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Last post Author Topic: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten  (Read 495408 times)

wraith808

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #975 on: January 03, 2022, 08:51 PM »
Non-markdown format is not a big issue for me as long as it's plain text. There's pandoc. I moved from .md to zimwiki with it, no problems.

Now that we are talking, I find markdown a poor choice; the spec is poor (one blog bost!), there are multiple implementations/flavors, and it doesn't have good solutions for tables, embedding video etc (other than reverting to html). It forces apps to run a browser (or worse, embed it) to render it too.

For a killer plaintext format, check asciidoc. That was my choice before I went back to zim.

Check the plugins for zim too.

Other than collaboration (zim is a single player game), I'm very satisfied. Never been this satisfied with a software choice before.

I did check asciidoc. The problem with it is the same as beta vs VHS, i.e. adoption rates. Markdown is pretty much everywhere, so there are several options for editors. Asciidoc, not so much. And in all honesty, every format has it's good and bad. So I decided on MD and went with it, so others are not really attractive to me.

My own observation is that markdown claims to be simple and human readable. But it isn't without a rosetta Stone equivalent.

Depends on what you mean by human-readable. If you're talking like a formatted document, then none are going to be WYSIWYG- that's the point. But you can read it, unlike, for instance a Word Document. I think that's all that's meant by human-readable.

Dormouse

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« Last Edit: January 25, 2022, 12:01 PM by Dormouse, Reason: Updated with more comparisons »

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #977 on: January 14, 2022, 04:45 PM »
I'm not saying that you should adopt asciidoc vs markdown, only that converting between any of these text formats is easy now with things like pandoc. This is why zimwiki's format is pretty solid as a choice. And the spec is clearer (worst case scenario that the tool goes away, I can still read it and render it easy.

Try it and you will see how much of a difference it makes on typing latency. It 'feels' different. You can measure with typometer (From Pavel Faltin).

superboyac

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #978 on: January 17, 2022, 03:30 PM »
While I agree there are better formats than markdown, I don't even care anymore lol.  For me, I have achieved the dream of writing text files any way I wish (as long as it's markdown format loll), in terms of I can do it in a text editor, obsidian, zettlr, who cares.  Beautiful!  Next, I can have webpages created instantly as I modify.  To me, this setup is basically future-proof, and now I'm just creating content.

Also, I am pleased to say I am maturing in my use of the whole zettelkestan method.  THe last couple of years, I've been trying to "follow the rules" and so forth while I learn and adopt it.  But now I see it doesn't matter what the rules are, but the ideas are good.  I got into a habit of making fairly long notes, as once I start writing I just go.  But now I see the value of having short, concise rules as going back to read or use the notes is not very productive when they are long.  So now I'm in the phase of shortening the longer notes and linking them etc.

I don't do any of the unique numbering thing.  I label everything in plain english, I don't care.  I let the software keep track of the links.  I use yaml headers to manage slugs and titles properly. 

I am now (for certain subjects I have started) at a point where I can write a fairly long essay or chapter of a book by just opening notes up and reading while writing stuff (almost without thinking) because all the details I've already analyzed are right there.

At one point, I thought the value was going to be to write all these notes, then I can simply stitch them together.  SO i was very picky about what i wrote and how they are organized.  BUt now I'm not picky about either of those.  Because its faster just to rewrite as needed.  The benefit is having the key analytical stuff right there, no time wasted re-analyzing or figuring out the flow or logic.  THat's where the productivity has come in for me.

SO that's my update!!

superboyac

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #979 on: January 17, 2022, 04:25 PM »
Oh another update....
you guys know I love that Emanote software.  I worked with the guy to create a way to easily install it on Windows with proper live file syncing and website updating.  Instructions found here:

https://github.com/s...d/emanote/issues/230

wraith808

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #980 on: January 17, 2022, 04:48 PM »
While I agree there are better formats than markdown, I don't even care anymore lol.  For me, I have achieved the dream of writing text files any way I wish (as long as it's markdown format loll), in terms of I can do it in a text editor, obsidian, zettlr, who cares.  Beautiful!  Next, I can have webpages created instantly as I modify.  To me, this setup is basically future-proof, and now I'm just creating content.

This sums it up for me.

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #981 on: January 18, 2022, 09:59 AM »
Zim can produce sites that are very similar to what emanote does (if I got it right). I'm seriously considering having a public facing website (and internal docs) in zim.

The one thing I don't think it solves well is collaboration/molecular permissions.

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #982 on: January 18, 2022, 10:00 AM »
How do you guys collaborate with others (if at all) when using plain text? Say real time (like gdocs; MDhack for example) or asynchronoulsly (github for example)?

wraith808

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #983 on: January 18, 2022, 12:47 PM »
How do you guys collaborate with others (if at all) when using plain text? Say real time (like gdocs; MDhack for example) or asynchronoulsly (github for example)?

Liveshare, Cryptpad, HackMD and/or gdocs (which one depends on who I need to collaborate with), or for longer term, github or bitbucket.

superboyac

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #984 on: January 18, 2022, 01:01 PM »
Zim can produce sites that are very similar to what emanote does (if I got it right). I'm seriously considering having a public facing website (and internal docs) in zim.

The one thing I don't think it solves well is collaboration/molecular permissions.
zim is a very nice all in one solution.  It does make webpages too!  i could see myself replacing onenote with zim.  but the website thing, i feel emanote has better features under the hood.  and more to come!

superboyac

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #985 on: January 19, 2022, 02:49 PM »
More on Zim:
what a great all in one solution!  I'm going to create a mini-book using it.  Fine piece of FREE ass.

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #986 on: January 21, 2022, 01:54 PM »
Cryptpad is great, no idea it existed!
if it could import zim files and keep the links it'd be a wonderful way of requesting comments.

rjbull

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #987 on: January 24, 2022, 02:57 PM »
zim https://zim-wiki.org/
It's everything I wanted from a notetaking tool.

Sadly, no mobile version, despite several for various flavours of Unix/Linux/BSD.

Dormouse

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #988 on: January 25, 2022, 11:52 AM »
I really don't remember ever knowing that OneNote did wikilinks.
Same way as Obsidian. Type them in and click to create new note if one doesn't already exist.
Don't think there are backlinks though.

Also has handles to move markdown lines around in document.

Not mesmerising, but I didn't know that. Though you could probably fill several libraries with all the things I don't know about OneNote.

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #989 on: January 28, 2022, 02:50 PM »
Check hypernote if you want something zettel-like for the web and with collaboration built in

wraith808

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #990 on: January 28, 2022, 09:20 PM »
Check hypernote if you want something zettel-like for the web and with collaboration built in

I looked up hypernote and found two different ones:

https://hypernote.io/
https://zenkit.com/en/hypernotes/

Is either one of those what you were referring to?

Dormouse

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #991 on: January 29, 2022, 04:46 AM »
How do you guys collaborate with others (if at all) when using plain text? Say real time (like gdocs; MDhack for example) or asynchronoulsly (github for example)?
I don't at all.
When other people send me stuff, I work with whatever format they are using themselves. Usually that will be a form of rich text.
I don't like joint working when I'm in the process, so anything I do I save in a number of formats (docx, md & txt, pdf, epub, mobi) and leave them to choose how they want to do it at their end. Sometimes they will read in epub/mobi and do detailed comments in docx, which we will then use going forward. Very few people I work with use plaintext, given an option.

Nod5

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #992 on: January 29, 2022, 02:58 PM »
The block protocol
https://www.joelonso...-better-with-blocks/
https://blockprotocol.org/
I'm curious if it will take off and how it might change note taking software. Could help with interoperability and data migration.

Dormouse

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #993 on: February 01, 2022, 06:30 AM »
For me this process started as a response to a changing software environment.
I want to control what stuff is local and what is on the net. I want to control access. I want to be able to use my stuff on Linux, Android, iOS. Maybe even Mac. I want to be able to work on all my devices. I don't want my workflows constantly disrupted by software updates or bugs.

I think I've gone a long way, but it's starting to feel that software might be trying to pull me backwards.
I'm happy with large plaintext files and their OPML equivalents. Both interpreted accurately by many programs. They contain their own structures. I'm okay with wikilinks - they're workflow effective, understood by quite a lot of programs and are easily read
Not quite so convinced by markdown - it's designed around coder habits and needs - but it is ubiquitous. Supplementing it with what I need, or coping with it's design decisions is a constant irritant in my workflow.

Very uncomfortable with Obsidian's direction (I'll address that in another post). Am keeping a close on on alternative markdown editors and PKM programs. Am likely to spend more time in Workflowy. But I will still maintain focus on the standalone file foundation.

Dormouse

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #994 on: February 01, 2022, 11:16 AM »
Not quite so convinced by markdown - it's designed around coder habits and needs - but it is ubiquitous. Supplementing it with what I need, or coping with it's design decisions is a constant irritant in my workflow.
I've even thought about developing my own editor and markup language. Not seriously, but I have thought about what I'd remove (lots), what I'd improve (eg tables), what I'd add (eg colour, underline) and what I'd extend (eg header levels). Even thought about easiest way of doing it.

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #995 on: February 02, 2022, 04:45 AM »
Very uncomfortable with Obsidian's direction (I'll address that in another post).
Very curious, please link here.

Obsidian has better filtering for graph stuff.
I just use it to visualize things better than in zim, where graphs are static and cannot be filtered in any way.
Obsidian UX bugs me.

At that point you could just use a 'real' graph editor from graphviz format like https://github.com/ArsMasiuk/qvge.

Here's the author saying graph stuff is not in his priority list:
https://github.com/z...iki/discussions/1892

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #996 on: February 02, 2022, 02:52 PM »
https://zenkit.com/en/hypernotes/

Is either one of those what you were referring to?

The second one

wraith808

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #997 on: February 02, 2022, 07:47 PM »
https://zenkit.com/en/hypernotes/

Is either one of those what you were referring to?

The second one

Unless I was willing to pay, I wouldn't use that with a max of 10k notes.

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #998 on: February 03, 2022, 03:26 AM »
I have found one potential problem in zim. Graph view is a second class citizen. It's static (can't filter, search, group etc), it's slow to render (>10s for large graphs), and the lead dev doesn't have plans to make  it better.

Given the tremendous competitive pressure in this space, this could be enough for me to move to an alternative. After years of adding notes, thinking with the graph view starts gaining value.

Problem is most of the competitors are browser based/electron, and that means typing latency is very high. I find typing latency very important (measure it with typometer from Pavel Faltin). If you can convince yourself that it doesn't matter, then by all means you an use any browser-based tool for writing... I can't :)

urlwolf

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Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
« Reply #999 on: February 03, 2022, 07:15 AM »
In fact, zim has the least firepower (in devs) of all these 'new apps' that take notetaking to a next level.
Comparing it with roam, athens, or remnote is unfair as those apps have millions in the bank and hordes of developers. Not to mention an active community.

Zim is written mostly by one dev, Jaap, who is really amazing and dedicated, but has a fulltime job and does zim on his spare time! The tech stack (python instead of JS/electron) makes it very difficult to implement dynamic graphs. There are great libs for electron but none that I know of for python.

Jaap has a strong sense of design and simplicity. It has made zim a monumentally useful app. And it's still the fastest UX of all notetaking apps. His decision to stick to desktop and not doing electron crap IS the killer feature.

It's only when reaching 1000s of notes in zim that I'm starting to value more the advantages of a dynamic graph. I know people here moved to obsidian for the graph but ended up not using it very much. I was of the same opinion (graph is a gimmick) but now with many notes I would love to link them graphically.