Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing • Hacker News Board

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#231

Post by GhostVII » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 12:23 PM UTC

esperent wrote: post #34

bloopernova wrote: post #2

I'm really happy that the "knowledge base management" type of tools are getting a lot more attention these days. In my opinion, the more brains that look at this area, the better the whole ecosystem will get. I'll have to download this and give it a try, and compare it to my current workflow. (I use org-roam on Emacs. I'm not sure if people are sick of org-mode and Emacs being mentioned on HN? I worry about becoming…

I do think that the area of knowledge management is very interesting and worthy of discussion. When it comes to tooling though, I've tried out a couple and I don't find anything superior to a folder full of markdown files + your favorite text editor (I use VSCode, but I don't think that's especially important). Systems like Zettelkasten are interesting to read about, but again, everyone's brain is different and for m…

I wrote a tool for myself that will just open up your default editor and create a new markdown file for every note you want to take, saving them in a git repo that you can sync to some remote. Has the simplicity of a directory full of markdown files, but also provided a system to tag the different notes, search for a particular note to view or modify, and view a subset of them in an HTML document. All of that can be done with different command line tools of course but it is nice to have it all bundled into a single program.

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#232

Post by focus2020 » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 12:25 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #40

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #18

I think this trend of better knowledge tools is missing two very important pieces of human nature 1. If we have time to enter something into a knowledge base of any kind - then we have time to just jot it on a piece of paper. 2. If we dont have time (or think it is important at that moment ) then what solves the problem for us is not a knowledge base, but search . You see the thing about Google and Facebook etc, is t…

> what solves the problem for us is not a knowledge base, but search There are problems with search: you have to know to search for something, and you have to know how to search for it. In some cases this is an issue, in some it isn't. I have had many times over the years where I reviewed my notes and reminded myself of things I had completely forgotten. Search is useless in that case. But in any event, there's no co…

Search can not be avoided. The alternative to search is to go through everything that has been read which is not feasible. Tagging is the only solution. The user has to remember the tags which is referred to as context in zettlekeaten method. I could not see any workaround to this problem

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#233

Post by maremp » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 12:36 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #231

esperent wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that the area of knowledge management is very interesting and worthy of discussion. When it comes to tooling though, I've tried out a couple and I don't find anything superior to a folder full of markdown files + your favorite text editor (I use VSCode, but I don't think that's especially important). Systems like Zettelkasten are interesting to read about, but again, everyone's brain is different and for m…

I wrote a tool for myself that will just open up your default editor and create a new markdown file for every note you want to take, saving them in a git repo that you can sync to some remote. Has the simplicity of a directory full of markdown files, but also provided a system to tag the different notes, search for a particular note to view or modify, and view a subset of them in an HTML document. All of that can be…

Do you have the tool somewhere to share?

I was looking into writing a simple tool, preferably a bash script I can use cross-platform, which creates a new markdown file with named with today’s date and opens it with $EDITOR.

This way I can also hook it to other tools, such as alfred pr albert.

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#234

Post by nl » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 12:43 PM UTC

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #51

esperent wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that the area of knowledge management is very interesting and worthy of discussion. When it comes to tooling though, I've tried out a couple and I don't find anything superior to a folder full of markdown files + your favorite text editor (I use VSCode, but I don't think that's especially important). Systems like Zettelkasten are interesting to read about, but again, everyone's brain is different and for m…

One thing this ecosystem is missing is a measure of how effective people are after switching from one tool or another. E.g. our company implemented the use of Zettelkasten in a randomized trial and engineering efficiency improved by x% in the experimental group compared with y% in the control group. It seems like much of the ecosystem is like some areas of the Linux ecosystem, where the goal is more to focus on getti…

I can't imagine any really defensible way to measure this quantitatively.

Research outcomes are almost impossible to measure in the first place (see debates about citation metrics).

Qualitative research would be somewhat useful, but there's issues with that approach too.

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#235

Post by mcdevilkiller » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

bloopernova wrote: post #2

I'm really happy that the "knowledge base management" type of tools are getting a lot more attention these days. In my opinion, the more brains that look at this area, the better the whole ecosystem will get. I'll have to download this and give it a try, and compare it to my current workflow. (I use org-roam on Emacs. I'm not sure if people are sick of org-mode and Emacs being mentioned on HN? I worry about becoming…

Do you also use GNU/Hurd?

/s

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#236

Post by tjstankus » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

maddyboo wrote: post #49

Neuron is a new Zettelkasten project that shows a lot of promise. The developer is very active and responsive. I like that it is an editor-independent cli tool, with plugins currently for Vim and Emacs. https://neuron.zettel.page/ https://github.com/srid/neuron

Thanks for sharing this, I've been thinking about building something like it, now I may not need to.

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#237

Post by esperent » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #192

kolias wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that the area of knowledge management is very interesting and worthy of discussion. When it comes to tooling though, I've tried out a couple and I don't find anything superior to a folder full of markdown files + your favorite text editor (I use VSCode, but I don't think that's especially important). I'd say the most valuable thing these tools provide is a way to link notes. That's the part that was miss…

How do you sync them to your phone?

I don't especially feel the need to access them on my phone. I'm generally looking for ways to use my phone less, not more. When I'm out and about and need to save some info, I put it on Google keep then transfer whatever I've accumulated once a week or so.

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#238

Post by BasilPH » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

If you use Zettlr, or any other editor to create a linked graph of text files, you might be interesting in vizel[0]:

It visualizes the graph and calculates some stats. I find it useful to track the growth of my Zettelkasten, but also to find notes and components that are unconnected to the rest of the graph.

I built it to scratch my own itch, but I'm always happy to get feedback.

[0]: https://github.com/BasilPH/vizel

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#239

Post by douglaswlance » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

wadkar wrote: post #91

stevesimmons wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last week, I've started using Foam too. It hits the sweet spot for me: - Plain Markdown files stored in git; exactly what I am used to for code. - Editor is VisualStudioCode, which I always have open, and can configure however I like. - No vendor lock-in.

Would you say it's an editor lock-in? I can make pretty much the same argument for say, vim or emacs, and say that plain markdown + fugitive/magit hits the sweet spot. I am just trying to understand where's the vendor lock-in thing coming into the picture here.

Ultimately, it's just Markdown files. There isn't any data stored in addition to your Markdown files. So if you want to change "vendors," you are free to do so without penalty.

Re: Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

#240

Post by polyfractal » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #154

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #18

I think this trend of better knowledge tools is missing two very important pieces of human nature 1. If we have time to enter something into a knowledge base of any kind - then we have time to just jot it on a piece of paper. 2. If we dont have time (or think it is important at that moment ) then what solves the problem for us is not a knowledge base, but search . You see the thing about Google and Facebook etc, is t…

> 1. If we have time to enter something into a knowledge base of any kind - then we have time to just jot it on a piece of paper. There is a kind of generation gap here I think. I have 3 devices at arms reach while writing this, but it would take me 5 min to find a working pen and a blank piece of paper. If I used it pen and paper more it would be closer to me now, but it would be the same wherever I go. Then I’d nee…

Eh, not so much generation as different way people think. I'm not old, have multiple laptops, desktops and smart phones. More often than not, when I need to seriously think about a paper I print it out and annotate the margins, underline, highlight, etc. I have a notebook (and fountain pens!) that I use to write out plans or projects or sketch designs. I have pads of flip paper for short-term (weekly) TODOs, and bullet-journal longer term life planning.

It's just a different way of organizing one's life. I spend enough time in front of the computer, sitting at the kitchen table to jot down notes or sketch out a project idea works better for me than trying to try the latest XYZ digital notebook app.