Seems like you could get at least 75% of the way there in a single day using Inkscape as the drawing platform, depending on what else needs to happen with workflow (like scripting to add another page blank, which seems like it's less of an "Inkscape page" and more of a "rectangle I can write on & export as PDF", with the PDF export of a selected area doable as-is but maybe adding a specifically-sized rectangle where you want it is worth scripting) or tablet / writing operations. LO Draw would also be a candidate.<p>If you want your grid to be even more interesting, integrate Eagle Mode around it (i.e. install and skim the Eagle Mode docs) for harnessing the powerful & more or less universal taxonomy of a filesystem. You'd have multiple levels of zoom & pan workspaces there, since it will preview the PDFs as you zoom to their location.<p>So, if you want to wait for something to fit the spec to your inner-critic's liking, I guess that's one thing. But if you could get most of the way toward what you want within a day...even though it wouldn't be perfect...would that be worth trying?<p>There's also a Patreon for Inkscape development IIRC...
Wow, dropping "how" from the actual title really changes what I expected this to be about.<p>I think there are about five thousand projects that try to do exactly this. Omnigraffle comes to mind, so does OneNote which I <i>hated</i> because I don't want any of this infinite canvas stuff in my note app.
I'm not sure I'd describe that as organizing your thoughts. It sounds like more "give me a way to record everything without organizing it"<p>The benefit of writing things down is it forces you to organize and clarify.<p>What would be the benefit of this collection of random musings?
The Concepts [0] app on an iPad (what I use) could get most of the way there, save for tables and other formatting options. It has an infinite grid and the ability to place/import objects like PDFs and other formats.<p>[0] <a href="https://concepts.app/en/" rel="nofollow">https://concepts.app/en/</a>
I was on a very similar trail of thought. Is this what you're looking for? Kinda overly cutesy graphics but I believe all the functionality is there:<p><a href="https://kinopio.club/" rel="nofollow">https://kinopio.club/</a><p>P.S. Then I used it for a few days and realized the platform itself didn't help that much. It's actually the act of writing/thinking that gets the ideas rollin around in my own head, that's the real useful part.
Wow, this exactly how I organize my thoughts, and I've been slowly thinking about the design of this tool too.<p>I think the most unsolved part is the layout of arrows. I've never used any drawing or flowcharting program that could connect items at the speed of thought. You always spend time fiddling with the pathing of connector lines.<p>The auto-OCR feature is tricky too. You don't want to waste time clicking the Rect tool to draw a rectangle.
I have a radical proposal. How about taking a drawing class which will allow your hand to express your thoughts in a better way and then scan the result? I believe that there is art in note taking and also visual communication and a skilled hand is probably still the best creative medium. Just saying, cause I am thinking of taking drawing classes for a similar reason.
This maybe the killer app of VR/AR.<p>Another one might be true immersive development and or debugging.<p>I think the visceral sense of scale and spatial relationship might be a great leap forward in productivity.<p>I think I'd you could navigate a code base in 3D, we could use that part of brain that's subconsciously really good at directions to increase familiarity more rapidly.<p>The database schemas are up the stairs to the left, second door. (Or in the cave passed the willow tree, lol)<p>I've noticed after a few hours in a new games my brain has the map and I have to think less about where I'm going and more about my surroundings.<p>If we can tie into these "coprocessor" parts of our brain, how easier could hard things like math and engineering become for more people?<p>Random thiughts but the 1000th note taking app won't bring us closer but VR just might.
I'm so tired of these "infinite canvases" being proposed as solutions for organization without any second thought to how you'd retrieve any information. Minimaps are a possibility, but there are no shortage of ways to get ideas down both linearly and nonlinearly.<p>I thought the Zettelkasten hype would show more people that when it comes to organization and notetaking we need better ways to get things out than in. And when comes to the idea of "automatically linking" notes and ranking concepts within those notes based on importance or value there's no such thing as "one size fits all." Ideas and innovations in that area, maintenance, search, and surfacing relevant (forgotten) notes are far more interesting problems.
You’ll get something close to what you’re looking for with the Nebo app. Fluid handwriting recognition, diagrams, infinite whiteboard; multi-page PDF import, and decent full text search.<p><a href="https://www.nebo.app/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nebo.app/</a><p>(No affiliation)
I would love to see something similar to this, but with math. Something like those flowcharts, drawing on a drawing tablet, and snapping to a grid or something like that. Automatically recognizing square root, division, and othet math symbols. Maybe even some character recognition for drawing the numbers (though text boxes would be nice too).<p>Math always just seemed like one of those things that should be doable on a computer, but you just can't really do it efficiently without being able to draw numbers, lines, and other stuff all over the place, like you can on paper.
See Jef Raskin's work. "The Humane Interface" and Zooming UIs.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface</a><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/humaneinterfacen00rask" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/humaneinterfacen00rask</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface</a><p><a href="https://josephernest.github.io/bigpicture.js/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://josephernest.github.io/bigpicture.js/index.html</a><p>Also "Glamorous Toolkit" <a href="https://gtoolkit.com/" rel="nofollow">https://gtoolkit.com/</a> an extension of Pharo (Smalltalk).<p>- - - -<p>To me the weird thing is that this kind of app has so much overhead to roll out, that it's not e.g. a simple Red script or something ( <a href="https://www.red-lang.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.red-lang.org/</a> ), or already just the way your computer works (the Canon Cat <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat</a> Raskin again.)
> I keep a pen & notebook on my desk, which I make liberal use of to jot down my thoughts. It works pretty well: ad-hoc todo lists, notes on problems I’m working on, tables, flowcharts, etc. It has some limitations, though. Sharing anything out of my notebook online is an awful pain in the ass. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life, so tables and flowcharts are a challenge. No edits, either, so lots of crossed-out words and redrawn or rewritten pages. And of course, my handwriting sucks and I can type much more efficiently than I can write. I wish this was a digital medium, but there are not any applications available which can support the note-taking paradigm that I wish I could have. What would that look like?<p>Forgot the most important and annoying disadvantage of writing in journals: Search. The whole point of writing is that it is a record that you can at some point in the future benefit from. If you can't search, it is nfg. While some people write to better memorize what they're learning (college students), that's not what author is talking about. Inability to swiftly search things is probably the biggest drawback of writing in notebooks.
It makes me think of Paper Website[1]. If I were Drew, I would write down all my thoughts on paper. Then, when I wanted to share them, I might use similar tools described in that website to share.<p>1: <a href="https://paperwebsite.com/" rel="nofollow">https://paperwebsite.com/</a>
This sounds like a pitch for an 80s computer like by Wang or somebody. I think it's really cool how some wild new paradigm for knowledge work might require special (and expensive!) hardware in the 80s, but today any generic PC -- even a $300 rinky-dink HP Stream -- is so absurdly fast and powerful by comparison that all you need to do is code it up.<p>As it is, I usually just use org-mode for thought organization. When I need to give a presentation to co-workers, I type up some talking points in org-mode and may just spend an hour or two arranging them into a cohesive narrative. I've been praised for presentations I've made this way. Of course presentations aren't the only things I prepare for using org-mode -- I've written entire pieces of software from inside it.
Take a look at ExcaliBrain (<a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOkniMkDPyM" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOkniMkDPyM</a>) which combines Obsidian (markdown-based linked notes tool) and Excalidraw (sketching / whoteboard tool).
Tinderbox (<a href="http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/" rel="nofollow">http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/</a>) has a "map" view that functions somewhat like this, with two twists:<p>1. Notes on the map can be connected to each other via arrows that show relationships
2. Notes can act as containers for other notes, so you're not limited to the 2D plane the author describes -- you can "zoom in" by opening a note and you'll be presented with a map view of <i>that</i> note's contents.
Yup. I've had this exact same idea.<p>Similar idea that I liked but couldn't fully get into:<p><a href="http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow">http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/</a>
1. when you have such tool, you will find the need to tweak and improve, or even replace it with a better model.
2. I have tons of such thoughts, that have no time to implement, really.
3. I use my time to programming, and use money to buy food not time. in other words, poor?
The best way for me to organize my thoughts was to write down and talk about them then removing most of the written notes and executing on the rest, repeat.