadsheet.
Would work for a PhD too. Be overkill for an UG essay, but could help with a thesis.
Or multi-stage business plans. Or years of committee meetings. Any whole that splits into multiple sections, with highly detailed components, where each section has a similar structure.

I wouldn't use it at all for zettelkasten type notes (or the value of using it there hasn't struck me yet).

338

General Software Discussion / Wikilinks, spreadsheets and tables

« Last post by Dormouse on January 31, 2021, 03:38 PM »

Wikilinks in Obsidian are a wonderful tool for writing and research. I'm still investigating the best way to use Obsidian (& et al) for my writing, in particular looking for the best method for organising and manipulating longer pieces of writing.

One option is very long documents and using headings. Headings produce outlines and can be linked directly.
Another option is multiple documents with a MOC/Index. This makes manipulating and re-sequencing very easy.
Another is simply using files and nested folders - the way most writer's programs do it.
However, all  are very linear. And I inevitably find linear constricting.

I have always used spreadsheets as part of my planning process, and am aware that many writers have constructed complex systems using multiple spreadsheets.
Tables can help as a cutdown way of doing the same, but their limited functions restrict what can be done. And markdown tables are a PITA (though Typora's are more usable than most).
Ideally I wanted to continue to use spreadsheets. Obsidian allows links to the files which can then be opened in the default spreadsheet program, which is manageable.
But I have worked out a much, much better solution.

• I use a spreadsheet. Scenes, people, places, concepts (anything I choose) get put in wikilinks if I think that I might want to link to them. I can switch and move things around however I want.
• I copy the spreadsheet and paste it in Typora (doesn't work if I try pasting in Obsidian or WriteMonkey, but haven't tried anything else).
• I copy the Typora table and paste it into Obsidian.
• Obsidian will automatically link to any notes that already exist and will offer to create notes for the wikilinked titles that don't already exist.

This gives me a supercharged index that isn't simply sequential. If I hover over the link, I can see the content. I can use the spreadsheet itself (I'll stick a link in as the title of the table) for analysis and development.

The one fly in the ointment is that this seems to be unidirectional - you can't take the markdown table and paste it into a spreadsheet. I assume It might be possible with a few conversions, but that doesn't feel like a productive workflow in normal circumstances. It's not a major issue - it means always making changes in the spreadsheet and copying back into Obsidian, but that's all.

Probably of no interest to most people, but I find the possibilities exciting.

339

General Software Discussion / Trying a journal again - inspired by Virginia Woolf

« Last post by Dormouse on January 17, 2021, 05:46 PM »

I'm also having another go at doing a serious journal/diary.
I've been inspired by Virginia Woolf's diaries which I hadn't read until I was recently gifted a copy. (Ebook versions are available for free on the internet, like all of her work.) I've always been impressed by the famous diaries (Pepys etc) , but they'd never seemed relevant to my own potential use. These diaries fit much better. They seem to cover everything. She took them seriously, trying to set aside a small amount of time each day, but there are still many days with no entries. There's description, observation, activities, introspection, planning and recording her reading and her writing programme. Recording and trying to analyse her feelings and emotions and health (frequently poor). Practicing phrasing and style (and reporting her feeling, after some years of use, that it had helped her writing to flow more easily).

In the past, I've often been caught out by the physical methodology getting in my way. And limited time. That led me to focus on what seemed important (with the habit stopping when it no longer was), and books (printed diaries/plain notebooks) which then became inconvenient. And I've tried so many digital methods without ever getting going seriously with any of them. At least with the pen and papers ones, I still find the ones made years ago interesting today. But in recent years I've never been able to do more than a few days at a time in a paper diary, so digital it has to be.

I tried a plain document approach using Obsidian, but that became messy and not very useful. So as my system is opening again, I've returned to Diarium, which I first looked at in March last year before encountering Obsidian. AND I'm having another go with dictation on the phone. The availability suits me well and I'm accustomed to dictating, even if it is never as fast as typing, when it feels as if it ought to be faster. Worked okay so far, but very early days, so mostly likely another false start; maybe not because the Woolf model could easily work for me. And I'm not limited to dictation or the phone. I expect to export regularly into .txt files.

But the dictation works  remarkably well. 'Marques de Riscal, Rioja Reserva 2016' without a hitch. I was well impressed.

340

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 17, 2021, 05:13 PM »

I've not been following the development of Obsidian that closely recently. It continues apace. Multiple plugins and themes now - though I'm aware that some of them on occasion have caused data loss. Many still look for Roam features, implemented exactly the way Roam does it. Hosts of other improvements and tweaks that sometimes catch out even experienced users. If most users use a large number of them, I can foresee the day in a few years where switching to anything else will become very hard because their preferred features aren't all available elsewhere; or they'll gradually give up and start again with another program. I think giving up will be frequent anyway because so many users are students who won't have the same needs once they finish their courses and the system they have built with Obsidian will have been tweaked and fine tuned into inflexibility.

We'll see.
Won't be an issue for me because I'm staying primitive.
I'm limiting my markdown formatting to headings and very occasional text (italic, bold, underline, strikethrough) = and half of that isn't really markdown. Maybe lists. Plus wikilinks. Plus images.
Most of what I do works perfectly well as pure .txt.
Editing and reviewing needs much more than markdown can provide and I will continue to switch to other programs for those.

341

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« Last post by Dormouse on January 17, 2021, 02:06 PM »

It's never been an issue for me: I always typed d anyway 

Was going to check  on Firefox, but then found that I hadn't installed it.

342

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 03, 2021, 02:22 PM »

For navigating, I basically use the sidebar where the files are listed, and the graph webbing view.

-superboyac (December 31, 2020, 12:27 AM)

I was interested because I find I'm ignoring most options.
I virtually never use the graph or the file explorer sidebar.
I do use links (backlinks sometimes), tags and search - and that's about it. I use my nested vaults as an easy way to limit the available files and would expect to use MOC (Maps of Content = indices) when they become useful.

343

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 03, 2021, 02:14 PM »

Is there a way in obsidian to get a toolbar for markup? 

-BGM (December 31, 2020, 08:41 AM)

I'd suggest just using Typora as your front end until Obsidian has its WYSIWYG editor. They both update fast, meaning they can be used at the same time.

344

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to easily and quickly browse a sound library (and hear previews)?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 14, 2020, 07:46 PM »

The last good version (IMO) of WinAmp was v2.x IIRC

-Deozaan (December 14, 2020, 01:41 AM)

Winamp 2.10 was released March 1999, and AOL took the company over in June of that year; v3 not coming out until 2002 when AOL itself had merged with Time-Warner.
Gnutella was released in 2000, until AOL ordered it taken down. Thereafter, he released programs, and AOL would take them down until he finally resigned in 2004.
He's shown no sign of ever wanting to sell Reaper.

I don't know if that's good or bad.

-Deozaan (December 14, 2020, 01:41 AM)

So I'd say it should be seen as good.

345

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to easily and quickly browse a sound library (and hear previews)?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 13, 2020, 05:46 PM »

I noticed that 1by1 has winamp plugin support,
which reminded me
fwiw, that the founder/main developer of Reaper was the founder/original developer of WinAmp (and Gnutella). v1 of Reaper was in 2006, and it's now on v6.

346

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to easily and quickly browse a sound library (and hear previews)?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 08, 2020, 07:15 PM »

Reaper has a Media Explorer. It's enough for most users, though some don't like way it looks/works.

Free if you decide to carry on using it without paying after the two months trial,  which is what most users do. As it's a DAW, the media explorer is only a tiny part of its functionality.

Simple it isn't, but I doubt you'd have difficulty with the media explorer.

347

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

« Last post by Dormouse on December 07, 2020, 08:12 PM »

I prefer Obsidian to navigate my content

-superboyac (December 04, 2020, 12:44 PM)

Which features of Obsidian do you use when navigating?

348

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

« Last post by Dormouse on December 04, 2020, 07:24 PM »

One huge issue for me, having many files, is the whole file explorer set up. None of these programs are great. Obsidian possibly best because it has the greatest variety of ways of finding files (folder, search, tags, regex, graph), but convenience in everyday use is important.

Another issue is how well the editor/program integrates into a system where there are many types of files. Again I don't think any of them are great for doing this.

349

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

« Last post by Dormouse on December 04, 2020, 07:15 PM »

I prefer using Zettlr to write my content,

-superboyac (December 04, 2020, 12:44 PM)

I'm often not very fussed about what I actually write in. Sometimes my choice will depend on a feature I want for that particular use.
For instance folding (which I use a lot):
Typora doesn't seem to have it;
Zettlr is better (headings);
Obsidian is better still (headings and outlines)
and WriteMonkey is best (no obvious limitation).
I admit I might have missed a use somewhere above - I've not tested in detail, just what I've found in use.

350

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

« Last post by Dormouse on December 04, 2020, 07:08 PM »

I'm still using TreeDBNotes

-BGM (December 04, 2020, 10:09 AM)

TreeDBNotes is very different to all of these, so you'd probably need to have decided to move on. And if that's your starting point, you'll know what you want to keep and what you'd like to add.