Forum Posts Feed
Discussion of Roam-like Knowledge Managers
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Luhmann
Apr 15, 2020 at 09:41 AM
Roam is not simply an outliner with wiki links, what really makes it unique is the fact that links are bi-directional. You see what is linking to a document. This turns out to be very powerful. For instance, if I make a link for a contact, and then make a note about a meeting with that person, I will see the meeting listed under the contact entry, and the contact listed under the meeting entry. Moreover, it isn’t just a “backlink” but it shows the context of the link as well, which means you often don’t need to open the original document to read the relevant information, or even edit it. As far as I’m aware iA writer doesn’t do this.
This also means that tags aren’t just tags, but pages you can edit, linking to other related tags for instance, or providing more context explanation about the tag itself.
But Roam doesn’t just stop there. It also allows you to clone notes, and embed notes, so the same information can appear in multiple places and editing it in one place edits all the other instances.
And I haven’t even discussed its powerful query syntax that lets you embed not just linked notes or embedded notes, but also to produce your own complex queries to populate pages.
And there are many other features as well, such as versioning, todo, etc.
Yes, Obsidian still lacks much of this, but then I doubt it has been around for even a full month. I’m sure it will catch up quickly, and probably go off in its own direction the same way Dynalist departed from Workflowy…
By the way, it isn’t just Erica working on Obsidian, it is both of the Dynalist creators: Erica and Shida. Shida has just been less vocal.
Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 15, 2020 at 03:09 PM
Someone on Reddit made a list of Roam-like open-source alternatives:
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/f0z6yd/open_source_alternatives_to_roam_research/
Posted by Skywatcher
Apr 15, 2020 at 04:09 PM
Stay safe everyone. The year is going to be a rough ride. Hopefully 2021 will start a bit better.
Meanwhile, the CRIMP virus seems to be harmless so far :-))
Posted by Skywatcher
Apr 15, 2020 at 05:07 PM
Skywatcher wrote:
Stay safe everyone. The year is going to be a rough ride. Hopefully 2021
>will start a bit better.
>Meanwhile, the CRIMP virus seems to be harmless so far :-))
ooops sorry, wrong thread. The confinement is making lose touch with reality :-)
Posted by Paul Korm
Apr 16, 2020 at 12:23 PM
I experimented with export from Roam. It led me to consider that lock-in is going to be a major problem with Roam. The export of notes to markdown is minimally useful because all the inter-note linking is non-functional in the export. I reject the JSON export as unrealistic—I like most are not about to look for third-party software just to be able to recapture data from JSON. JSON is readable but entirely unfriendly for common users.
So if Roam is only offering the illusion of backup and export, but nothing truly portable, that’s a major failing—in addition to the cloud-only nature of the service, and the flakey proprietor.