Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
Dormouse:
But I'm thinking of switching to WM's project design. Will take me maybe five minutes to switch into that, and maybe half a minute to switch back again, so I'm hardly switching at all. Mostly a question of which view I use to write in.
-Dormouse (September 24, 2021, 06:52 AM)
--- End quote ---
It's not amazing that I have changed my mind again. When mind changing is so easy.
But the reason isn't so obvious - it's to make more use of web-based databased programs. And very surprisingly - since I have never used them previously, and never liked the way they worked - it's down to Dynalist and Workflowy. And Mindomo, which I was already using.
It starting when I delved into Aeon Timeline 3. Looked very good, but only synced with Ulysses (which I couldn't use) and Scrivener (which I could, but didn't want to) with import/export to CSV (workable, but much configuration required to use everything). It felt as if I was faced with trying to herd data scattered to the four winds of incompatibility. Matt (Timeline Dev) was open to the possibility of markdown import/export, and, in practice manual entry may be as efficient as anything else, but my mind was on the path to available options. Mindomo has many import/export options, so that wasn't a constraint, but I was looking for a common currency. Markdown is common (though most text apps are still into rich text), but lack of ideas on structure make it an unsuitable currency for databases; presumably why apps that use markdown internally still require arcane contortions for import/export. Plottr and Aeon Timeline both sync with Scrivener, but I can't like it as a permanent middle man/person/thing. Scrivener also does OPML; I haven't tested it, and some forum posts question how well it works, but it's an option nevertheless. Mindomo naturally does OPML, as do all(?) mindmappers; and outliners. Dynalist has the same developers as Obsidian and I know it uses markdown internally, so I thought I'd poke around.
I learned that either Workflowy has improved massively since I last looked, or I wasn't paying attention when I did. Or maybe my needs have simply changed, but Notes, hoisting, folding - and colour in Workflowy. Felt very easy and very nice. And remarkably similar to a markdown document. And Dynalist better in many ways. So OPML? Looks like a structured plaintext format; not obviously less human readable than markdown. So my million dollar question - how well can I get it into and out of markdown. How easily. And it turned out that it was both easy and well. Typora would do it. Logseq apparently does it. Even Dynalist. Not forgetting Mindomo. So I had to try the copy of my old whole MSS, prior to splitting - just an OPML export in Typora - and there it was in Dynalist and Workflowy. Complete in bullets and notes.
Going back the other way was straightforward from Dynalist, but not quite so from Workflowy - their colour syntax doesn't seem to work in markdown editors, so that would need a global search and replace. But doing that gives me all the colour in Obsidian. I am used to colour for editing, and this means I can stop most of my active use of word processors. So I can have my cake and eat it. D&W are very quick and easy on all devices. I have colour editing in W. I can use them for other things. They have none of the nice writer oriented features I like when writing, but I can write on anything and they are anyway fine for ad-hoc bits and very accessible. And I can still do my writing bulk in WriteMonkey. I see WriteMonkey 3 as having a very similar underlying approach (.json + attached .md files) to the outliners (database with .opml import/export.; nothing locked in a database but plaintext files supported by some database functionality - Obsidian itself is rather like that too.
So I'm going back to my whole document approach. I still see myself as based on files rather than databases, but now the files include OPML as well as markdown, txt, pdf etc
Of course, I haven't properly worked with it yet, only tried it out, and I'm sure there's a lot that can go wrong. But on we go.
Dormouse:
I'm sure there's a lot that can go wrong
-Dormouse (October 14, 2021, 05:20 PM)
--- End quote ---
Update 1 - Snag for some
It doesn't affect me, but formatted export from both Dynalist and Workflowy is a bit of a mess. I'm unaffected because I don't use formatting; I'm only interested in the colour export from Workflowy and I know how to fix that. And the bullet hierarchy translates perfectly to a header hierarchy through OPML.
But Workflowy formatted exports in notes don't maintain paragraphs (I've reported) even in Word.
Dynalist is supposed to be markdown based, but it seems to use a double underline for italic!?!
I've not tested systematically, since formatting is not something I expect to use. But anyone considering using exports from either should test their own use case before committing.
Small test
Exporting my full text Formatted Text via copy/paste from both Dynalist and Workflowy shows bullets and not headers. But does maintain italic and bold formatting in Typora.
Via OPML, the formatting doesn't work properly but the headers are there.
Dormouse:
Via OPML, the formatting doesn't work properly but the headers are there
-Dormouse (October 15, 2021, 02:46 PM)
--- End quote ---
And using manual markdown when writing maintains all the formatting when the OPML is exported ;D Not interpreted correctly in Workflowy, everything but italic recognised in Dynalist.
It's what I should have expected really.
So that's the answer for me, for formatting anything I might want to export via OPML.
And, I suspect, that anything originally written in a markdown program will already have it.
Dormouse:
I've noticed that Notezilla 9 has introduced a couple of very useful features:
1. Option to use markdown editor rather than rtf. Has typical edit and preview modes.
2. Option to create note by importing the clipboard.
Plus
Dark mode
A range of grouping options
etc
Dormouse:
Notezilla 9 has introduced a couple of very useful features:
1. Option to use markdown editor
-Dormouse (October 22, 2021, 06:15 AM)
--- End quote ---
This has now become my Obsidian front-end, especially on mobile.
The markdown editor is comprehensive for simple notes and easy to use. Does tables and links, as well as the more obvious. No folding for headers, but that's hardly core markdown. Does have the ==highlighting== that Obsidian uses. And underline using HTML tags.
Some small frictions caused by Obsidian's design.
Attachment is to a vault rather than a particular document, and markdown export is to .txt files which requires a name change to .md for full use in Obsidian.
But still easier for straightforward writing on mobile than opening Obsidian.
It's possible to use the rich text editor on desktop instead, but there are messages to say that no features are gained by switching back to it, so it seems that this may be a process of transition. It allows the mobile notes to be formatted instead of plain text.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version