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Roam Patrol!
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Oct 13, 2020 at 09:34 AM
Ditto for FoxTrot Pro, for identical reasons: less app-dependency, more flexibility. Similarly, I’ve moved away from favourites like Ulysses and Scrivener to markdown apps for all my notekeeping. This also, of course, means you can mix and match stuff – so I use NotePlan to manage a lot of info, but I also index the info with FoxTrot Pro, meaning I can correlate it with other info I don’t keep in NotePlan. Ditto Notebooks (where I keep a lot of PDFs) and Bear (where I keep a lot of exfiltrated web pages) – again, I can use FoxTrot Pro to index those data repositories too, in various combinations with other repositories.
I love the idea of Roam, Obsidian (and the Life Notes beta I’m currently testing), but in the end, I find that FoxTrot Pro delivers more useful info more quickly than any of these cross-linked apps, especially with regular expressions and the relatively new ability (in version 7.0) to refine searches.
The most direct comparison on Windows would be DT-Search for Desktop, although the web version (much more expensive) is cross-platform. FoxTrot doesn’t unfortunately feature a web version – I wish it did!
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Oct 13, 2020 at 05:32 PM
This discussion brings to mind a program Apple shipped with the early Macintosh (I believe, in 1987) called HyperCard. I haven’t heard much about Hypercard for many years, but I have thought about it periodically as I learn more about these new programs. It seems to me that the potential of Hypercard, which I hadn’t really thought of at the time, is being realized in programs such as Obsidian, Roam, and others. I use Dynalist a lot, and am seriously considering Obsidian.
Daly
bartb wrote:
“The question that fascinates me about all this “new”
>interest is “why now—what changed”. ” .... Exactly!
>IMHO: think one indicator is the sheer volume of data people want to
>track and research is growing too fast for the current toolsets to keep
>up.
>
>Paul Korm wrote:
>The technology of Roam or Obsidian is not new—the developers are
>>using existing off the shelf components. What’s “new” is that the
>>business of linking “notes” (or something more granular within a note)
>>is bringing broader awareness of the uses of hypertext theory and
>>information theory dating back decades.
>>
>>The question that fascinates me about all this “new” interest is “why
>>now—what changed”. Obsidian or Roam could have been written a
>>decade or more ago. And if then, they probably didn’t generate much
>>interest. (How many people bought Storyspace when it was first
>>published 33 years ago—Storyspace then, and now, has the same goal
>as
>>these new toys.)
>>
>>I read in Obsidian’s forums very detailed posts about ZKs, PKMs, and
>>MOCs, and PARA and blah blah. Underlying the efforts behind these
>>trends seems to be a general feeling of being overwhelmed by
>>“information” (or data, really—it’s just data) and trying to make
>>connections between “everything I think about .. everything I read ...
>>everything I worry about”. It’s seductive.
>>
>>
Posted by bartb
Oct 13, 2020 at 10:49 PM
Hmm ... HyperCard. That’s actually a pretty good analogy! HyperCard is long gone .... but there are plenty of alternatives .... https://hypercard.org
Daly de Gagne wrote:
This discussion brings to mind a program Apple shipped with the early
>Macintosh (I believe, in 1987) called HyperCard. I haven’t heard much
>about Hypercard for many years, but I have thought about it periodically
>as I learn more about these new programs. It seems to me that the
>potential of Hypercard, which I hadn’t really thought of at the time, is
>being realized in programs such as Obsidian, Roam, and others. I use
>Dynalist a lot, and am seriously considering Obsidian.
>
>Daly
>
>bartb wrote:
>“The question that fascinates me about all this “new”
>>interest is “why now—what changed”. ” .... Exactly!
>>IMHO: think one indicator is the sheer volume of data people want to
>>track and research is growing too fast for the current toolsets to keep
>>up.
>>
>>Paul Korm wrote:
>>The technology of Roam or Obsidian is not new—the developers are
>>>using existing off the shelf components. What’s “new” is that the
>>>business of linking “notes” (or something more granular within a note)
>>>is bringing broader awareness of the uses of hypertext theory and
>>>information theory dating back decades.
>>>
>>>The question that fascinates me about all this “new” interest is “why
>>>now—what changed”. Obsidian or Roam could have been written a
>>>decade or more ago. And if then, they probably didn’t generate much
>>>interest. (How many people bought Storyspace when it was first
>>>published 33 years ago—Storyspace then, and now, has the same goal
>>as
>>>these new toys.)
>>>
>>>I read in Obsidian’s forums very detailed posts about ZKs, PKMs, and
>>>MOCs, and PARA and blah blah. Underlying the efforts behind these
>>>trends seems to be a general feeling of being overwhelmed by
>>>“information” (or data, really—it’s just data) and trying to make
>>>connections between “everything I think about .. everything I read ...
>>>everything I worry about”. It’s seductive.
>>>
>>>
Posted by bartb
Oct 13, 2020 at 11:09 PM
Thanks Simon! You’ve given me a lot to think about concerning file formats and using multiple apps to store data. I thought DEVONthink might be a good solution for me (and still might be). But I never considered a Foxtrot Search type approach. I need to explore this option more.
Simon wrote:
I think there is also an element that people have always wanted to be
>able to see which notes they have made that relate to other notes they
>have made. The Zettelkasten idea is extremely powerful. What these new
>applications add is the behind the scenes connections. I keep making
>notes and the software connects the ideas. When I click on one note I
>can immediately see all other notes that link to this topic. Many used
>to do this with wikis but they became cumbersome to maintain. Even the
>venerable Tinderbox requires too much coding to make this happen for the
>average punter.
>
>I do think there is a definite information overload. Do I really need to
>track every breakfast I’ve had? Or for that matter every thought I’ve
>had?
>
>The big issue for me is that if you’re long enough in the tooth you may
>have amassed quite a mound of information and it’s having it all in one
>place in something that allows ease of creation plus ease of finding
>what you need when you need it. I CRIMP less these days as I’m tired of
>transferring information (it’s easy to lose creation dates, tags, labels
>and contexts) and worse I hate it if I have to look in 5 different apps
>for that note I made.
>
>My best discovery this past year is Foxtrot Pro search. I moved all my
>data out of DEVONthink and it now sits in folders and Foxtrot serves up
>what I need in second. I’m slowly building my own repository in my own
>folders, which also means it’s easy to migrate should the need arise
>(and at Apple’s continuing extortionate prices, this may be a reality).
>I have way too many proprietary documents that need conversion to a more
>open format, but with a solid file naming convention and a good search,
>I’m fairly happy. Apps like Obsidian are more for shorter notes than
>meeting minutes, or perhaps apps for developing ideas and processing
>through data.
Posted by Darren McDonald
Oct 14, 2020 at 11:09 PM
Came across an app in the Zettelkasten Forum. This is the link to the discussion:
https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1407/kokoro-app
And this a link to the app called 心 Kokoro: