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....<p>I ended up finding <a href="https://logseq.com/" rel="nofollow">https://logseq.com/</a> 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!
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.<p>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 <i>what</i> I was thinking, but <i>when</i>.<p>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.<p>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.<p>"So just use GitHub issues in a private repo." Well, GitHub issues isn't <i>exactly</i> what I'm looking for. Specifically:<p>- 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.<p>- I want more control over how the notes are stored (Git is ideal, I can mirror the repo wherever I want).<p>- 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.<p>A Jekyll-based blog fulfills these criteria pretty well, except:<p>- 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.<p>- Since Jekyll is not an app, it has no streamlined workflow for adding notes on mobile.<p>If anyone knows an app that is a good match for what I'm looking for, please let me know!
This has been a Show HN/Launch HN before:<p>(Launch) Nov 2021, 85 Comments <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29176158" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29176158</a><p>(Show) Mar 2021, 84 Comments <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26491764" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26491764</a><p>(Show) Oct 2020, 168 Comments <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24898373" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24898373</a>
I’ve compiled a list of other knowledge management apps for the curious: <a href="https://listifi.app/u/erock/knowledge-management-apps" rel="nofollow">https://listifi.app/u/erock/knowledge-management-apps</a>
I was once involved in Topic Maps, a failed ISO standard that was challenged Semantic Web at some point.<p>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.
These Electron solutions (VSC plugins, Obsidian, whatever) become really slow when you have a large document with markdown, code and latex in it.<p>I recommend learning Emacs org-mode. Painful, but eventually faster.
Honest question: Are "wiki notes" useful?<p>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)?<p>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.
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?
This VS code extension is kind of flying under the radar and unnoticed, but it has an amazingly well integrated full WYSIWYG markdown editor: <a href="https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cweijan.vscode-office" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cweijan....</a> Of all the markdown in VS code things I've tried, this is by far the simplest and nicest I've used.
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.
Two must have feature of personal knowledge management app for me are:<p>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).<p>2) Quality full text search (across all notes or just a sub-section)<p>Many knowledge management solutions have trouble with these two, so they are the first things that I usually test.
Can Dendron be run in a CodeServer [1] (i.e the VSCode in a browser) instance?<p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/coder/code-server" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/coder/code-server</a>
I still like Notable - easy to use and cross platform: <a href="https://notable.app/" rel="nofollow">https://notable.app/</a>
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?
I really wanted to like Dendron, but dealing with tables in markdown is a bit of a headache.<p>Also, I wanted a way to just show the markdown preview without also showing the source view.<p>The author has mentioned a planned WYSIWYG feature, so maybe that will solve these issues.<p>I wish zim had a proper Mac app!
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?
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).
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.<p>Also, Dendron is very clunky with even medium-sized files.
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.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>I've grudgingly switched to just using flat lists in my phone's pre-installed text only note taking app.
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.
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