Dendron: A personal knowledge management solution built on VS Code

https://www.dendron.so//

by edu • 5 years ago

259 130 5 years ago

wolfblood• 5 years ago

Looks interesting. Will give it a try :)

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

founder here. let me know how it goes. if you're interested, we do personalized onboardings with new users as well, link to book is here -> https://calendly.com/d/mqtk-rf7q/onboard

virgil_disgr4ce• 5 years ago

It wasn't until literally the very end of the page that I learned it's a VS Code plugin

Blahah3• 5 years ago

Well, there's also the title.

pure_simplicity• 5 years ago

If you want a stand alone solution, Trilium Notes is a very powerful alternative.

vittore• 5 years ago

And Obsidian! Plugin system is great and allow you to fine tune your workflow.

kumpelblase2• 5 years ago

This has been a Show HN/Launch HN before:

(Launch) Nov 2021, 85 Comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29176158

(Show) Mar 2021, 84 Comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26491764

(Show) Oct 2020, 168 Comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24898373

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

I think one reason Dendron (and generally PKM topics) resonates on HN is because fundamentally, we haven't figured out "information architecture for humans"

Google works for the internet but we don't have an equivalent for PKM or TKM (team knowledge management). This is why we build Dendron (more details at https://blog.dendron.so/notes/N9VxT7G5SovmncezBAGO2.html)

visarga• 5 years ago

I would complement your knowledge management platform with a passive way to reference previous content. Save every paragraph of text that is being read/written and implement semantic similarity search. For example you could use a Hugging Face model and an Approximate Nearest Neighbor index.

Then integrate this search with an extension on top of your regular search engine, such as Google. Bonus if it logs across all apps, not just the web browser, and if it implements semantic and source based blacklisting to control what is being logged, for privacy.

This is complementary to your approach because manual logging is hard and slow while passive logging + semantic search can follow everything. It will be like an external memory.

ImpressiveWebs• 5 years ago

And whoever posted it put a second slash at the end of the URL, apparently to trick the HN system into allowing it to be posted again. I’m not saying I care, I’m just pointing out that it seems like that’s what was done, because I believe you can only post a link again after a certain time has passed.

Barrin922• 5 years ago

Gave this a try once but I remember that the performance on even relatively normal files was really bad. (Something like a few hundred urls as nested bullet points) which made me use Obsidian. Does anyone know if this is still an issue?

nateberkopec• 5 years ago

Yeah, I gave up on Dendron due to performance issues.

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

Sorry to hear about this. When did you last use Dendron? we've had lots of updates in terms of performance over the past few months so that shouldn't be the case today

brnt• 5 years ago

Has anyone tried Dendron and Foam is willing to comment on the differences?

scriptautomate4• 5 years ago

Foam vs. Dendron: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/p5fMTi-6zOyX1TwhL6dM0/

I've seen many in the Dendron community use the Markdown import pod to convert their notes over to Dendron: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/f23a6290-2dec-45dc-b616-c218ee...

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

Here is a comparison between dendron and foam -> https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/p5fMTi-6zOyX1TwhL6dM0.html

sam_lowry_• 5 years ago

I was once involved in Topic Maps, a failed ISO standard that was challenged Semantic Web at some point.

One thing I remember is the tacit knowledge that all kinds of mind maps are useful on the spot to the person who writes them. Communicating anything via mind maps is difficult, and they become unintelligible even to authors very quickly.

bsenftner• 5 years ago

Reminds me of the Apple spin-out name Kalida (sp?) that tried to promote a "personalized programming language" called ScriptX allowing each developer to define their own personal language syntax and write code in that. I was floored something so dumb would get a complete corporate spin-out, developers and the full rah-rah marketing push. Once developed and available, people quickly found nobody could share or even read one another's code. Duh.

alwillis• 5 years ago

You're thinking of Kaleida Labs, the corporation that was co-owned by Apple and IBM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleida_Labs.

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

Totally agree that mind maps are hard to scale out, either across time or people. This is why Dendron focuses on helping folks create consistent structures (we call them schemas) to help map out their knowledge base. Think of it as a type system for organizing your notes. More details on that here (https://nesslabs.com/dendron-featured-tool) if curious

vladsanchez• 5 years ago

I propose a Dendron Browser Plugin with same annotation functionality (FTW) =D

It would help with IP (Input + Process) components for those who adhere to the "Modern" Zettlekasten's IPA framework [1] (Input + Process + Action) conceptualized and presented by Marc Koenig.

1- [https://youtu.be/rjU65enKSEE].

tconfrey• 5 years ago

I was rooting for Topic Maps at the time. The notion of Topics, Associations between them and Occurrences of information about a topic seemed to me to be very powerful. I don't think they were necessarily meant to model mind maps (altho no doubt you could), more of a super charged index of an information space.

FWIW Topic Maps were the inspiration for BrainTool [1], which is a 'Topic Manager' maybe in the same space as Dendron. I wrote about the model here [2]. I'm hoping people will exchange Topic Maps that index an information space or area of research!

[1] https://braintool.org

[2]https://braintool.org/2021/05/15/Organizing-your-life-with-a...

thelittleone• 5 years ago

Agree with this, at the same time I find the simple act of writing the notes or a mind map helps with retention even if they're unreadable later on.

beebeepka4• 5 years ago

Say I wanted to beat these guys at their game. How do I come up with a description more pompous than "personal knowledge management" to describe entering text. Fascinating stuff

Blahah3• 5 years ago

PKM is the standard term for a whole diverse field of tools and techniques. Belittling it as "entering text" is pompous.

beebeepka4• 5 years ago

What elevates this specific vscode extension beyond my description? You personally knowing some of the people behind the project?

sorokod• 5 years ago

How about: personal "personal knowledge management" management ?

hobomatic• 5 years ago

First we need to find some managers with personal knowledge of 'personal "personal knowledge management" managent'.

vasili111• 5 years ago

Is it possible to attach files to notes?

bachmeier2• 5 years ago

Since it intended to work with local markdown files, you just add a regular link to the file:

https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/3472226a-ff3c-432d-bf5d-10926f...

phren0logy2• 5 years ago

I'm currently using Obsidian, but was thinking of moving to LogSeq. I guess I should give this a look also. So many choices...

bszupnick• 5 years ago

Can I ask why the move from Obsidian?

phren0logy2• 5 years ago

I haven't found the state of the current plugins to interact with Zotero very satisfactory.

jlkuester72• 5 years ago

+1 for LogSeq! Been using it for awhile now and love it!

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

here's a page that outlines differences between obsidian and dendron: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/a84ff014-e871-445d-9366-d97f1a... also happy to answer any questions you might have about Dendron :)

scriptautomate4• 5 years ago

This may be helpful, if wanting to know some differences in Obsidian vs. Dendron: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/a84ff014-e871-445d-9366-d97f1a...

For migrating content from Obsidian, you can use Dendron's markdown import pod (pods are ways that Dendron imports/exports notes):

Markdown import: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/f23a6290-2dec-45dc-b616-c218ee...

Obsidian style import: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/9kovmyM4T0ZBeWvp5oH62/

I still use Obsidian on mobile to view my Dendron notes, but use VS Code with the Dendron extension when on my computer :)

zwaps• 5 years ago

LogSeq: We are privacy first

Also LogSeq: "It seems that your browser doesn't support the new native filesystem API, please use any Chromium 86+ based browser like Chrome, Vivaldi, Edge, etc. Notice that the API doesn't support mobile browsers at the moment."

... "Privacy first", and forcing you to use Google infrastructure.

I would steer clear of that one, hard.

jlkuester72• 5 years ago

I really wanted to like this the last time I gave it a try, but it just did not do it for me. I though I would like it being a VS Code plugin since "why reinvent a .md editor", but the end result felt pretty janky. Plenty of power features, but they were not particularly intuitive to use....

I ended up finding https://logseq.com/ and have been very happy using that as a local application! I really like its balance of control/abstraction and its markdown based editor is beautiful!

alpaca128• 5 years ago

Wow, logseq seems to be exactly what I was looking for. Also detects file changes, so using a different editor side by side works.

Well, that's going to save me a chunk of time.

faizmokhtar• 5 years ago

Thanks for recommending logseg. Going to give it a try.

I've been using Dendron mostly because of the search feature and the ability to publish it on web but I didn't really like the experience of editing my notes on VS Code. Seems like logseg have similar feature as well.

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

sorry dendron didn't work out. was there anything specific that felt "janky"? we've had lots of updates on general ux (see https://buttondown.email/dendron/archive/) and are continuing to focus on that this year. that being said, logseq is also a great tool. a bunch of folks use both dendron and logseq in tandem

throwaway675309• 5 years ago

I'm strongly considering moving away from Obsidian to Logseq, obsidian just has some limitations that I think I can work around in Logseq (insufficient syntax highlighting due to old integrated version of prismjs being one issue for ex).

I have sincere doubts that Obsidian will ever go open source.

nopenopenopeno2• 5 years ago

any other limitations? syntax highlighting sounds like a very easy one for them to fix.

xmprt• 5 years ago

Obsidian not going open source is a big reason I'm apprehensive to start using it.

codemusings• 5 years ago

I've started to use Joplin[1] and haven't looked back. It's open source and their business model is hosted cloud syncing. I already have a self-hosted Nextcloud instance running and WebDAV is supported for syncing as well so I'm not paying anything at the moment.

They also have apps on desktop and mobile. The apps may not have the most polished UI but they work extremely well.

[1] https://joplinapp.org/

slk500• 5 years ago

emacs+org-mode

AlexCoventry• 5 years ago

Every sufficiently advanced editor will eventually contain a buggy halfway implementation of emacs. :)

seanw444• 5 years ago

I don't know if I'll ever find a cooler, more interactive, intuitive, and featureful markdown language and implementation. I use it daily to track issues and progress at work. I use it to document the code, because it can be exported to really any format necessary.

I mean come on, the table editor and Babel still make me grin every time I use them. Truly genius.

bberenberg• 5 years ago

Is there an app this where the editor is WYSIWYG but the storage format is Markdown? Almost like Confluence from a UI perspective but for a personal KB?

bachmeier2• 5 years ago

Obsidian has a "Live Preview" mode.

qbasic_forever2• 5 years ago

The latest Obsidian release has a WYSIWYG editor mode that's quite good in my experience. It stores everything in plain old markdown files and has a ton of plugins for extra stuff like backlinks, etc.

rcarmo3• 5 years ago

It works really poorly on mobile for me. Completely a no-go.

sporedro• 5 years ago

Take a look at Joplin, it had a WYIWYG editor and normal editor.

It’s like an open source Evernote.

earleybird• 5 years ago

1+ for Joplin - been running it a couple of years now syncing to self hosted Nextcloud.

chrisweekly• 5 years ago

Obsidian (it's fantastic).

IAmEveryone• 5 years ago

I've configured VSCode for this purpose. You can set a proportional font, at which point you are already halfway there. The default syntax highlighting already assigns scopes for headlines, bold/underline/italics, lists, code blocks and links, and it is either easy or default to style the text accordingly.

scriptautomate4• 5 years ago

Nice. Do you have any links to configs or guides on setting up these modifications?

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

Dendron has plans to add WYSWG functionality this year

Barrin922• 5 years ago

there's also https://logseq.com/

nopenopenopeno2• 5 years ago

The new Obsidian version does this extremely well.

kushan2020• 5 years ago

You can try out https://bangle.io, it is a real WYSIWYG Markdown * based note taking app that is local and open source.

* By real I mean that the UI stays WYSIWYG, unlike other apps that fall back to Markdown notation while editing.

qbasic_forever2• 5 years ago

This VS code extension is kind of flying under the radar and unnoticed, but it has an amazingly well integrated full WYSIWYG markdown editor: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cweijan.... Of all the markdown in VS code things I've tried, this is by far the simplest and nicest I've used.

josht• 5 years ago

Love the zettlekasten method! I gave dendron a shot a few months back, but it just didn't stick. Something about using my IDE as a note-taking tool got in the way of my flow. Currently using NotePlan 3 and really liking it.

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

Something we recommend for folks is to have different flavors of VSCode to side step this (eg. vscodium for dendron, vscode for code). That being said, if you found something you like, that's the most important thing :)

gouggoug• 5 years ago

I'd love to see one of these note taking apps providing Asciidoc support instead of Markdown. If you know one, please link it!

ahnick• 5 years ago

I believe there is a plugin for tiddlywiki. https://groups.google.com/g/tiddlywiki/c/PvoDxAWgziE

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

no asciidoc support but dendron's syntax is extended markdown and supports concepts like transclusions, diagrams, and other customizations. see https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/ba97866b-889f-4ac6-86e7-bb2d97...

thecrumb• 5 years ago

I still like Notable - easy to use and cross platform: https://notable.app/

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

notable is great! generally, anything that comes down to plaintext markdown is great because of data portability and the ability to apply existing tools over your data :)

qudat4• 5 years ago

I’ve compiled a list of other knowledge management apps for the curious: https://listifi.app/u/erock/knowledge-management-apps

xbar• 5 years ago

The temptation to snidely suggest you add listifi to your list overwhelms.

qudat4• 5 years ago

Haha do I dare?

Nezteb• 5 years ago

Here's another you might like: https://www.zettlr.com/

qudat4• 5 years ago

Done

nenadst• 5 years ago

zettlr is also missing - opensource and really nice (also goog for zettelkasten)

https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr

jimmySixDOF• 5 years ago

There is a Second Brain PIM/PKMS graph based app released in public beta now called rea.ch

DocTomoe• 5 years ago

You mentioned roam - you should also mention org-roam, which sits atop emacs.

qudat4• 5 years ago

Done

lolive3• 5 years ago

Can Dendron be run in a CodeServer [1] (i.e the VSCode in a browser) instance?

[1] https://github.com/coder/code-server

kevinslin12• 5 years ago

yep. we have a number of users that do just this

lolive3• 5 years ago

I have been a moderate user of Obsidian in the past. And have just read the main page of Dendron. I do not see how Dendron helps navigate in a big PKM base any differently from Obsidian. There is a search bar, and a graph view. Then what?

Macha• 5 years ago

For many people, "Obsidian, but open source", would be a pretty compelling selling point. I only became aware of Dendron today, but going to have to evaluate it now

lolive3• 5 years ago

Yep, I agree. To me it is the "Your instance is always here in the cloud, via CodeServer", that is appealing. I also plan to use that CodeServer stuff so a team can edit in parallel the same PKM. [btw, is there a collaborative way of working, in Obsidian?]

But my initial question was whether Dendron was providing an innovative way to extract subparts of the graph.

Waterluvian• 5 years ago

Can someone help me understand what is useful about the graph part of it? When do you practically use that?

iansinnott• 5 years ago

As someone who uses PKM tools I'll say the answer is probably that you _do not_ use the graph view. It makes for nice screenshots.

That being said, part of what makes PKM tools so useful is that they can be used be different people with different workflows, so perhaps other people are using the graph view effectively.

ropeladder• 5 years ago

I've been using Dendron since it last showed up here and it's worked pretty well for a large writing project. My main complaint is more of a VS Code issue -- I can't figure out how to soft-wrap lines in a way that allows for vim navigation (with j/k) within a paragraph. Gj and gk work, but that's double the keystrokes. In Vim I can use the vim-pencil plugin and set lines to soft wrap.

Also, Dendron is very clunky with even medium-sized files.

bmanOsh• 5 years ago

once I tried using Obsidian, could not use it properly. Now saw dendron and its inside VScode, will try and see it...

paulshen• 5 years ago

I'm not a big "note-taker" but Dendron has stuck with me mainly because of vscode. I spend so much time in vscode already and the familiar UI is a big plus. I also use the vscode vim extension which works just as well with Dendron.

gandalfff• 5 years ago

I really wanted to like Dendron, but dealing with tables in markdown is a bit of a headache.

Also, I wanted a way to just show the markdown preview without also showing the source view.

The author has mentioned a planned WYSIWYG feature, so maybe that will solve these issues.

I wish zim had a proper Mac app!

dotancohen3• 5 years ago

I used to love Zim, it was almost feature perfect in my opinion. But if you're using it to store notes with code, check first to see if the formatting feature can be disabled, because that changes the stored note text. I had to stop using Zim due to that, though it was years and years ago so maybe this has been resolved since. Other than that show-stopper, it was a great app and it had a great developer.

_Anima_2• 5 years ago

I think it's resolved as I don't have any issue with storing excerpts of scripts and code.

dynamohk• 5 years ago

Why not use something like notion or Evernote and be done with it.

cwdegidio• 5 years ago

That's where I am these days. I've tried all these .md based knowledge vaults and avoided Notion like the plague. I was really stuck on Obsidian... until one night taking notes on something I had to make a bunch of tables. Creating tables with pure .md is just obnoxious. So I decided to take a look at Notion based on the recommendation of another dev. Been using it for 3 weeks now and I have to say, it serves my needs, is super smooth/intuitive, and actually nice to work in.

pqs2• 5 years ago

I use Evernote. I have 18k notes and growing. I really want to like these markdown apps (a long time ago I used org-mode) but at the end of the day, there is always something missing that Evernote has:

In Evernote,

- sharing folders with other people is easy.

- I can easily publish notes to send to other people that don't use the app.

- I can forward e-mails to my note-taking system.

- I can use IFTTT to automatically import stuff.

- I can manage tasks (since the very nice new Tasks feature).

- I can easily put files in the notes, just drag and drop.

Yes, it is slow, but it is getting faster (progress is noticeable) and it works well, despite all the problems.

The only thing I would really like to have that Evernote is missing is backlinks and an interface to make linking easier, such as the Ctrl-K feature in Google Docs, which allows searching the document titles to find the one you want to link to.

By the way, in his last blog post, the CEO said that their revenue is increasing, so I guess people are voting with their wallets.

https://evernote.com/blog/ceo-update-january-2022/

oxff• 5 years ago

These Electron solutions (VSC plugins, Obsidian, whatever) become really slow when you have a large document with markdown, code and latex in it.

I recommend learning Emacs org-mode. Painful, but eventually faster.

dotancohen3• 5 years ago

I second org-mode. I've tried literally dozens of notes apps, but org-mode just gets everything right.

Well, almost everything. If I have to edit in a simple text editor then I still prefer Markdown and of course syncing files is up to the user (I use a private Gitlab account). Hebrew text that spans a newline is also problematic in Emacs, despite ostensibly fully supporting Unicode. But these limitations are trivial compared to all the issues I've identified in all the newer apps. It turns out that two decades of development really does lead to a mature product.

haberman3• 5 years ago

Every time I see a new note taking app, I get excited that it might finally be the one that will satisfy my desired workflow. But every time I end up disappointed that nobody seems to think about this space in the way that I do.

Here is my basic premise: I want all of my notes to be dated, and I want them to tell a story of not just what I was thinking, but when.

Time is so fundamental to note taking. A note is never "This is my canonical position on X", it is always "this is what I am thinking about X today." But note taking apps rarely seem to bring time to the forefront.

Think about an issue tracker like GitHub issues. When you view an issue, you see a timestamped history of everything that has been added to the conversation and when. It tells a story of how the understanding of that issue evolved over time, and specific actions that were taken at specific times. I find this invaluable, and I want my own personal notes to work in the same way.

"So just use GitHub issues in a private repo." Well, GitHub issues isn't exactly what I'm looking for. Specifically:

- I want to use #tagging. If I click on a tag, I want a GitHub issues-like timeline view for all notes that include that tag. That way I can categorize notes across multiple dimensions.

- I want more control over how the notes are stored (Git is ideal, I can mirror the repo wherever I want).

- I want more control over how and when I publish the notes: if I'm taking work-specific notes, I want the option to publish them on an internal company server.

A Jekyll-based blog fulfills these criteria pretty well, except:

- Jekyll is primarily focused on publishing a website, not local viewing. To view locally you have to manually run a server in the background all the time ("jekyll serve") and there is a lot of HTML/CSS/configuration cruft that is overkill for note taking.

- Since Jekyll is not an app, it has no streamlined workflow for adding notes on mobile.

If anyone knows an app that is a good match for what I'm looking for, please let me know!

d12bb• 5 years ago

If you live in the Apple ecosystem, Agenda(1) could be just the right tool for you. I also very much like their pricing schema(2), more apps should do it like this!

1. https://www.agenda.com/

2. https://drewmccormack.medium.com/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda...

rcarmo3• 5 years ago

Agenda is pretty awesome, but I worry about getting my data out of it enough that it’s become a no-go for me.

sxldier2• 5 years ago

I wonder if Trilium Notes and the journal functionality would address your needs. You can use tags and backlink to other related notes if you wanted to. You can view notes in a standard hierarchy structure or view a note map.

You can take it a step further if that doesn't completely address your needs by customizing it. The journal button is just a note with a script (with a specific tag). It's highly customizable.

You can export your notes (all, or get granular with some or a single note) as HTML or Markdown or OPML.

haberman3• 5 years ago

I couldn't find much info about Trilium Notes journal functionality. Do you mean something like this?

https://github.com/zadam/trilium/wiki/Day-notes

scriptautomate4• 5 years ago

Dendron is very focused on local viewing, creating, and managing your notes (UX/DX). This is in addition to publishing, which is a differentiator between it and SSGs like Jekyll, Hugo, Sphinx, etc. It automatically timestamps notes at creation, and every following update, in two separate fields within a note frontmatter. Since Dendron encourages git for the versioning of your note vaults, you can get the full git history of each note.

With VS Code, you can also use GitLens to traverse and view the history of all the lines within each note (who modified this line last? etc.) with the built-in git blame navigation.

You could technically create a script of some kind that runs git diffs across the git history of files, and maybe create a "*.changelog" child file for each note, in the event that you want to have dedicated files displaying how each note evolved over time? Otherwise, that isn't a built-in feature with Dendron.

For mobile use, I've liked using mgit (Android) + Obsidian for editing my Dendron notes, and then use Dendron on my laptops/desktops. Others have mentioned GitJournal working well for them. Some more on that: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/SJtEnmQQYGu0bP2Kg7UbA/

haberman3• 5 years ago

You could technically create a script of some kind that runs git diffs across the git history of files, and maybe create a "*.changelog" child file for each note

I think you may have missed my core point. I don't want to revise old notes repeatedly. If I have something to add, or a change in my thinking, I want to create a new note, with a new timestamp, that describes my new thought. Then I want to use #tags to view a timeline of all dated notes that match a specific tag.

Think about GitHub issues. If you discover some new information about an issue, do you edit the initial bug report in place? Probably not (unless it's a minor error like a misspelling). You add a new comment to the existing issue, which makes it clear that this is new information that you didn't know when you filed the issue initially.

I want note taking to operate more like a journal or blog, with journal entries easily selectable by #tag.

_Anima_2• 5 years ago

Zim wiki maybe?

kavalg• 5 years ago

License: AGPL

Repo: https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron

koustubhs• 5 years ago

orgmode? https://orgmode.org/

rcarmo3• 5 years ago

I started looking at all of these (dendron, obsidian, etc.) and in the end set up vimwiki with Markdown and have a reasonable setup that even works on an iPad (via a-Shell’s vim).

galfarragem• 5 years ago

Honest question: Are "wiki notes" useful?

With other words, are notes in Roam/Obsidian/Logseq/Joplin/Dendron useful on the long term? Is the graph nature of notes a "plus" or just a distraction? Do you query your notes in a way that the results are more helpful than using a "flat wiki" (one or few text/markdown files)?

I use a "flat wiki" or despite not using org-mode, I believe it may be customized to "god-mode" _IF_ you take (plenty of) time to do it. "Wiki notes", by the other hand, seem a waste of time but probably I didn't understand them yet.

haffi112• 5 years ago

The number of potential links in a graph of n vertices scales like O(n^2). That does not mean that the actual number of links in the knowledge base should scale like O(n^2). However, it could mean that the overhead work to maintaining and building the connections in the knowledge base becomes unbearable. That is, the solution is not saving time anymore. Solutions like these need, imo, really good link prediction solutions to make it easier to manage them.

Are any of these personal knowledge base solutions offering link prediction as a feature to alleviate this problem?

bluesign• 5 years ago

I think this depends on the approach to links. If you try to link on recall instead of create, it is much simpler.

qwerty4561272• 5 years ago

are notes in Roam/Obsidian/Logseq/Joplin/Dendron useful on the long term?

Very useful but the UX is very far from perfect. I would change/add dozens things in Obsidian. I also hate storing notes in a tree hierarchy - a very annoying overhead. I want it to be a freeform graph only with no taxonomy requiring a note to be located in a single specific place.

What I actually want is an open-source (fundamentally extensible but not necessarily free - I would pay up to $100 one-time if I really like it and probably donate more once it becomes an integral part of my life) offline sqlite-backed hybrid of Notion and Obsidian.

The most important feature I miss in Obsidian (as long as it is file system based) is a second file tree - dragging a note file to a distant (not fitting in the screen) place in one panel is painful.

kaiwen1• 5 years ago

Try Logseq. It fits your requirements.

theshrike79• 5 years ago

Wikis work for notes if linking to other pages isn't a chore and is either completely automatic or so simple you can do it while you write.

If I need to start adding some (link markup)[linkmarkup.example] while writing, I can't be bothered.

zigzag3122• 5 years ago

Two must have feature of personal knowledge management app for me are:

1) Pasting web page excerpts with non-text resources (images, animations) included as a copy (and not just as a url reference that might not be avaliable anymore in the future).

2) Quality full text search (across all notes or just a sub-section)

Many knowledge management solutions have trouble with these two, so they are the first things that I usually test.

sxldier2• 5 years ago

Trilium Notes can do those very well. The first one being done with the web clipper extension.

https://github.com/zadam/trilium

zigzag3122• 5 years ago

Looks interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks!

JabavuAdams2• 5 years ago

I currently use Evernote, but am feeling the limitations. It's just become slow. E.g. time between opening app on phone to being able to take a note > 10s.

I've grudgingly switched to just using flat lists in my phone's pre-installed text only note taking app.

pqs2• 5 years ago

Lucky you! It takes much longer for me!

But it is improving. In December, it took minutes. Since last update it takes seconds. ;-)

I just e-mail the notes to Evernote. That's what I do now.

JabavuAdams2• 5 years ago

I worry that the attempt to impose a schema on one's knowledge isn't that useful, and will run into natural obstacles in the same was as ontolgy-building (CyC/OpenCyc). The real world doesn't have a consistent schema.

I don't want to engage in the busy-work of imposing an unstable schema on my knowledge. I want to ask my AI familiar to give me a list of all titles of articles I've read related to reverse engineering, say.

qwerty4561272• 5 years ago

I find having separate source and render view for notes (the way it is in Dendron) a huge turn-off. Wasting twice the screen space is no a thing I would accept in a "second brain" tool (I would accept this in a content authoring tool though). Obsidian and Typora feel way better in this aspect.

maydup-nem• 5 years ago

Oh, look, another org-mode replacement!

Dendron: A personal knowledge management solution built on VS Code

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