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

[urlwolf]

This is very interesting:
https://alloy.dev/essays/formative.html

They seem to be in for the long run. More so than most of these VC funded companies that (as the article describes) have competing incentives

[urlwolf]

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.

-Dormouse (February 09, 2022, 04:15 AM)

I'm with you that talking about how brains work is lazy writing. I'm very happy with the feature though and I think I just realized it helps me writing better, with core ideas as text and 'supplemental material' as rich notes. The text should flow without using those notes. And because you can embed the notes on anything (wordpress, etc), this feature may extend to everything you write.

It's not a flashy feature, and it's easy to copy, but I suspect they are onto something here!

[BGM]

Fellas, here's one called Effie, and it's giveaway, this Feb 10, 2022 (today):
https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/effie/

I'm going to give it a spin.

[update] eh, never mind; I read the comments and the giveaway part is only for 6 months of pro features.  Nah, I'm not interested in any subscription apps.

[updated update]
Actually, I ran the installer, but I can't use it unless I "sign in" with at least my google account.  Nope, not for me, and I'm sure not for this thread.  Sorry for the noise!

[BGM]

Here's a link for good 'ole Keynote.
https://github.com/dpradov/keynote-nf

[Dormouse]

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).

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[urlwolf]

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

[Dormouse]

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.

[urlwolf]

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.

[Dormouse]

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?

[Dormouse]

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.

[urlwolf]

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.

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. Some don't even provide a way to explicitly tell it the order of notes. Zim (my former fave) had folders and network but there was no easy way to sort the notes on a folder, or to export  folder as a single txt or .doc.

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.

Example:
https://fortelabs.co...nowledge-management/

I never cared for the 3-pane evernote view. Always disliked evernote, even before they ruined their product about  5 years ago. But 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

It kinda discourages you to go too deep in an outline, and I think that's a good thing.

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[superboyac]

Scrivener

-Dormouse (February 12, 2022, 11:59 AM)

Totally agree about Scrivener 100%!! LOLLL

THere is one worse however, if you remember Liquid Story Binder. LOLLLLL

[urlwolf]

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.

-Dormouse (February 12, 2022, 11:48 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?

There's a bit of cognitive overhead because though hoisting makes this unnecessary, we keep trying to refer to the position the note is in in the long file. "Ah, that was at the beginning" (uses scrollbar to go there). Teleporting with search and hoisting makes that model not so useful. Or is it? I've never used a giant outline, I have 3400 notes right now so it'd be big.

I did use a giant text file for a while with an editor for a while. I had this 'mental reference' of where in the file the note was, which I think is an unnecessary appendage given how easy teleporting is. Or clicking tags. Or navigating the network. Unless the order has meaning in itself (you are writing a book or a big doc), not sure why the notetaking tool should keep order.

[urlwolf]

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?

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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.

[Dormouse]

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