Uh, complete newbie here, and I feel like I'm walking into a high end programmers convention here and raising my hand red-faced to ask for a bit of kindergarten help. Everything in this forum is Greek to me. I am NOT a programmer. Repeat: I am not a programmer.
My intended usage for Leo is organizing notes & ideas. I'm raising my hand here because perhaps Leo's outlining/organizing capabilities may be what I need. I'm hoping folks here can tell me if I'm even knocking on the right door by looking at Leo. But it looks like Leo's flexibility in outlining may be unsurpassed and may be what I'm looking for. Hope so.
I've looked for years for a software to help me organize my notes and ideas.
Here's the problem: I've been journaling for 25 years, writing thoughts, notes, ideas on probably hundreds of topics, and totaling probably a few million words in a few thousand files. But I haven't done much organizing. Most of my journal files have notes on multiple topics. Generally my files are named by date rather than topic, though I have perhaps a few hundred by topic. For years I wrote in Word, often using outline format, usually writing most notes in one file per year, in outline format. If you're concluding it's a mess, you are right (though it could be worse). What's not in Word is mostly in text files. I switched to writing in Vim a few years ago, and am now writing in Spacemacs. Org mode has been recommended to me but I have not undertaken it. I suspect Leo is better than org mode for my needs but who am I to know? Is it?
My project, which will undoubtedly take a couple of years, is to class and organize all notes into a "thoughtbase", perhaps comparable in some ways to a Zettelkasten. I want to sort through the mess, clip notes out by topic and organize them such that I can readily access anything and everything. I hope to cluster topics under a few (perhaps 25) main headings, some number of sub-headings, and individual topics with all notes on each topic stacked together.
Perhaps there's a book or two or three there, but to find such a book or books will require that all this be organized so I can see it, access it, massage it, move clips around, stack them up, try things, remember things I wrote 20 years ago, .... Sound like fun? You don't have to answer that.
My thought is to arrange all this in external plain text files initially, with the outline organization being in Leo, leaving the files external (eventually that is. Perhaps this isn't the best approach. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My first question is (and I'm hoping I've given a somewhat comprehensible thumbnail of what I'm looking for), is Leo capable of this, or perhaps Leo in combination with other software? Maybe some of the text-crunching and manipulating would be best done outside of Leo? BBEdit? DevonThink? InfoQube? Zettelkasten? Eastgate's Tinderbox? Heck I don't know. Oh yeah, MacOS High Sierra on an older (2010) iMac; just installed Leo 6.1.
One reason I'm looking at Leo for this is that I think I'm going to have to just start bringing material into an outline system, note by note, and evolve the classing and relationships 'as she goes'. I think it would be too much to try to come up with the entire classing system out the outset. Evolve it instead. And I suspect that is where Leo may outshine any other. Is this true? Others claim similar qualities, where the optimum organization emerges as you bring more material into the system and deal with it as the spirit moves, piece by piece. Patterns emerge, relationships develop, that sort of thing. That is ultimately what needs to happen. Is Leo the best bet? Or some combo of software?
In addition to some general thoughts on all this, I'd like a few pointers to get me started. I have learned how to create an external file in Leo, but I haven't found how to open/import a file (text or Word). That will be a key function in putting together a thoughtbase. I'm sure Leo can do, but I haven't discovered how to do it.
Thanks, Andy
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I have one specific question: Can I have a Leo file appear as a
headline in another Leo file, so I can hotkey the headline and have the
separate file appear? If so, can I assume I can get infinite
"drilldown?" It would be great to have a "master" Leo file from which I
can get to other Leo files, directly or indirectly.
Using clones you can create whatever organizational scheme you like. Add in a couple of plugins, like bookmarks, tags, and backlinks, and that ability explodes.
[later] After reading http://leoeditor.com/slides/plugins.html#unl-py I see there is also @url for use in headlines. It's smart enough to open a specific node, not just the file@url D:/code/studies/study-shortcutter.leo#MyChanges-->create_shortcut-->Docs
Chapters are indeed useful and are generally speaking a more organized type of hoisting. They're not often discussed so I would also encourage checking them out as a means of organization.
Hoisting a node redraws the screen that node and its descendants becomes the only visible part of the outline. Leo prevents the you from moving nodes outside the hoisted outline. Dehoisting a node restores the outline. Multiple hoists may be in effect: each dehoist undoes the effect of the immediately preceding hoist.
Many thanks to all. I've only just now got back to this thread and gratified to see tips have kept coming in. It will take me awhile to check all these out but it looks good indeed.I also want to put in a plug here if I may, for someone to undertake a robust Zettelkasten plugin for Leo. I think Zettelkasten is the best available idea for notes, and I think Leo may be capable of implementing it better than anyone else has done (disclaimer: this is the relatively uninformed opinion of a Leo newbie and a non-programmer as well). It seems to me (again as a complete newbie) that Leo already utilizes some (maybe all?) of the core principles of Zettelkasten, and more besides, that would only enhance the concept. It could truly be a marvelous piece of software. Wish I knew python.
I want to put in a plug here for someone to undertake a robust Zettelkasten plugin for Leo.
I put a lot of time some years ago looking into how to get the most out of my browser bookmarks, and I arrived at some of the same principles as I now read about for a Zettelkaste. And I tackled some of the things that seem to be glossed over in the material I've seen on Zettelkastens. You can read a paper about the work here -
...with a typical browser, you can save bookmarks in (virtual) folders...How do you find things, and how do you find related pages? Oh, and the system needs to be very simple to use or it won't be used.
On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 10:35 PM Thomas Passin <tbp1...@gmail.com> wrote:
I put a lot of time some years ago looking into how to get the most out of my browser bookmarks, and I arrived at some of the same principles as I now read about for a Zettelkaste. And I tackled some of the things that seem to be glossed over in the material I've seen on Zettelkastens. You can read a paper about the work here -Interesting....with a typical browser, you can save bookmarks in (virtual) folders...How do you find things, and how do you find related pages? Oh, and the system needs to be very simple to use or it won't be used.It does seem like links are the key, and that links to to-be-created notes would be great. All this should be straightforward to do.Terry's bookmarks.py plugin uses a "distinguished" node to hold bookmarks, but perhaps this isn't necessary. If a link doesn't yet exist, a new node could be created as the "originating" node's child, or sibling. That would make it possible to organize nodes as we like, without constraints.
...
...
Definitely, Thomas, and thanks so much for your interest. What I recommend as a starting point is to get one or more Zettelkasten programs yourself to familiarize yourself with the concepts and also the sort of GUI that is generally used (I am a very inadequate resource myself). Personally, I want some enhancements to the GUI.
https://zettelkasten.de/ is a general site on Zettelkasten, but the authors have their own, called The Archive. Free. I have it but haven't gone much into it as yet.
https://github.com/EFLS/zetteldeft is one for emacs (I don't have it)https://takesmartnotes.com/ An entire book on the ideas. Under 'The Book' on the homepage you can get the first chapter in pdf, which is really an Intro, and does a great job of it. Well worth reading.https://www.zettlr.com/ A writer produced this version. I have it but haven't done much with it yet. Free.https://roamresearch.com/ looks great but I think it's cloud-based, subscription. One thing it has is two-way links.https://writingcooperative.com/zettelkasten-how-one-german-scholar-was-so-freakishly-productive-997e4e0ca125 Article on the theory and practicehttps://github.com/renerocksai/sublimeless_zk The guy that wrote the plugin for Sublime wrote this to stand alone. Looks PDG to me, but he seems to have abandoned it 2 yrs ago. Free, I have it.
On Friday, January 31, 2020 at 1:47:45 AM UTC+1, Thomas Passin wrote:
I would be interested in adding several capabilities if they turn out to be feasible:1. Full text search of the notes by a search engine.2. Special processing based on certain semantic features in the notes, if they can be written with a bit of structure.3. Including URLs to web pages in the links.4. Including images in the notes in some fashion.
Here's a writeup by someone who's doing it in the SublimeText editor. It actually sounds pretty good -
There is one program that I immediately thought of after reading a few pages about Zettelkasten: fossil and its wiki feature. It is a single executable (a rather small one ~ 2-3Mb), that can work on any platform. It supports tagging, timeline view. One can see the history of any given note. With some basic Tcl programming one can easily generate cross reference pages of links between notes. It is not overly complicated to put the content of your repository online so that you can access it from anywhere. It supports markdown format for writing wiki pages (= notes). The whole archive content is in a single file which makes it easy to copy from one computer to another. It is easy to clone entire archive over the internet and work locally and later synchronize work with the other archives/repositories.
With a set of text (including say Markdown) files, one can fall back to full text searches if no other system ends up working well enough. Or even to keeping a paper Zettel-box that refers to the text files by name, if you really had to.
Can you imagine trying to work with thousands or tens of thousands of nodes in the outline pane?
Instead, I can see using an @zettel tree whereby if you put a node name into the headline of the node, Leo would open that note and any notes it linked to. You could keep them in a group forever in the outline if you liked, or delete the tree when you were done with that activity.
You would have the wiki-like ability to create a new note by using its name if it didn't already exist.
Would this be better than using Zettelr?
On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 10:40 AM Thomas Passin <tbp1...@gmail.com> wrote:Can you imagine trying to work with thousands or tens of thousands of nodes in the outline pane?It could be done easily, if that is what you wanted.
I would love to have the opportunity to submit a more lengthy 'essay' outlining in some detail what I've evolved in my imagination over a few years of thinking about this. Naming a few features doesn't get the idea across. I haven't written it up in one piece as yet. I need to scramble through all my past notes about it; might take 3-5 pages. Heck, maybe it's not as good a set of ideas as I think, but what I envision sure appeals to me for what I do with writing. Wish I'd had it 20 years ago.
Sure wish I were a programmer. Sometimes I've thought maybe I should dive into programming just to gain the skills to build this myself, but I think that's likely way too ambitious, especially at my age.But if/when someone here wants to/has time to give it a look, I would love to have the opportunity to submit a more lengthy 'essay' outlining in some detail what I've evolved in my imagination over a few years of thinking about this. Naming a few features doesn't get the idea across. I haven't written it up in one piece as yet. I need to scramble through all my past notes about it; might take 3-5 pages. Heck, maybe it's not as good a set of ideas as I think, but what I envision sure appeals to me for what I do with writing. Wish I'd had it 20 years ago.
In my opinion writing out an ideal interface (or more accurately: work, process and interaction flows) are worth doing, if only to clarify for self what is being sought. I've found it valuable for myself at any rate. It's a good way of making the not-so-well-considered ideas known. If I can't describe it clearly, then I haven't considered it as much or as deeply as I'm in the habit of assuming I have. Of course even after the fuzzy thinking has been given the boot it's still very difficult to get others to invest enough imagining-themselves-in-your-shoes time to appreciate the vision described -- they're busy with their own imagings.You've been thinking about this for a couple decades, the challenges still have you by the short and curlies, they're not letting you go or you them, so by that evidence alone it's something worth writing down. :-)
Sure wish I were a programmer. Sometimes I've thought maybe I should dive into programming just to gain the skills to build this myself, but I think that's likely way too ambitious, especially at my age.
But if/when someone here wants to/has time to give it a look, I would love to have the opportunity to submit a more lengthy 'essay'
Thomas, sorry for my ignorance but what do I need to do to view your HTML file rendered? I can dig out the text as is, but rendering it would make it a lot easier. I'm not HTML literate.
Length is not your friend in convincing others.
Here's something interesting. Remember the Memex, described by Vannebar Bush in 1945? It sounded like a mixture of the Web and a zettelkasten, with better media input means than perhaps we have today. Well, someone is trying to actually build one, or at least something as close as he can get given that the article was only a notional sketch of an idea, and that technology has changed a lot since then. Take a look -
"Nonsense. Anyone over the age of 7 can learn python."Love it! Where do I start? More politely, could you recommend a handful of what you consider the best resources/approach for a beginning programmer? I may or may not dig in, but I might as well give myself the opportunity and exposure. Actually I've had a very modest exposure to programming and I have heard that python is one of the easier languages to learn. How come? Intuitive? Simple? Works the way the mind works?
My age is the exact minimum age you mentioned...but with another digit following.
> Length can be unavoidable, when there are many interacting parts.
That's when you need a diagram.
I'm not up on the current books, but here's a possible starting point -One thing to keep in mind. There are two series of Python - 2.x and 3.x.
One approach I thought I might take is to 'narrate' a work session with my envisioned program. Describe what I am wanting to do, how search and navigation plays out, what does a 'standard zettle' do and not do, etc. The steps I take and how the software responds, what I see happening.
Thomas, tell me if this is an inappropriate suggestion, but I wonder if this thread has pretty much played out its level of pertinence and interest to the Leo community, since it's not directly about Leo and may be on a subject of limited interest here. Given your own zettelkasten-like program and your interest in knowledge and semantic processing, and your direct questions to me about my ideas (I'm working on it), would it be appropriate for us to continue the discussion by email? That would be much easier for me, but if not appropriate I'll continue here, though this thread waxes long now and I feel I don't function well in a forum venue.
I'm attaching my responses to the requirements you wrote, Thomas I'm thrilled there is more interest here than I had thought. I haven't even digested your comment here yet, just wanted to get my responses posted to hold up my end here. Will gladly consider all thoughts on how we should proceed here. Thanks much to all. I never expected this much when I walked in here. I definitely want to take this as far as it can go.
Andy, thanks for your comments. I will give my reaction to them in a series of posts, one per item.
On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 10:59:37 PM UTC-5, Thomas Passin wrote:Andy, thanks for your comments. I will give my reaction to them in a series of posts, one per item.Continuing my reactions to your comments -
9. Backlinks
@andyjim" "Yes, bi-directional links is on my wish list.
I agree that backlinks should be in exported files, but not sure what the implications are. I've assumed all code embedded in a zettel should be in any external files. But let's see, if we want to export a file to say, Scrivener to be worked into a document, it seems at that point we're expunging it from the zettelkasten system and it should only need text and perhaps markdown, but will it need any embedded code? Probably I'm not understanding on this one."
On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 10:59:37 PM UTC-5, Thomas Passin wrote:Andy, thanks for your comments. I will give my reaction to them in a series of posts, one per item.Continuing my reactions to your comments -
10. Display Styles
@andyjin: "Could this be called 'mapping'? e.g. a simple tree is a mapping or 'display style' of relationships.
To me this is one of the most important elements of the system, and it's all about accessibility. I want to be able to find any note or group of notes in the system very quickly and intuitively.
On my wish list is a search/navigation system that will enable me to locate items by tag(s), date, hierarchic relationships, linked relationships, text search terms, any other useful relationships that may be conceived for the system, AND any combination of these, in one search. My (only partially conceived) notion is for search results for such a search involving multiple types be displayed in a mapping or tree, and that that that tree be navigable. This is not well conceived as yet, but hopefully the general concept is understandible."
attached is my first draft for a zettel format.
On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 11:04:30 PM UTC-5, andyjim wrote:attached is my first draft for a zettel format.Thanks. Here's my first cut at a format.
On Friday, February 7, 2020 at 12:00:43 AM UTC-5, Thomas Passin wrote:
On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 11:04:30 PM UTC-5, andyjim wrote:attached is my first draft for a zettel format.Thanks. Here's my first cut at a format.
Seems this issue needs a lot of thought. Niklas Luhmann's zettels had numerical ID numbers, without textual clues as to their content. And it was a paper system. And he certainly didn't work by remembering filenames (he had 75,000 zettels)....
I understand your wanting individual text-based filenames, in order to be forward-compatible with an uncertain future. I get that and agree with the principle. But it appears to me that while that idea is forward-compatible it's not current-compatible with a software-based zettelkasten. How do we resolve this? Well, you suggested an optional, user-entered title as the UID. What if the system could (optionally) generate a separate file using the zettel title as the filename? The reason I say 'optionally' generate that file is that in my case I do intend to use titles, but they won't be unique. I might use the same title for a hundred different zettels, some on entirely different subjects.
Speaking for myself, with my use case, where the system is for thoughts, I want as little clutter and distraction as possible, which is the main reason I’ve never even used markdown. When I’m thinking and writing my thoughts, I don’t want to have to think about anything at all but writing nouns and verbs; not formatting code or anything else. I don’t know how many of my silly breed are thus afflicted, but I know some are. I’m having to work at accepting that I probably have to learn some markdown, but I won’t be messing with it until after I’m done writing my nouns and verbs.
Likewise when I make a gathering of a cluster of zettels to work with, I just want to see the text ("Just the text, ma'am"). Don’t want to see meta data or any other sort of informational or system stuff. Just the text, please, so I can focus on the meat. I’ll be thinking and writing further notes then as well, so keep the dogs quiet and tell that silly parrot to just shut up.
Ok well, enough drama. But this strongly felt need of mine is one reason I suggested (in my zettel template file attached to another post) a sub-divided zettel instead of a monolithic zettel. Let the system be able to address each sub-element independently. Bind the elements together by adding one more digit to the zettel’s UID and let that extra digit differentiate the individual elements. Now, let the system permit displaying only the body element, and now I have my distraction free thinking/writing environment. If all the link stuff is in one sub-zettel then the system need only look at that sub-element and not have to scan everything else to find what it’s looking for. Distraction free environment for the system as well. The links blocks from all the zettels are all the system needs to form the entire zettel web. Neat and clean, hopefully easier on the programmer (speaking as a non-programmer).
If the body (including title) comprises a separate element, then we can easily export only the body (if that’s what we want to do), free of all the system stuff. Or, if we wanted to export some but not all the specialized blocks. We can do whatever we want with ease.
All of which brings me to another reason I’m suggesting this, and you are free to tell me I’m crazy. This is a jealously guarded secret so don’t tell a soul:If the zettel is modular, then a user can design his own zettels and his own system…
Suppose the user wants a GTD system, specialized for his own use case. Now I realize the zettelkasten system can be used as is for a GTD, a PIM or most anything else. But, a GTD system would probably benefit from specialized templates for GTD. Likewise a PIM would better suit with specialized templates (fields for data, etc). You yourself designed a specialized ‘zettel’ for your URL management system. If this system has the capability to allow the user to ‘roll his own’ for specialized purposes, then I think we’ve got something pretty special. Heck you or I might want to redesign the zettel for our own use case. It looks already as if we have slightly different preferences in some ways each to suit his own use case. I’d like to be able to see first lines only, but you may have little or no interest in such a feature. But if my custom modified zettel template allows the first line to be a separate zet (cute name for a sub-element?), then I can have my wish, and you can have yours. Too, we could combine multiple systems in one: Notes, GTD, PIM, URL manager, project manager, … all in one integrated system.
Many researchers and writers want citations. If there’s a separate block for them, they can be hidden unless wanted (keep the dogs quiet). Or the user can easily view or form a list of all zettels’ citations. Or titles. Or links. Or header info. With such a system maybe the header block would contain the descriptor for the zettel. A list of the 'zets', their types, address of each. The system will need all that, and that and making a template for each sub element may be about all it takes.
Anybody know how to recover old MS Word 2003 files where I've lost the password?
OK, one more item: I'm on board with the notion of making zettels short, keeping the thought atomic. I see the value of that, but I won't always be able to do it. I have a goodly number of non-atomic thoughts, even essays, book chapters... But I want them in my ThoughtBase nonetheless. Also, I will be drawing on groups of zettels to write longer pieces, possibly someday a book or two (Luhmann wrote 60 books from his zettelkasten). I realize that at some point you need to take it elsewhere (Scrivener or whatever) to finish it, but I can imagine doing most everything up to rough draft in Zettelkasten. IOW I feel I need to have no limit on zettel size
Earlier you suggested starting a new thread. Are we coming to a good point to do that? I lean upon your best judgement; no strong opinion either way.
So you could have a hotkey with the command "inkscape myimage.svg",
another one "libreoffice mybook.odt", and another one "leo
my_trip_plan.leo" **.
There are a million ways to do this.
On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 15:36:36 -0800 (PST)
andyjim <andy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My thought is to arrange all this in external plain text files
> initially, with the outline organization being in Leo, leaving the
> files external
Hi andyjim,
The thread you started long ago moved away from the preceding desire.
Your preceding desire should be very easy to accomplish using the same
method VimOutliner accomplished it: Use executable lines. Somewhere on a
headline, or as a direct child of a headline, have a command to view
the external file, so that if you hotkey the headline, it runs the
command and pulls up the file.
On Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 10:55:38 AM UTC-6, stevelitt wrote:So you could have a hotkey with the command "inkscape myimage.svg",
another one "libreoffice mybook.odt", and another one "leo
my_trip_plan.leo" **.
There are a million ways to do this.The Leonine way is:headline: @command command-name @key=whatever
Maybe it's as simple as entering my UID manually when I prep a file for the parser, though in that case I would not be using the full YYMMDDHHMMSS format, probably just YYMMDDxx, since date will be the finest granularity available to me.
A node for each zettel? Thousands of them?
And - maybe this is weird - would there be any problem adding properties to a node?
A node for each zettel? Thousands of them?
On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 7:08 PM Thomas Passin <tbp1...@gmail.com> wrote:> Using Leo, and making each note be a separate node, we can get just that kind of ID for free.Not "kinda" for free. It's completely free for users. It's one of Leo's essential features.
This didn't happen for free behind the scenes :-) A lot of tricky work is involved. Don't even think of duplicating that work. It might take you years.
> On Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 11:55:38 AM UTC-5, stevelitt wrote:
> > The thread you started long ago moved away from the preceding
> > desire. Your preceding desire should be very easy to accomplish
> > using the same method VimOutliner accomplished it: Use executable
> > lines. Somewhere on a headline, or as a direct child of a headline,
> > have a command to view the external file, so that if you hotkey the
> > headline, it runs the command and pulls up the file.
From the preceding, I assume all the information is not within the same
directory tree, so you can't just roll it into a tarball. And if it
isn't already in Leo, it sounds like you don't yet have an inventory of
all this information. If this is indeed the situation, you have a
challenge: A very interesting one. Please feel free to contact me
offlist for the parts of the situation not involving Leo: If the
situation is what I think it is, it's very interesting and common
situation whose solution isn't trivial.
I PM'd you Steve, but it does not seem to go through. I'd be happy to be in touch with you for your suggestions.
I have written an initial set of user requirements (attached), and I would appreciate your thoughts on them. These are very high level requirements, and they don't include any actual user interface ideas. Instead, they are things that I think any UI would have to honor. I have tried to abstract from written work on paper zettelkasten systems. I also tried out several (free) zettel-programs for Windows, none of which worked well at all for me.One key point for me is a need to prevent lock-in to this - or any - particular system by either keeping the zettelkasten in the form of text note files, or having the ability to export a complete set of such files. In the worst case, I picture to myself, one could print out the text notes and actually use them as is in a physical zettelkasten. I think this is so important that I made it the first requirement.
One thing I wish I understood better is the acyclic graph model, how that plays out in Leo and what it accomplishes for us in organization/linking.
And Thomas, perhaps I need to read your papers on semantic processing (haven't done so yet), as it seems that's more or less what the zettelkasten model offers (maybe the Leo model, in fact), and it appears you are bringing the body of your work to bear on this project. Which probably makes you nearly the perfect person to be working on this.