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551

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

« Last post by Dormouse on June 03, 2020, 09:39 AM »

So, less than a month ago I thought that I had my new system all sorted.
And suddenly it feels like all change without me ever using it.

The triggers were:
the new programs mentioned here
the pursuit of better editing
and consideration of some of Andy Matuschak's notes.

The revised system is less finished since many components and potential components are in active and rapid development.
The workflow, for now, takes me back to separate documents being key elements though link management is still in a database.
It fits, roughly, within a zettelkasten system. even if I'm not using it as such.

I described the workflow above as a watermill flow system, and it is very similar to the original concept. The different stages (managed by tags rather than folders) are all named after types of room or building rather than the usage. This is to take advantage of the richer associations of the words making it always clear where I am. The vestibule name is particularly important - a vestibule is a very small room and it emphasises the limited capacity. The idea of the reserve pool makes it very easy to chuck things out without working on them - they're not lost and still available. I decided to separate my own work from the library because I know exactly what permissions I have and reuse is easy.

Mostly I will be in markdown documents, but I will edit in rich text as previously.

Programs:

I can write in any text program. And probably will since I have a tendency to do each multipart piece in different software - I assume the different environment makes it easier to focus on that piece.

552

General Software Discussion / Notion, Obsidian, Roam - progress so far

« Last post by Dormouse on June 03, 2020, 09:36 AM »

Notion - describes itself as all-in-one, which I'm not looking for,  and the kanban doesn't seem as good as Trello. I will keep probing: I wonder whether its database can be used as a writer's grid, replacing my current spreadsheet use. Very much on back burner.

Obsidian - very early stages,  so no point in getting hung up on features. Mostly looks like something I'd use, and ticks the boxes identified at the start of the thread. Slightly bemused by search only being within a vaults. I'll use it for now.  When I can,  since it is Windows only. The concept works well for me.

Roam - I'll try it when I can. I've seen $15 a month bandied around as a minimum cost when it starts charging. There was mention of $500 up front for  5 years access ($8.33 a month) on twitter which had over 1k indicating acceptance despite a 5 year lock in. I assume that raising money for the next stage has to be the name of their game right now, given the length of their waiting list. fwiw, you can lock in $4 monthly for sync with Obsidian soon as an early bird.

I have some concerns about getting heavily into a program with a community dominated by zettelkasteners because their thinking generally seems so different to mine.

553

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

« Last post by Dormouse on June 02, 2020, 05:09 PM »

Andy Matuschak seems to like fixed relationships between notes.
He treats tags as categories (though I've no idea if he uses them).
He uses fixed links between notes, and further advocates that the nature of each link be defined.
He also suggests that every note has a full descriptive title.

I like fuzzy tags, links that are often undefined, and titles that are only as detailed as you want to make them - and I'm not entirely convinced that titles are necessary at all.

I think that the more you tie down these details the more inflexible the pattern of thought is likely to be when revisited.

554

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

« Last post by Dormouse on June 02, 2020, 04:29 PM »

How to use Roam Research: a tool for metacognition:
https://nesslabs.com/roam-research

-panzer (June 02, 2020, 11:57 AM)

The brain is basically a neural network—a mesh of neurons all interacting with each other.

I always find it very annoying when people use an inaccurate and incomplete description of the way the brain works to support an idea that is only loosely related to brain function.

I will try Roam out when I get access, but likening it to a mindmap with notes would tend to put me off. I appreciate that zettelkasteners believe in graphs of their notes, but there seems to be a failure to appreciate that the graphs mostly reflect the material coming in and the sequence of note making. They illuminate only up to a point.

555

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 07:55 PM »

I've just realised that one big advantage of sticking to my current editing system is greater confidence that have the text clean at the end. I can simply save as text, and everything else is gone. Can't do that if it's a markdown file.

556

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 07:16 PM »

Obsidian actually does do most of what I expected. All the markdown features seem to work.  I can get the preview pane to take most of the space; doesn't really help for editing because I can't use the mouse to change colours easily. That's not really a problem since I'll just stick to what I do now. Links work OK - though I saw mention somewhere of ability to link to a heading,  but I haven't worked out how to do that.
Be interesting when I can compare to Roam, which is further ahead in development. No obvious reason I wouldn't use it as primary note taker,  assuming it develops as you would expect.  Not an option for now without an Android version.
But easy to import my other notes.

Ultimately there's a question of search speed etc; impossible to guess where that will go.

557

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 04:52 PM »

Thanks. It seems so important to get how something works.  I can see what it does and how it is also like a wiki. But that's not enough to work out if I'd use it.
I saw a set of very impressive Notion pages on Reddit - not that they did anything I wanted. I'll play more with Obsidian when I'm on a PC and try to find a way of setting Notion up.
The underlying question is whether I base everything on separate documents or use one of these to manage them. Trello is different: it can link to notes and documents, but doesn't make them. But the cards and boards are very quick and easy to set up and change. Notion seems able to do much more but doesn't seem as smooth.
I don't get Roam enough to know whether I'd use it, I can only read about other people's usage. Obsidian seems a good fit for what's in my mind,  but I need an android version to test it out properly.
I can test Notion,  and Trello I like.
I do like backwards links conceptually.

PS - I appear to have seen masses of references to transclusion since Nod raised it as an issue.

558

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 03:15 PM »

I'll have to look more for guides and instructions.  I try the boards, but they feel clumsy and I can't get them to do what I want. Yet I found Trello intuitive.

I'll continue checking it out but hard to have a full go when I can't compare with Obsidian or Roam, and I'm unclear about whether I'm testing them out as note-makers and hubs, or hubs alone or for writing in.

For the moment,  I'll probably make notes using Markor or Epsilon Notes and work out where I go next later. #tag seems to be generally accepted now.  I prefer [[ for links.

559

General Software Discussion / Input system

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 10:45 AM »

I'm visualising the input system as being like the system for a watermill.  The need is to get useful work out of a very large water flow that's variable in volume and speed. So you cut a side channel,  usually designed with an easy gradient at the beginning, which will eventually return to the river. There will be a grill, or grills, to remove rubbish. A side channel off that, again with a filter, which will go to the mill. A large pool to hold water as a reserve against a low flow in the river. A small pool ready for immediate use. A sluice with sluice gates so that the wheel receives the exact amount of water needed to drive the machinery in use at the time.

So lots of stuff is seen or read but never enters the system. There's a holding area with stuff that may never be processed (searchable, but not tagged or processed). An inbox ready for processing (any excess being returned to the reserve pool or archive). The processed stuff leaves the wheel tagged, and maybe linked, joining the central zettelkasten source archive. The machinery produces proper usable notes suitable for building who-knows-whats.

So for names:
Hoard Archive (the large reserve pool)
Inbox Vestibule (small pool ready to power processing)
Sources Library (archive that's been processed in the production of Notes)
Scriptorium (notes and all other unpublished material I have written myself,  essentially work in progress at all stages)
Reading Room (my published work)
Attics (processed items not considered worth keeping in Library -  I realised that simply putting them in Archive (unprocessed) or throwing them away completely might mean that they were processed again in future because they give initial impression of being interesting).
Chapter House - for anything requiring action: todo lists, emails etc.

Andy and Christian each have complex systems of initial scribbles which they sort into piles with each pile as a collection being capable of producing a single Note. I may do less scribbling.

560

General Software Discussion / Knowledge workers? Tags and links

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 07:47 AM »

Everyone involved in these projects and zettelkasten seems to describe themselves as knowledge workers and what they do as knowledge work. Despite a mass of evidence that could be taken to the contrary, I would never describe myself as a knowledge worker. And I actually believe it would misdescribe what I do.

I have an excellent memory over a day/week/month but I have trained myself to progressively bury the detail. When the detail is buried, I retain associations and possibilities in an ever-flowing probability matrix. Useless at University Challenge,  always win at Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. This is a normal process, but many, or most, have tried to train themselves to retain detail when I have gone in the opposite direction. Some people with extreme Aspergers have a natural tendency to remember detail and work with details, but have very fixed associations, with certainties rather than probabilities. There are strengths to both approaches.

So back to knowledge work. I don't want to have a system that is detail oriented, though many people may. I don't need a system that will add flexibility although I do want one that supports it. I want a system that will store pointers to the detail.

Which brings me to the issue of tags and links. Links are always fixed and hard, even if a link network has a degree of fluidity. Tags are often described as fixed categories - but ad hoc tags can be regarded as a set of fuzzy associations. Ideally,  I believe, links should be variable in strength.

Everything depends on who is using it and how it is used.

561

General Software Discussion / Notion, Obsidian, Roam - issues with markdown

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 07:13 AM »

One of the reasons I'm interested is that I'm very aware that my front end is deficient, especially since the android switch.
I see that they are all grappling with the lack of common instructions and sometimes with sufficient extensions. Obsidian, according to latest discord posts, suggests that they use HyperMD extension of code mirror; alternatively commonmark with a few extras. Development in general would I'm sure be faster if there were a common and sufficient standard.
All the community needs to do is avoid conflicting instructions and have a default acceptance of the need for any extensions proposed (though reserving the ability to change or refine the proposed commands).

I know it won't happen but as a potential user, it's very annoying.

562

General Software Discussion / Notion, Obsidian, Roam

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 04:53 AM »

I do recognise a huge amount of excitement about all of these, and two are still effectively in beta. Masses of plugins being written.
I'm a long way down the Roam waiting list and was tired when I installed Obsidian. Notion doesn't seem to have as smooth a workflow as I expected,  but that probably just means I need to learn it better.  Trello seemed more intuitive, but is at the stage of minor tweaks and additions. Obsidian has its development plan on Trello. All have kanban options.

Roam and Obsidian seem to be the most direct competitors.

I doubt if any would exist without plaintext.

I suspect that Big Tech is already following progress with an eye to developing their own or buying one out. Apple would want to take it behind their wall,  Google would want to make it work with their other research products or incorporate it totally. Is it only Microsoft that have any track record in keeping the independent development community? I'm sure they all know that at this stage  the communities need freedom to develop and would be inhibited by any takeover,  so I doubt one will happen soon.

563

General Software Discussion / Zkn note system

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 04:32 AM »

Luhmann sat down for two hours in the evening.  Matuschak has two hours at 11 am. I'm just not that disciplined and neither do I have that kind of timetable. Matuschak takes some of these ideas from Christian at zettelkasten.de, so I assume he does too.

OTOH, I notice that they take many ephemeral notes they have to process later. I'm lucky in having an excellent memory, and automatically remember much of what they record.

I notice that all three use pen and paper for this initial collection. I agree at times that typing interrupts thinking where writing doesn't,  which is why I buy phones and tablets with good pen functions. Some things I write earlier rather than later,  but I doubt I will ever be able to make notes in book margins as Matuschak does: the irritation of disrupted reading from underlining, highlighting and comments in secondhand books meant I have a total antipathy to doing it myself - feels disrespectful to the books and possible future readers. Can't see myself overcoming that, even if I recognise the efficiency.  At least one member of my family works like that.

Christian hoards, Andy dumps - but both make sure that they have a working inbox that empties as well as fills. iirc they both conceptually use GTD (I rapidly found that system didn't work for me). I notice that Roam is built around forward and backward links and that the waiting list questionnaire mentions GTD, zettelkasten and theories of everything. Seems to be a semi-official zettelkasten system.

564

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 31, 2020, 03:33 AM »

If you use writage, you might want to also take a look at Writing Outliner.  It helps to organize docx into projects.

-wraith808 (May 30, 2020, 03:55 PM)

Let's hope it doesn't come to that after all my years advising people never to write in Word. Lingua franca is one thing but trapping myself within the borders is another.
But it is something to bear in mind.
When it comes to it, the majority of documents I'm sent to comment/review/edit come in docx format, though I know some were written in Google docs. Most of the rest come as links to Docs files.

565

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 30, 2020, 07:45 AM »

I'd always dismissed Roam because it's online only.

-Dormouse (May 30, 2020, 06:41 AM)

And, of course,  if it had local clients it might not have had to stop accepting new users.
Robust isn't a word that comes to mind when trying to evaluate basing a working system on it.

566

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 30, 2020, 06:55 AM »

I would agree that such a feature would be good for acceptance of either MarkDown or AsciiDoc as somewhat of a replacement of WordPad in Windows. Perhaps even Word itself.

-Shades (May 27, 2020, 12:44 AM)

I'm starting to think 'Nail' and 'Head'.

Candidate 1 for setting the accepted standard for markdown - the plaintext community.
Candidate 2 - Microsoft introducing Markdown as an accepted format in Word.

567

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 30, 2020, 06:41 AM »

Roam Research - a note-taking tool for networked thought:
https://roamresearch.com/

https://www.youtube..../watch?v=vxOffM_tVHI

-panzer (May 30, 2020, 05:27 AM)

I'd always dismissed Roam because it's online only.
I have 3 Internet links:
Fixed telephone line - slow when it works.
4G through aerial to router and through phones - faster but very intermittent signal.
Long distance WiFi - fast but can occasionally be down for days at a time.
The telephone line has been taken down by someone shooting it (presumably they missed something else), by a very high hay lorry, by a farmer ploughing it up, and by the power company laying a new cable. And frequently by other more common failures.
I can't trust anything that's online only.

OTOH, I've noticed that they have just said offline is coming,  and if I'm considering Notion at all for anything,  I ought at least to test out Roam, so I will do that.

Nevertheless remain determined not to be trapped in a database,  and I'd want to see how the much-vaunted links work when they are exported to individual documents.

568

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 30, 2020, 02:30 AM »

Okay

Typora works as you type,  but that's it. Gives the impression it won't do color,  but will. Not usable with mouse,  so I  can't use it for editing. And isn't on Android.

I've given up on plan A.

Plan B. Write text, Edit in one of a variety of rich test options, Save as text, Export to publish. Markdown not excluded but not definitely included either. I already know this works and workflow functions.

Plan C. Use Notion. It will import. I can colour edit on screen including on Android. Will export as Markdown. Though apparently it may need cleaning up. And colour is the only editing tool it has. Can probably find a way to make it work. Big advantage is that it works on Android.

Plan D. Or maybe anyway. Writage. Writes Markdown and takes it into docx. Forces me to docx rather than rtf. Whatever - I'll go with the lingua franca. Convoluted workflow. But might act as lubricant in a workflow that's getting stuck. I've not tested this one yet.

Notes and other stuff I'm happy to write in Markdown. Main issue would be robust file management. Notion could be tempting if I was already using it, but it's another database. And unnecessary.

I noticed all the glitching and rough edges in these newer approaches.

569

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 29, 2020, 09:58 AM »

The reason I've been focusing on text editors,  despite the absence of an obvious fit for many of my needs, is that I see them as workers' tools. Tweaked and polished over many years for people who need to use them for production. One consequence of my system switch is the need to manage and work with many small text files, as well as a small number of very large ones. And that, I hope,  is what they can do.
Revisits many suggestions from earlier in the thread.

All the snazzy tools that seem better targeted at some of my needs, and which I will be checking out, are new. There will be glitches and rough edges and they may never get far enough to rub them down.

I recognise a huge difference between workers' tools and players' tools. And there's not many of the former for writers. WriteMonkey, Writers Cafe (now defunct) and yWriter. All work well and reliably if they're a good fit for what you want, though that's a small percentage of potential users. Possibly I'd add The Journal to this list. Three of them written by writers (I think it's OK to include The Journal in this) for their own use and the other by the writer's husband.
But not Scrivener. I think it's robust and I can see that it might support a number of efficient workflows, but I've not found any yet myself.

570

General Software Discussion / Text editors

« Last post by Dormouse on May 29, 2020, 09:29 AM »

I downloaded VSCode as it seems very popular and was supposed to be good for beginners. I'm obviously at sub beginner level. Though I did notice a WYSIWYG plugin for markdown.
I then downloaded Editpad Pro as it has been described as more intuitive and advertises itself as good for all writers and not just programmers. I'm pretty sure I can learn my way around it easily enough; seems to have a traditional MSOffice style of interface.

I'm not confident I can get it set up for full editing though. So plan B is basically to write in txt, import into rtf WP for editing and then finalise and save the document in markdown.

Maybe I will find a WYSIWYG markdown editor that will work. Typora seems the most likely at this stage. I'm sure one will come along at some point. Maybe i can set up Editpad or VSCode to do what I want.

571

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 28, 2020, 03:58 PM »

MDyna is a markdown notes application that syncs with Github gists, and much more:
https://mdyna.dev

-panzer (May 28, 2020, 02:11 PM)

Thanks!  That looks interesting!

-wraith808 (May 28, 2020, 03:08 PM)

I don't get anything when I click on it. I assume the site is down.

572

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 28, 2020, 03:03 PM »

Could also help: Many code editors let you tweak and toogle between different themes and highlight schemes. So one could use one where the format pops at times and one more discreet at other times. VS Code and other editors also have a quick toggle for zen mode (minimal mode, distraction free mode, ...) that hides most toolbars and buttons.

-Nod5 (May 28, 2020, 02:33 PM)

Yes. I'm already looking to check out text editors. From this thread, I have  Vim, neovim - with warning of steep learning curve, VSCode, Notepad++, and iirc UltraEdit and EditPad from another thread. I will search for other contenders.

I know that I won't cope with a steep learning curve unless I  can extend the time can work on a PC. And I have no experience of text editors,  though I think I did have Crimson in the past. Which leaves me wanting one thats intuitive and easy to learn and where I can switch off or ignore all functions that relate only to programming or programming languages. I remember Superboyac writing that EditPad was more intuitive than UltraEdit.

I don't actually need what most people consider distraction free, it makes no difference to me at all. But intrusions in the actual text are another thing completely.

Fiction,  fact, academic,  report are all the same to me. I need to work with the pure prose. Equations, graphs, tables, diagrams, images etc can all be separate - I'm used to journals that require them as separate pages.

Notes, journalese and web (if I did it, and I don't rule the possibility out) can include as much formatting as Markdown wants to throw at it without it impacting me at all. Attempted perfection never competes with speed for them.

573

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 28, 2020, 02:36 PM »

Some forums and other social media already use Markdown (see *Diaspora and Discourse)

-wraith808 (May 28, 2020, 09:23 AM)

If Markdown takes over the world,  I assume that all forums will switch to it.
Of course, it would have to be markdown with BBCode extensions.

574

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 28, 2020, 11:12 AM »

After reading that, I'd think that if you can get around the need for having editable markdown, https://hackmd.io would be stellar for this!

-wraith808 (May 27, 2020, 01:31 PM)

If you want to be able to edit in the preview, Texts does just that, which is the reason that I don't use it.  I like to have my hands on the actual text of the document, but this software does it WYSIWYG and the backing file is just Markdown.

-wraith808 (May 27, 2020, 10:56 AM)

For writing writing, txt is fine 99% of the time. I can do other bits separately.
For notes etc, I have no problem with markdown being visible as I write.

But for editing I have very specific requirements. I need colour. I need to be able to highlight etc with mouse or pen. I need comments and bookmarks.  And versions. And I need to be looking at what I'm working on not markup tags I haven't just added myself. And more probably.

I still won't care about the document formatting because that's the next stage. And I'm not sure there's an alternative to the infinite tweak/preview cycle there.

575

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

« Last post by Dormouse on May 28, 2020, 10:52 AM »

here is just a quick comment on reading Markdown text directly: I find it very easy after only a little practice

-Nod5 (May 27, 2020, 10:37 AM)

Maybe.
Well I think it will depend on the content.
The example you gave is 'choppy': every element is saying "here I am" and "this is how I relate" to the other elements closeby. If you were asked what you'd read today,  you wouldn't answer with something like this. There's no flow in the language,  no subtle interplay between words or content.

I agree with the example,  I have no problem with markdown for notes because it's not a distraction. But I do when I'm working on prose and I need to focus on the relationship between the content and language and how it flows and progresses.