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Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

wiki.dendron.so

31–40 of 89 posts

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#32
post #26

My biggest gripe with note taking apps is that basically all of the ones I've seen take the IDE approach. They are not as much note taking apps as specialized document editors. Because of this I'm still stuck with Tomboy which is very far from ideal but at least it's quick and easy to start typing a new note . (Unfortunately it doesn't support markdown, only starting bullet points with typing a *, it does support wik…

Collecting, writing and managing notes are each different steps, demanding different UI&features. But writing is the step taking most time. So naturally the focus is there.

And collecting is more a matter of your setup. It's unhealthy easy to collect stuff with any mature noteapp this days.

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#33
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very interested in a compare between the two!! I'd known of Foam & was planning to at around with it's forming new extension api[1]. I like that foam stores history in git, & can write static html output, which the project uses to self-document. It'd be sweet to hear from folks who've tried both how they found the experience. I'll try to become one of those folks myself, at some point. [1] https://jevakallio.gith…

Dendron is similar to foam. We support all the features of foam but put the emphasis on structuring and organizing your notes. Dendron helps you organize your notes into hierarchies that you can enforce using schemas (think type system but for your hierarchies) The problem we're solving: once you have hundreds or thousands of notes, how do you find a specific one? More on this here: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/6837…

FYI, following that link brings us to a link about hierarchies https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/f3a41725-c5e5-4851-a6ed-5f5410... which then attempts to link to an 'axiom' which is 404: https://www.kevinslin.com/organizing/its_not_you_its_your_kn...

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#34

How are people using tools like this and Roam, Obesdian, etc. etc. etc? Personally I could see the use if you were writing a book or something, but I feel like in practice for normal notes I would just have all of these notes that I'd never look at again or spend so much time traversing my notes and not getting things done. As someone with distractive tendencies I'd love to hear the situations where this is useful so…

Software can't read your mind, so how should it know what you need right now? It's up to the user to build a system that works for him, and the user must stick with it. Software can only supporr you there, but not replace you.

Though, you can use the system of someone else and cope with it and use this person tools. But usually this does not really work well long for most people.

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#35

Text editor extensions now have founders . Anyways, for these note taking systems, the one thing that I miss is a good quality mobile Android app to go with it. A lot of times I just end sending myself a Telegram message because their app is good and fast.

Everything starts somewhere :). Yeah, I get my mobile support through gitjournal (I'm syncing my notes with github). Other Dendron users contributed these other mobile apps that work: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/401c5889-20ae-4b3a-8468-269def...

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#36
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very interested in a compare between the two!! I'd known of Foam & was planning to at around with it's forming new extension api[1]. I like that foam stores history in git, & can write static html output, which the project uses to self-document. It'd be sweet to hear from folks who've tried both how they found the experience. I'll try to become one of those folks myself, at some point. [1] https://jevakallio.gith…

Dendron is similar to foam. We support all the features of foam but put the emphasis on structuring and organizing your notes. Dendron helps you organize your notes into hierarchies that you can enforce using schemas (think type system but for your hierarchies) The problem we're solving: once you have hundreds or thousands of notes, how do you find a specific one? More on this here: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/6837…

one note on Foam vs. Dendron .. reminds me of vim vs emacs.

One of them is simple and just gets out of your way, the other is more powerful and complex and requires more investment to set up correctly to your use case. Probably different strokes for different folks here.

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#37

Would love to see a feature comparison between Dendron and Obsidian.md if anyone has experience with both.

I actually started with Obsidian. It's a beautiful editor and was pretty easy to pick up. I must've built my first batch of notes in Obsidian.

I picked up Dendron due to 2 things: 1. Hierarchies leading to better note structure - I can have my notes be folders (kind of like notion) 2. VSCode - working with something extensible and familiar to me.

Here's more from the wiki: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e...

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#38
post #26

My biggest gripe with note taking apps is that basically all of the ones I've seen take the IDE approach. They are not as much note taking apps as specialized document editors. Because of this I'm still stuck with Tomboy which is very far from ideal but at least it's quick and easy to start typing a new note . (Unfortunately it doesn't support markdown, only starting bullet points with typing a *, it does support wik…

I like this way of thinking about notes - trying to move them up a ladder of utility (from short -> long term): https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z6f6xgGG4NKjkA5NA1kDd46whJh2...

It's ideal to have a tool that is extensible enough to handle scratch notes all the way to densely linked evergreen notes.

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#39

How are people using tools like this and Roam, Obesdian, etc. etc. etc? Personally I could see the use if you were writing a book or something, but I feel like in practice for normal notes I would just have all of these notes that I'd never look at again or spend so much time traversing my notes and not getting things done. As someone with distractive tendencies I'd love to hear the situations where this is useful so…

I use it a few ways, and I can be specific:

- I will create a folder for a topic with multiple ideas (e.g. transformers), and then put inside it a few separate files. One might contain a link to a paper or blog post and then my notes from reading that (really the most important snippets, occasionally a summarizing statement by me). Another might contain a list of ideas to try, or a pros/cons list.

- I have a folder called "book reviews" in which I put a single file per book I read. I try to write down a single sentence about each chapter, and I copy quotes I particularly like. I don't refer to these often, but it's reassuring to know that I won't have to reread the entire book to regain my state of mind.

- Very often when putting together a written document I write drafts inside the editor. I know there are "better" tools, but the writing feels organic here, since it's adjacent to notes.

- During meetings I'll sometimes make a document for the meeting, and then write down a todo list while we're discussing. This usually gets sent out as an email to the meeting participants (a very useful habit).

I use Obsidian, and have really started this in the past year, when note taking apps took off on Hacker News. Fiddling too much is kind of a distraction (I spent a few too many hours tweaking themes).

Re: Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode

#40
I really like these in depth, detailed note taking strategies/tools, but I've come to just using markdown files with good naming. Even then, I'm getting annoyed with myself splitting up class days into separate files. I think I may even just go back to plain text.

I use markdown because it looks great when rendered to HTML, but I've only ever used my rendered notes once in three years. I always just grep them or vim search them instead. Since I'm not getting a benefit from markdown, I'm just going to switch back to text files, using one per class for the rest of the semester and a separate file for misc topics/notes.

I think I'm just not the audience for this, but I like the concept of these detailed note systems a lot, I'm just not very often searching my notes again without just using plain old grep.

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