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Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

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Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#141

Post by speedupmate »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #70
skeeter2020 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been experimenting with Flatnotes ( https://github.com/Dullage/flatnotes ) for a while and really like the design. No notebooks or even folders, just a single directory with markdown files and decent search & tagging. It feels a lot like what happened to email when we gave up all the up-front structuring with deep hierarchies and just said index it and we'll find it when we need to. The project is just "good eno…

Tagging is a strictly more powerful tool than hierarchies, at least with same amount tags vs directories/categories, because an item can be tagged using multiple different tags, but can only be in one directory, unless you create duplicates or symlinks or whatever.

Everything is a hierarchy, even the tags in your mind do belong under some tree/node like imagination. Tag is essentially just what you described "duplicates or symlinks or whatever."

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#142

Post by engfan »

ankitrgadiya wrote: post #107
sunshine-o wrote: post #56

Looks cool, but as I have been on this knowledge management / productivity journey like everybody. Here are my findings: If you are reasonably comfortable with computers / Unix. - You need to first rely on a directory structures, filenames, plaintext, lists and maybe markdown. Stick with a "File over app", Unix approach. - Try to sort things with universal concepts: locations, things, people, events, metrics, howtos.…

I have gone through the whole journey similar to you as well. It is so frustrating to keep searching for that perfect app only to find that every other app lacks something or the other. For the last year or so, I've settled on just plain markdown and the directory structure for hierarchy just like you. I use my preferred editor (Emacs) to modify the files. I get to use all the functionality like key-bindings, search,…

You should check out the HyWiki part of the Emacs Hyperbole hypertext package available from melpa or elpa-devel. It utilizes Org mode for notes and WikiWords to automatically interlink them as you type. The WikiWords work in any kind of text buffer as well, even in programming file comments. It even lets you link to many other kinds of Emacs entities like bookmarks, Org IDs and headings, etc. One command to build a web-based wiki. With a little practice, it might amaze you.

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#144

Post by Y_Y »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #70
skeeter2020 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been experimenting with Flatnotes ( https://github.com/Dullage/flatnotes ) for a while and really like the design. No notebooks or even folders, just a single directory with markdown files and decent search & tagging. It feels a lot like what happened to email when we gave up all the up-front structuring with deep hierarchies and just said index it and we'll find it when we need to. The project is just "good eno…

Tagging is a strictly more powerful tool than hierarchies, at least with same amount tags vs directories/categories, because an item can be tagged using multiple different tags, but can only be in one directory, unless you create duplicates or symlinks or whatever.

> but can only be in one directory, unless you create duplicates or symlinks or whatever.

Non-sym links do exactly this. Starting with your file in foo;

    ln foo/file bar/file
will have the file (really a reference-counted pointer) appear in both directories. It's the same location on disk and there's no overhead until you run out of inodes.

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#145

Post by sudhirkhanger »

sroerick wrote: post #105

org-roam is pretty good. I came from Obsidian and wanted to build out some extra personal features for Bible notes. I made the switch to org-roam because i wanted to use elisp to develop instead of JS obsidian plugins. It took me a while to get over the learning curve but I’m very happy with it

The number of apps that offer note-taking functionality is exploding. It solidifies Emacs' community's point of view that all these custom tailored solutions become a limiting factor for many. But to learn Emacs and Elisp is not trivial.

* Any particular resources you followed to learn Elisp.

* What sort of time investment did it require for you to build your own system based out of Emacs?

* How are you syncing your files?

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#146

Post by sudhirkhanger »

What is the good solution to sync text files? I haven't found a good solution that is open source and self-hosted. Ideally, eventually, my setup should give me real time syncing the same level as multiple people editing the same file. But that is a stretch goal.

I am currently using Syncthing but unfortunately it's client app has been removed from Google Play [1]. I am managing with Syncthing-Fork.

[1] https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/2064

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#147

Post by Propelloni »

sunshine-o wrote: post #56

Looks cool, but as I have been on this knowledge management / productivity journey like everybody. Here are my findings: If you are reasonably comfortable with computers / Unix. - You need to first rely on a directory structures, filenames, plaintext, lists and maybe markdown. Stick with a "File over app", Unix approach. - Try to sort things with universal concepts: locations, things, people, events, metrics, howtos.…

Or, you could just fire up Zim Desktop Wiki [1], a local application you can run on any one of the major OS, and be mostly done with it. It gives you bullet 1, 2, 3[2], 4, and backlinks out of the box.

You get 5 if you are willing to compromise. Since it's just all text files in directory trees, you can sync the tree to your mobile phone (e.g with syncthing) and just use any text editor.

[1] https://zim-wiki.org/index.html [2] git with an add-on.

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#148

Post by athinggoingon »

I use org-mode for note taking and personal knowledge base.

In my notes.org file, I collect all kind of snippets, knowledge, ideas, how-tos, and such stuff.

Outlines make it possible to hide parts of the text in the buffer.

A headline starts with one or more stars. A heading has one star, a sub-heading two, etc.

Use the linking feature in ordmode to link items/notes together through references.

Stick with a "File over app", Unix approach. You need to first rely on a directory structures, filenames, plaintext, lists and orgmode.

Leverage Unix tools: unix commands, (rip)grep, git, fzf, etc.

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#149

Post by diggan »

randomcatuser wrote: post #96
janwillemb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating a note taking, personal productivity app is an elaborate but common procrastination technique for developers.

right up there with creating your own personal website

At least you didn't create a new language for your Personal Home Page and even later rewrote it to be some sort of general hypertext processor.

Re: Siyuan: Privacy-first, self-hosted personal knowledge management software

#150

Post by axelthegerman »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #30

What I miss from this type of apps, including notion, is the ability to "inherit" properties from databases. I would like, for example, to create a superdb with basic task properties (title, deadline) and then create subdatabases that add more project-specific properties. This, I'll be able to create a single view with all my tasks for the day in a single place, but also add all the info I need for individual tasks.…

It sounds like you're looking for a project/task management tool rather than a knowledge base?

Most complex tools have task types, some are customizable, some not - e.g. Jira would do what you describe?

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