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

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Dormouse:
It's certainly very different than the way i currently approach notetaking now, which is to collect the actual information and store it, like an archivist.
Basically, when I use onenote, im not really using a system or method of any kind.  I am just collecting notes into the interface presented to me by onenote.  It may not even be very "efficient" or terribly productive.  But its there when i need it.-superboyac (October 25, 2019, 01:23 PM)
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Collecting information can be important. Is important.
But that's not what the zettel themselves are. Unless I have read it all wrong.

I know it is common now to advise students to listen to lectures and think about what is being said rather than writing down facts. That's always what I did, so it makes sense to me.
I can see why collecting thoughts might work as a productive system. It encourages reflection. Anything that will be written, developed or otherwise used is most like to use thoughts backed by information rather than the reverse. The information is still collected, but its no longer doing the driving.

I can see that his system meant that he collected his thoughts when he was reading in a format that made future thinking and use easier. When he was working things out, he played with his cards, making new ones when he had new thoughts. And when he came to write something up, he just went through the selected cards and wrote them out. Simples.

But that's just my conceptualisation for now. It might be wrong. (Though I think it is a good working system for nearly anything irrespective.)

PS When I collected prints of academic papers in pre-computer (and post tbh) days, I gave them all a number and put them in a box file with a number; still have shelves and shelves of them. I had an index that told me where things were. Not entirely dissimilar and a reaction to available technologies. But no record of my thoughts and no card index: I can see that would have been better had I ever the time to have done it.

Nod5:
Here are some tools I find very useful for storing and retrieving information in plaintext files. I suppose most are very well known to many DC members reading this thread already, but anyway...

- FindAndRunRobot (FARR)
Program/file launcher with powerful, customizable aliases.
https://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/farr

- Everything
Instantly find any filename/path on any drive that match a search string.
https://www.voidtools.com/

- grepWin
Handy GUI for regex search inside plaintext files.
Fast enough when searching a limited set of folders.
Also does batch find and replace in multiple plaintext files.
https://github.com/stefankueng/grepWin

- ripgrep
Super fast command line regex search inside plaintext files.
Useful for finding a string inside some plaintext note when the string is not in the filename/filepath and you have no clue what folder the file with the string is in.
https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

- AutoHotkey
For making scripts to superpower FARR aliases and quickly jump/switch between these other tools and text viewers/editors and File Explorer.
https://www.autohotkey.com/

- VS Code or some other general purpose code editor.
For powerful plaintext viewing, editing and formatting. Also for writing Markdown with preview.
The interface is more complex than for some standalone Markdown editors. But on the plus side code editors are power tools for transforming and navigating plaintext in a lot of ways that tend to come in handy sooner or later.
https://code.visualstudio.com/

The above tools work better when you do these things:

1. put tags in the filenames of plaintext files

2. make .txt plaintext "companion files" with tags in filename and notes inside next to non-plaintext files.

3. organize files at least roughly into (sub)folders based on topic, context or life domain. Put tags in foldernames.

4. when needed tag filenames/foldernames with timestamps (YYMMDD at minimum or YYYYMMDDhhmmss) to make them more unique.

You can speed up 1-4 with AutoHotkey, of course :)

The neat thing with unique filenames is that you can use them as "quasi hyperlinks" in plaintext. Like so: An AutoHotkey hotkey takes the current selection in the active VS Code window (or Notepad or any other plaintext editor/viewer you want), uses Everything under the hood to find the one unique matching full filepath, and then acts on it (open/run the file, open its folder in Explorer, ...). For example a file you name "food korean 191025.txt" will likely remain unique and so can be used as a short and quick quasi hyperlink.

The search tools FARR/Everything can also be used as bookmark managers, since URLs can be stored as individual plaintext .url files with tagged filenames.

Dormouse:
Here are some tools I find very useful for storing and retrieving information in plaintext files. I suppose most are very well known to many DC members reading this thread already, but anyway...-Nod5 (October 25, 2019, 05:10 PM)
--- End quote ---
Thanks for these and the methodologies. I'm aware of most of the programs; use Everything and have always been a bit scared of the learning required for AHK. Used FARR once, but mostly prefer using the mouse; maybe I should look at it again.

I don't want to be convinced to use plaintext.  :'( It feels a further bump down the slope from Markdown.  :'( I'm just a humble writer & researcher (among other things admittedly) not a coder.  :'( I do appreciate that I may need to become familiar with some of these programs (or equivalents), but will grumble every step of the way. And will avoid anything I can.

I'll certainly try those grep programs. And I've always known that AHK would be good for me.

Dormouse:
1. put tags in the filenames of plaintext files-Nod5 (October 25, 2019, 05:10 PM)
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Isn't there a problem with filename tags in that links are broken every time you add or remove a tag?

Dormouse:
2. make .txt plaintext "companion files" with tags in filename and notes inside next to non-plaintext files.-Nod5 (October 25, 2019, 05:10 PM)
--- End quote ---
So, same name as companion except .txt ?

Would this be a way of tagging the companion?

Any specific purpose for the notes?

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