22 ms·

Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing

• bloopernova 6y ago
  I'm really happy that the "knowledge base management" type of tools are getting a lot more attention these days. In my opinion, the more brains that look at this area, the better the whole ecosystem will get. I'll have to download this and give it a try, and compare it to my current workflow. (I use org-roam on Emacs. I'm not sure if people are sick of org-mode and Emacs being mentioned on HN? I worry about becoming the stereotype of "how do you tell if someone is a Vegan (or uses Emacs)?" "Don't worry, they'll tell you". I don't want to derail any discussion though!) For those of you wondering about Zettelkasten and knowledge management, I suggest you start by reading "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens: https://takesmartnotes.com/ https://takesmartnotes.com/ and https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34507927-how-to-take-smart-notes https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34507927-how-to-take-...
  • mxuribe 6y ago
    > I'm really happy that the "knowledge base management" type of tools are getting a lot more attention these days... I share this happiness...It often feels like so many people assume this is a solved sort of area; But i believe it is not.
    • fastball 6y ago
      It's a tough problem to solve. My co-founder and I worked on our product in this space for two years before we released it, and we still have a huge list of features and ideas that we'd like to integrate. The problem is that everyone's brains work differently / everyone has a different workflow, which is I think why we're seeing such an explosion of tools in the space. We've tried to address that with our app in a variety of ways, but it is very much an uphill battle.
    • drcode 6y ago
      I think the main unsolved problem is that we need our notes organized both based on subject matter, as well as based on importance, with a high level of granularity on both dimensions (i.e. sentence level granularity) It's very hard to come up with a good, simple mechanism that lets you look at notes from both of those perspectives and to mix those two levels (i.e. "show me the high importance notes organized by subject") One associated challenge is that we don't really have a good way of knowing importance of information ahead of time, so an additional problem is to come up with good heuristics for estimating importance based on other factors.
  • daffy 6y ago
    Do tell if you find this has any advantage over Org mode.
  • esperent 6y ago
    I do think that the area of knowledge management is very interesting and worthy of discussion. When it comes to tooling though, I've tried out a couple and I don't find anything superior to a folder full of markdown files + your favorite text editor (I use VSCode, but I don't think that's especially important). Systems like Zettelkasten are interesting to read about, but again, everyone's brain is different and for me a bunch of folder categories and one misc/daily folder is just as good. On a purely personal level, any tooling or system more complex than what I already use is unnecessary.
    • SquishyPanda23 6y ago
      One thing this ecosystem is missing is a measure of how effective people are after switching from one tool or another. E.g. our company implemented the use of Zettelkasten in a randomized trial and engineering efficiency improved by x% in the experimental group compared with y% in the control group. It seems like much of the ecosystem is like some areas of the Linux ecosystem, where the goal is more to focus on getting the tools and process just so than on the impact the tooling has on actual productivity.
      • jpxw 6y ago
        How do you quantify “efficiency“?
        • SquishyPanda23 6y ago
          However you like. Presumably people invest in these tools for some reason. Maybe "developer ergonomics survey results" is one definition of the goal is just for people to feel more in command of their area of work.
        • iamstupidsimple 6y ago
          <s>Lines of code / time</s>
      • Kinrany 6y ago
        Re: research on engineering efficiency, there needs to be a baseline to compare with, and a way to make the studies reproducible.
  • hjek 6y ago
    As a vegan Emacs + org-mode user, I found your comment hilariously spot-on!
    • eggsmediumrare 6y ago
      Only a vegetarian, but I do crossfit (lower case very intentional).
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    I've just been using Google Docs. It's simple, searchable, and I can read/edit my notes while sitting on the can. The only markup I use are: links, lists, bold/underline/strikeout, embedded images? What am I missing?
    • npongratz 6y ago
      My experience with Google Docs makes me want to strangle it. It's slow, unresponsive, uses a ton of memory, and I can't shake the constant nagging weight of surveillance being done against me. EDIT: Oh, and just this last week, I found it couldn't understand that I wanted to use "set up" as a verb, instead of "setup", the noun. Constant underlining when underlining was neither necessary nor desired. Apparently when I told Docs a month ago to avoid critiquing my grammar (via its Settings), it took my mandate as merely an ephemeral suggestion.
      • koheripbal 6y ago
        My daily journal is up to 110 pages long. I haven't noticed any performance issues (though it does take 5-6 seconds to load on mobile). As for autocorrect - you can turn that off in Tools->Spelling and Grammar.
        • pkalinowski 6y ago
          In my experience input lag in Google Docs is very small but noticeable compared to local writing. You can get used to it, but I prefer more snappy experience.
  • komarov_om 6y ago
    It would be awesome to see these kind of tools taken to the next level. So far we are "just" doing Zettelkasten in computers. What I mean by the next level is something like: - when I pick up a new e-book, show me the chapters that have new ideas that I'm not familiar with yet, so I can skip the things I already know - let me see how my ideas/opinions on a given topic were evolving through time, which encounters have influenced them - let me publish a slice of personal knowledge base for others to explore, let me see what my friends published (better social media?)
  • mcdevilkiller 6y ago
    Do you also use GNU/Hurd? /s
• sradman 6y ago
  YAZN (Yet Another Zettelkasten Notes) system. This one is Markdown with YAML Front Matter for metadata and an Electron based editor. Roam, Foam, Zettlr. All of these start with the powerful principle that every document/note should be addressable with its title-slug (wiki like linking). Good stuff.
• m_b 6y ago
  another Electron app, no thanks
• polskibus 6y ago
  How does Zettlr compare to https://roamresearch.com/ https://roamresearch.com/ ?
• steveklabnik 6y ago
  It’s great to see such an explosion in tooling here. It also seems really hard to write comparisons since there’s so much development going on. I haven’t tried Zettlr yet, but it’s on my list...
  • input_sh 6y ago
    I've tried it. I do like the built-in features, but the design makes me despise it. It doesn't follow any system preferences, even replacing the standard minimize/maximize/close buttons (seriously, why?). Some of the stuff should definitely be a plugin instead of a core feature. Don't need a pomodoro timer / readability feature? Tough luck, you can't even remove it from the interface, let alone remove it completely. There's also no plugin support, so you can't extend the features in any way. I'm using Obsidian[0] instead. A little rough around the edges, but it doesn't have these issues. [0] https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/
• fluder 6y ago
  I recommend https://fsnot.es https://fsnot.es Native and blazing fast for iOS and macOS.
  • balladeer 6y ago
    I have used it for a while and it's not very stable or rather say "finished" yet (neither Mac nor iOS). But it's open source, so I'd favour it over, Bear, given a chance, which it resembles the most. So I just keep it installed and keep checking it once in a while. Though I'd just be happy with something like nv (+ Simple Note + Dropbox) which is actively developed (Simple Note just for the iOS).
• lastgeniusua 6y ago
  Downloading page is down now, I guess?
  • renjith1 6y ago
    Downloadable from GitHub https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/releases/ https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/releases/
• slezyr 6y ago
  This page loads one CPU to 100% in Firefox
  • captn3m0 6y ago
    Its the constellations on the top.
• scribu 6y ago
  The drawback to working directly on Markdown files is that it's hard to synchronize your notes from/to mobile. If I didn't care about sync, I would use org-roam or some Vim plugin, personally.
  • regularfry 6y ago
    Syncthing ought to be an answer to this, given the right editor.
    • scribu 6y ago
      Potentially! Looks cumbersome to set up for iOS, tho: https://www.reddit.com/r/Syncthing/comments/ese82l/ios_users_how_do_you_sync/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Syncthing/comments/ese82l/ios_users...
      • kolias 6y ago
        The lack of a proper syncing solution is why I've moved off of iOS. The ability to sync everything I'm working on to an arbitrary folder on my phone/tablet and always have access to them with whatever program I need (without pushing them back and forth) and all my changes are immediately visible to every other program and device, that's something I can't get with iOS and it always annoyed me.
  • ResidentSleeper 6y ago
    I've recently started using GitJournal [1] to access my notes on Android, but I haven't used it enough to be able to say whether it's worthwhile. One annoying drawback is that it requires a monthly subscription to get access to all of the (convenience) features. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.gitjournal.gitjournal https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.gitjournal....
    • vhanda 6y ago
      Hi. I'm the author of GitJournal - do you have any suggestions on a different monetization model? I'm not too keen on ads. Maybe a yearly or 3 years subscription?
• sanchitnevgi 6y ago
  I've been using Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/) for the past few weeks and it has been really great.
  • DerWOK 6y ago
    Yes, I also looked into Obsidian. And I really liked it. But their license scheme would have forced me to buy a subscription to also use it in work environment. So I switched to Zettlr and never looked back. Would they have allowed the personal one-time bought license to use in professional working, I would have sticked.
    • cgriswald 6y ago
      They've changed their licensing since it was first announced on HN. They're still pretty murky. For instance, the personal license excludes certain types of work (but the phrasing is unclear); but the commercial license states it's only required for businesses of two or more people. The personal license is no longer a subscription (if it was ever, I don't really remember), but the commercial license still is, even for non-Enterprise.
    • bostonvaulter2 6y ago
      I'm very happy with Obsidian's pricing. Basically if you're getting paid in relation to some of the notes that you take then you should be using the commercial version. Much better model than the advertising and data-vacuuming models that are the flavor of the day. I'm glad to pay for software that I use, that means the software can be sustainable and continue to exist.
  • inakarmacoma 6y ago
    By the creator of DynaList as well... Another worthy competitor that outshines workflowy in my opinion.
  • AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
    I need something like this for Android, that's where I got down most of my ideas. For a while I was using Google keep and transferring my notes to scrivener occasionally but that is just time consuming.
• wenc 6y ago
  Folks who are familiar with Zettelkasten: Would it be correct to say that most of these tools are identical to Wiki software with one exception: the ability to see "what linked to this"?
  • scribu 6y ago
    It's not that. Wikipedia, for example, has a separate "pages that link to this" view. What makes Roam Research different is "block addressing", i.e. you can get a reference to a single paragraph and use it in other docs (either referencing it or embedding it). (and of course a nice UX for editing)
    • wenc 6y ago
      I see. What else separates it from Wikis? (genuine question) Side: I've read books and articles in an attempt to understand what sets it apart from other techniques. I know Niklas Luhmann used it to write tons of books and articles, while others claim to have been able to use it as a "second brain". But I'm still having trouble understanding how to deploy the Zettelkasten technique effectively -- a lot has been written about the technique, but not much has been written about actual use cases where someone has used it to accomplish something useful, which they couldn't have as easily or at all without Zettelkasten. Due to the lack of examples, I'm trying understand by analogy, by comparing Zettelkästen to something familiar like Wikis.
    • mikro2nd 6y ago
      A nice UX? Personally I've found Roam to be flaky as hell. (Perhaps it just doesn't like Firefox very much.)
  • mikro2nd 6y ago
    So Zim-Wiki with the Backlinks plugin, then. Notes (wikipages) are stored as ordinary text files in a directory structure that is whatever hierarchy you've used in the notes. (I tend not to use hierarchy much for my every-day notes.) Zim doesn't use Markdown as it's native or input syntax, but can copy text as md if you so wish. Honestly one of the most underrated, understated tools I've ever come across, and one I would hate to have to live without.
• dsissitka 6y ago
  Announcement with a brief overview of some of the changes in 1.7 here: https://www.zettlr.com/post/zettlr-170-released https://www.zettlr.com/post/zettlr-170-released Mirror here: http://archive.is/usgQ5 http://archive.is/usgQ5
• Pmop 6y ago
  Too bad it is electron.
• lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  I think this trend of better knowledge tools is missing two very important pieces of human nature 1. If we have time to enter something into a knowledge base of any kind - then we have time to just jot it on a piece of paper. 2. If we dont have time (or think it is important at that moment) then what solves the problem for us is not a knowledge base, but search. You see the thing about Google and Facebook etc, is that if they were collecting all this information about me, and it was treated like medical information about me it would be far more useful to me (and far less useful to Advertisers). I want a web browser that remembers every single page I have visited (#) and then lets me search them. Then someone could write a spaced reminder thingy for me - spent more than 5 minutes on a web page did he - he will want to refresh that page in 2 weeks and then 4 months. Yes, knowledge bases are excellent for clearly defined study efforts - like y'know, university, but for the rest of life, explicit note taking is a cost that we need some activation energy barrier for. Put it this way, once upon a time I had a study book for a new programming language, and i took notes of interesting examples on a ring binder. But the last time I learnt a new language I just relied on Google finding me the relevant StackOverflow pages - my cost/benefit line had changed. (And notes just got dumped into a text file.) (#) Ok maybe not those pages
  • Fiveplus 6y ago
    Good points, especially point 1. About the second part here - I remember seeing a (rather creative) guy post a personal project based on that, on here, a few days ago. He wrote a comprehensive post about his addon which aims to remembers exactly in which context has a user encountered said article/author/keyword in the past. I'll see if I can link it. --- quick update, found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23668507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23668507
  • lukevp 6y ago
    I agree, the most useful thing these tools can provide is fast data entry and robust search for most users. That’s the focus of the tool I’m building, https://NoteBrook.com https://NoteBrook.com . Reach out if you want to be in on the beta, it has been delayed a bit as I’ve been refining the search and editor experience of the alpha version and building super fast apps on every platform, but it should be launching in the next week or two!
• douglaswlance 6y ago
  There is nothing that compares to using your preferred text editor to write personal knowledge documents like this. I swapped over to [Foam](https://foambubble.github.io/foam/ https://foambubble.github.io/foam/) in VSCode recently when it was released, and it's like a breath of fresh air. I can use my keyboard shortcuts, extensions, and snippets. Nothing else can compare.
  • deepersprout 6y ago
    How do you organize your notes? Do you have one big file for everything, one file for one note, one file for argument, or something else? Do you keep a date on your notes? Maybe you can share a bit about how you organize your written down knowledge?
    • douglaswlance 6y ago
      I use a flat folder structure. All my markdown files are in a single folder. I use metadata sections in the header of each document to organize and configure it. The documents themselves are structured differently depending on their topic. My journal document is a long running single document with timestamps. Other documents are structured in paragraphs, others are simply bulleted lists. Of course, everything is linked by tags, which are the core organizational mechanism. I've found that rigid organizational structures don't lead to better outcomes. It's best to let the structure develop naturally through tagging.
  • stevesimmons 6y ago
    In the last week, I've started using Foam too. It hits the sweet spot for me: - Plain Markdown files stored in git; exactly what I am used to for code. - Editor is VisualStudioCode, which I always have open, and can configure however I like. - No vendor lock-in.
    • wadkar 6y ago
      Would you say it's an editor lock-in? I can make pretty much the same argument for say, vim or emacs, and say that plain markdown + fugitive/magit hits the sweet spot. I am just trying to understand where's the vendor lock-in thing coming into the picture here.
• dmytton 6y ago
  Note-taking seems to be a hot topic lately. I used Apple Notes for a long time because it was very lightweight and minimalist, but recent releases of macOS have been very buggy, so I decided to review all the options. I wrote this up at https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-markdown-open-format-cross-platform/ https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-m... which has become one of the most trafficked post on my blog in the last few months! The key for me is a) plain text files I can manage myself i.e. no database or mandatory custom sync; b) markdown. Apps will come and go. You might decide to switch platforms and maybe a new editor will come along sometime. This means you want a format that can be opened by anything (plain text) but with lightweight markup that the editor can parse to make it look nice, but you can also parse with your eyes and get a reasonable sense of the document structure (markdown). Then it's all about search. There's no point making notes if you can't find them. This is where something more than Markdown - that allows you to link notes - is handy. It's what is appearing more and more in the likes of Roam, Obsidian, etc. I ultimately chose iA Writer on macOS because it is lightweight and really nicely designed, plus has good native support for Markdown. I sync using OneDrive but you can use anything because they're all individual files. iA Writer is also native, and I find most Electron apps to be slow and/or buggy. There are exceptions e.g. VS Code, but I prefer native where possible.
  • selykg 6y ago
    I had a lot of weird issues with Notes. Notably folders wouldn't delete and would randomly come back after deletion. Just strange stuff like that. I ended up switching to Bear for notes. I use iA Writer for writing longer form stuff like documentation and where I need to work with files directly. It's a great app.
  • tweetle_beetle 6y ago
    Seeing as your list is pretty comprehensive, it might be worth having a look at Writemonkey. It's been in development since 2006 - so long before the markdown editor trend in recent years, and probably even pre-dating the distraction-free trend about a decade ago. The most recent incarnation (v3) fits your two criteria well and its plugin system is very versatile. Sadly cross platform supports only came with version 3 and that means saying goodbye to the small Windows native downloads, but it's not an Electron monstrosity. Just a long time fan and always feel a bit disappointed that it never comes up in these kind of discussions :) http://www.writemonkey.com/wm3/ http://www.writemonkey.com/wm3/ (And in a pinch, away from my own machine, StackEdit is great.)
• tifadg1 6y ago
  Could someone enlighten me what is the biggest advantage or this and similar tools over libreoffice writer? I've been using it extensively for years for technical documentation, have hundreds of bitrot-free documents, and am extensively using: * tables (2 or 3 columns depending on type, often using sort by column 1 or column 1+2 to keep relevant information grouped); * preset formatting for different styles (snippets, commands); * navigation using ToC (on a sideway navigation pane which is always visible); * auto-generating anki flashcards from the content with no modifications; * inserting external media; I've used different methods to keep a single synchronized copy depending on work tech restrictions, i.e. nfs over ssh, sshfs, vpn via vm. Nowadays working from home I just keep everything locally. What are the selling points to drop all that and move to something else?
  • henrikeh 6y ago
    How do you generate flashcards from LibreOffice and what do you mean with “no modification”?
    • tifadg1 6y ago
      headless export to html (on a dir), then parse each file to split per heading (1 heading 1 card). Back side contains the whole heading content, front side contains rule based text to guide what the question is looking for, so may contain * bold words, indicating you should recall info within; * command explanations from tables, indicating you must think of the correct command; * other text prepended a specific word of style; it's really up to you to make rules. Once a split is done, dump the parsed html into txt and load from anki and you get 1 anki file per directory, with cards split by heading, but grouped by file name, i.e. https://imgur.com/a/NgBzI15 https://imgur.com/a/NgBzI15
  • cellularmitosis 6y ago
    I wasn't aware you could create links from one libreoffice writer document to another?
    • tifadg1 6y ago
• fastball 6y ago
  Shameless plug: I've been building a similar tool for the past couple years, although it is not FOSS :( The major differentiator is that content is based around notecards rather than documents/files, and there are multiple ways to structure these cards. The most powerful way to organize things is with multi-parent nesting, where you put cards inside of other cards, and each card can have any number of parents. You can share these cards with others, and they can add their own parents to it that don't interfere with yours, allowing you to have shared cards that exist within entirely different hierarchies that are unique to each individual user. That's a feature that I think is unique in the space, but we also have the links/backlinks and tags that you will see elsewhere (though tagging is similarly powerful in that shared cards can have tags that are public vs tags that are private to the user). You can check it out here: https://supernotes.app https://supernotes.app
  • emptysongglass 6y ago
    I love the metaphor of a massively hyperlinked card. It reminds me a little of https://mochi.cards https://mochi.cards, which I've enjoyed spending time with. But these things can only ever remain idle curiosities to me when they're closed source. We're talking about a knowledge graph that only really flexes itself with years of dedicated entry, roaming and combing through its interlinks for that electric flash of idea-sex. Why should I commit to a company's knowledge box when I can't trust your team's bus factor? You're one human being, any number of calamities could befall you -- I have to assume Supernotes isn't wired to an open-source dead man's switch. You're also an engine of capital beholden to its single truth: print more money at all costs. We've already seen apps like Roam jack up their price. Is there a ceiling you can guarantee me?
    • fastball 6y ago
      Absolutely – it's definitely a tough balance to find. At some point in the future we'd like to have Supernotes be a federated solution with self-hosting available, but that goal is quite a bit out, if it can happen at all. In the meantime, we already have the ability to export all your cards as markdown, and are currently trying to find ways to export your actual data graph in a format that could possibly be used elsewhere. Obviously the hard part with this is that, as I mentioned, our structuring options are somewhat unique, so there isn't really a way to export it in a way that could be readily consumed by other tools. For the last point, this would be solved by federation / self-hosting. But again, in the meantime, we want to get closer to this goal by offering a lifetime subscription[1] (which is cheaper than Roam's offer which lasts 5 years). [1] https://supernotes.app/pricing/ https://supernotes.app/pricing/
• codr7 6y ago
  Two words, Org mode: https://orgmode.org/ https://orgmode.org/ Add Magit and you're good to go: https://github.com/magit/magit https://github.com/magit/magit Emacs is a quirky beast, but these two packages alone make it worth the effort to learn.
  • ralls_ebfe 6y ago
    Switched to emacs(spacemacs) from vim last year, because I wanted to know what the craze with org-mode is all about. Am using mu4e, elfeed, rcirc, magit, org-mode and started using org-roam this week. I still suck at elisp, but emacs with org-mode really is a blast. I love my agenda: whenever I get confused what I was about to do, it is only some keystrokes away. I feel insanely organized while forgetting everything all the time.
    • DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
      Did you find mu4e difficult to set up? That's something I started investigating lately but the things I've seen all feel somewhat more involved than anything else I've done with emacs.
      • ralls_ebfe 6y ago
        That one is a bit confusing, yes. I had to read some manuals and exaaples, but now it is working fine with mbsync. The arch linux wiki was helpful i think.
      • ralls_ebfe 6y ago
        But it is worth the struggle. I can now create links to emails inside of my todos, or even better: capture mails with org-capture into todos.
    • wadkar 6y ago
      Wait until you start doing email ... oh wait, mu4e ... never mind. Wait until you start reading news ... oh wait, elfeed ... never mind. Well, you get the point ;-) Just don't install a kernel - emacs already comes with an OS :P
• unsungNovelty 6y ago
  If anybody is sad about Zettlr not having the graph view of like the one in Obsidian or RoamResearch, please be patient. A PR is already open for it. -> https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/pull/921 https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/pull/921 OpenSource powaaaaa! :)
  • grok22 6y ago
    Does anybody find that graph view (like in Obsidian) useful? I play around with it for a while, but I don't really find it useful for any particular thing. Also overtime that graph grows too big to be visually easy to see patterns etc.
    • ziftface 6y ago
      Sometimes it's an alternative to search. If you don't know exactly what to search for but remember generally what it's related to, you can zoom in to nodes you know are somewhat related and find something you're looking for that way. I can't say it's something I do every day but it's come in handy.
    • unsungNovelty 6y ago
      Yes, I do. As a very visual person, I love the graph view. It helps me visualise what I can only have an idea about in my head. And more often than not you forget a note ever existed. So when you see the graph view, you see what exactly is connected with it and helps you remember it better. > Also overtime that graph grows too big to be visually easy to see patterns etc. That is kind of the point with Zettelkasten (the method on top of which Obsidian and RoamResearch is built up on.). You have a huge repo where you see connections you didn't before.
    • pivic 6y ago
      I do! I've mainly found it to be inspirational when working creatively, especially when I'm writing a 'dirty first draft' of something, e.g. a research embryo, collecting interviews about a subject, doing brainstorming sessions, even book reviews. I've still got to come to grips with segmenting Obsidian vaults so that the cloud doesn't grow too far...
• rohithkp 6y ago
  I use a combination of foam, GitJournal, VSCode. Works well for me.
• captainredbeard 6y ago
  Reminds me of VoodooPad
• maddyboo 6y ago
  Neuron is a new Zettelkasten project that shows a lot of promise. The developer is very active and responsive. I like that it is an editor-independent cli tool, with plugins currently for Vim and Emacs. https://neuron.zettel.page/ https://neuron.zettel.page/ https://github.com/srid/neuron https://github.com/srid/neuron
  • brunoqc 6y ago
    Do you know if neuron will ever supports mobile?
    • codethief 6y ago
      Looks like it will: https://neuron.zettel.page/041726b3.html https://neuron.zettel.page/041726b3.html
      • brunoqc 6y ago
        Thanks!
  • tjstankus 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing this, I've been thinking about building something like it, now I may not need to.
• DerWOK 6y ago
  Some admin removed the "version 1.7" from the post headline? Why that? The news is that the version 1.7 - after 4 month of work - was just released a few hours ago... ️
  • dsissitka 6y ago
    I imagine it's because the link points to Zettlr's home page and so the discussion ended up being about Zettlr in general rather than the 1.7 release.
• black_puppydog 6y ago
  I can't believe nobody bothered to link TiddlyWiki [1] here... Especially since this crowd here should be able to run it directly from npm, which makes it much easier (conceptually, for me) than "a self-modifying html file". :P For Zettelkasten (and research more generally) Stroll [2] is a flavour of TiddlyWiki that has many of the features you'd like, including (most crucially for me) backlinks. Edit: the reason I brought up TiddlyWiki here is because I tried Zettlr and while I see how some people would like it, I certainly didn't. [1]: https://tiddlywiki.com/ https://tiddlywiki.com/ [2]: https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html
  • lstmemery 6y ago
    I spent about an hour trying to set up a TiddlyWiki for a Zettelkasten, but couldn't get it working. I was overwhelmed by the number of editors available. I now use Zettlr. Is there a tutorial you used to help your set up?
    • kseistrup 6y ago
      All you need to do is to drag the orange “pill” found under “Updating Stroll” on https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html onto a tiddlywiki instance, then click the “import” and “reload” buttons and you're all set.
    • rkique 6y ago
      I picked https://nesslabs.com/tiddlywiki-beginner-tutorial https://nesslabs.com/tiddlywiki-beginner-tutorial which uses https://noteself.org/ https://noteself.org/. NoteSelf has autosync which is helpful. I would recommend reading How To Take Smart Notes and really internalizing the information there, I started off way too fast and ended up with too many tiny notes. It takes practice but its definitely worth it.
  • Erwin 6y ago
    I switched to TW for journalling, but it's still not perfect. Before that I had just a text file I could press a button to insert a date and add some text in at the end. I switched to monthly journals rather than daily as with daily there were just too many small tiddlers. I think you need a lot of discipline to categorize every thought you get in a nice hierarchy, and that takes time. I've started using the "Excise" command for that in TW, that lets you pick some existing text and move it to another tiddler, maybe adding a link (here the backlinks would help, so I might upgrade to Stroll, if possible)
• I_am_tiberius 6y ago
  Joplin and Standard notes are great as well. I lost one week of data due to some synchronization issue with Joplin though - but the markdown editor is great (they even have a new WYSIWYG editor). Standard notes is good but it's missing good file/image support which is really annoying.
  • electricEmu 6y ago
    What happened with your Joplin sync issue? I am interested in using Joplin exclusively and use both apps currently. The Standard Notes development team is nice but refactors happen too frequently and estimates are rarely (never) produced, even though the product is paid Open Source.
    • I_am_tiberius 6y ago
      It's a pity because Joplin has pretty much the perfect feature set for me. I can't tell you much about the sync issue I had as I didn't find a solution (I also didn't spend too much time on it). Btw. I initially migrated from zim and the migration was super easy!!! What I can tell you is that Joplin suddenly didn't show any notes anymore because of a sync issue. In the source folder I saw some files still there but the notes of the previous week were all gone. I would have appreciated to have the option to tell Joplin that I don't care about sync and want my local Joplin files to be the primary ones - or something like that. I then bought a 5 year plan of Standard notes which is not as user friendly as Joplin (in my opinion) but has some cool features (like the spreadsheet extension which is awesome). However, as mentioned, without being able to just paste images it's more or less useless for preparing blog posts or something like that. You need to use "fileSafe" I guess but for this you need Dropbox etc.. Other features missing in Standard Notes are simple drag & drop of folders and context menu...
      • electricEmu 6y ago
        Honestly, it's good to hear I'm not alone. Synchronization in Joplin concerned me too. E2EE is non-trivial to setup and Joplin will upload decrypted files if E2EE is misconfigured on a device. Encryption appears to be an afterthought in Joplin. Standard Notes looks snazzy but too many features fail to work. I cannot get paste to work consistently on my mobile devices, and you're right - the editors are a an absolute mess. File Safe is only supported in unsupported editors and the supported editors lack basic features. FYI, the spreadsheet editor unsupported and exporting sheet data is...difficult. I do not recommend Standard Notes anymore. Thanks for pointing out a need for external backups in Joplin though!
• diimdeep 6y ago
  It's really hard to beat speed, robustness and flexibility of general purpose editors like Vim and Sublime Text, that's why I don't see myself using something like this for markdown notes.
• rvz 6y ago
  > macOS: "Your system has run out of application memory" I just looked at the apps I currently have open and it appears that I have the following running: VSCode, Docker, Slack, Notion, WhatsApp, Discord, Riot, Chrome (70+ Tabs), Skype, and Figma. I wondered if my Macbook could tolerate another electron app being installed or if I can open another one without grinding my Macbook to a halt. But again I don't think such apps can even scale with other apps running in the background.
• eblanshey 6y ago
  For the last half a year or so I've been using VNote: https://github.com/tamlok/vnote https://github.com/tamlok/vnote I was really surprised when I discovered it, as I've been looking for the "perfect" note-taking system for a while and VNote was never mentioned. It checks all my boxes: in-place preview of markdown, is open source, automatically copies images to your notes directory, has ability to add file attachments, is customizable with different themes, is programmer-friendly (has VIM-mode), and it's native (no Electron!) And it looks great with the dark theme. It doesn't lock you in to its software as in the end, it's just markdown files and media files. It doesn't have Zettelkasten support, but it does do tagging and its search capabilities are comprehensive (includes regex search.) I am not affiliated with the project -- just a happy user :)
• kirubakaran 6y ago
  Please try my https://histre.com/ https://histre.com/ if you don't want to manually organize everything. Histre automatically creates a knowledge base out of your bookmarks, notes, highlights, and optionally, your web browsing history. It makes it trivially easy to collaborate and publish.
• bassman9000 6y ago
  We're a couple years away from merging latex and wordperfect.
• wooptoo 6y ago
  I can recommend Zim wiki which is a GTK+ desktop app that works as a personal wiki / notebook. Has a WYSIWYG editor and can export to different formats, it can even render the wiki as html and serve it. Also supports plugins for extra things like tables and charts if you wish. You can have separate notebooks for each project like home/work/etc. You can commit to git from the UI, have git hooks set to automatically push to a remote on every commit. Not fancy but very functional and pleasant to use. https://zim-wiki.org/ https://zim-wiki.org/
  • space_ghost 6y ago
    I've been using Zim for daily notes stashed to a Dropbox folder for many years.
  • hysan 6y ago
    Really love Zim wiki and have been using it for over a decade. Sadly, the move to py3 and gtk3 broke it for non-linux platforms. macOS how has a huge wealth of [reported] bugs that break common keyboard shortcuts at the OS level and introduced a lot of performance problems. This isn't the fault of Zim as these are all bugs from gtk3 where it seems like the priority for non-linux bugs is 0. Meanwhile, Windows no longer has a prepackaged installer as the maintainer stopped doing that post transition. I've tried hacking my way around this but to no avail. It's gotten to the point that I've finally started seriously looking and testing alternatives. Nothing has come close to replicating the feature set and UI workflow.
    • heldergg 6y ago
      There is a new installer for windows for the latest Zim version, it was announced last Tuesday, you can get it on the Zim wiki download page: https://zim-wiki.org/downloads/ https://zim-wiki.org/downloads/
      • hysan 6y ago
        That is awesome! Glad to see that this was finally addressed. That still leaves the macOS issues which I'll keep my fingers crossed for. (I do realize that I'm an odd niche use case where I use all 3 platforms regularly (Linux, Apple, Windows) and it why it's been difficult to find a suitable replacement.)
• beattheprose 6y ago
  I find this amazing for my schoolwork. Being able to write papers with images in a sensible manner using Markdown syntax, all the while citing effortlessly using Zotero, is such a game changer. Huge props.
• smhmd 6y ago
  The hero image is 3104x1876 scaled to 900x500. It's totally butchered and illegible.
• greenie_beans 6y ago
  I read some blog post within the past year are so, written by some young engineer for shopify or spotify. They detailed the way they built their zettelkasten. It was well-written and more detailed than most blog posts in that genre. I can’t find it on HN or Google. Anybody know what I’m talking about?
  • blakeburch 6y ago
    Was it this one? https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-to-build-a-learning-machine https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-to-build-a-learni...
    • greenie_beans 6y ago
      Yep. Wasn't as thorough as I thought. Thanks
• jtanderson 6y ago
  I've been a heavy Standard Notes user for a couple years now, and the added function of Zettlr looks extremely appealing to me (images, linking, much nicer rendering, etc.). However, to really give this a test drive to see if it's a suitable replacement, I downloaded all my Standard Notes as plain text and tried importing them. This caused a ton of bugs/errors when trying to navigate and use the results. First, it complained about not being able to detect the file type -- again, these are all plain text that end in .txt... Second, it seems to have a ton of trouble with renaming folders: it works the first time, renames it on the filesystem, but then doesn't keep the change in the app? Then I try to reload and rename the folder back and now it throws null variable errors left and right? Then, I try to create sub-folders to start organizing the mess of notes I just imported and... big choke, can't create the folder, sometimes it gives an error and other times it just does nothing. The performance (speed opening tabs, scrolling notes) seems to degrade quite a bit with the number of notes I have. So... this looks like something that could be really great! But there's a lot of friction still to having it get out of the way and let me be organized.
  • matthiasv 6y ago
    I am also a long-time SN user but I've never really liked the editor. So, I used a bit of free time to turn a C GTK SN client PoC into a somewhat proper Rust app (https://github.com/matze/iridium https://github.com/matze/iridium) and hope to put in more effort the next few weeks. You might like it if Linux is your platform.
    • jtanderson 6y ago
      Whoa, this is very cool! I will definitely give it a spin on the desktop. Does it support any of the extensions like tags/folders?
      • matthiasv 6y ago
        No unfortunately not yet but of course I need that myself sooner or later. All my notes are tagged.
  • 6y ago
• mrwesleycrusher 6y ago
  Outside of looking pretty, how is this better than say, Zim? Not that being pretty doesn't have its own merit, but I just want to know what other advantages this has :)
• Keyframe 6y ago
  So, is this like a Scrivener clone? Scrivener is awesome and one of the things I miss when I dumped MacOS altogether.
  • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Scrivener is not Mac-only anymore! https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/download https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/download
    • syncbehind 6y ago
      Version 3 for windows will release one day. (Really though, it's stable enough for daily use)
• stakkur 6y ago
  My cross-platform, time-proof, open source 'personal knowledge management' system: 1. A folder of markdown and org files 2. Emacs, gEdit 3. A notebook I get the urge to 'optimize' this sort of thing, but the results seem to be nothing more than visual presentation tweaks.
• darkstarsys 6y ago
  Not a popular opinion I'm sure, but I'm all-in on OneNote. Works everywhere (at least basically) and it is just so rich. Full pen support for drawing (vital for me), tables, equations (sort of), multiple text blocks on a page (also key!), internal & external links, fast search (as of last year). Search is good enough that I rarely use tags anymore. Yes, it's totally vendor locked in and I do hate that. And no syntax highlighting for code is annoying. Lack of markdown is a pain. And it's bug-ridden and closed source. But I've been using it for my work daily journal and knowledge capture for a few years now, and it's so fluid and easy to jot down or scribble a quick note and find it later that it's hard for me to imagine going back to a basic Markdown editor. It's the closest thing I've found to a searchable paper lab notebook. And btw I'm a hardcore Emacs user for the last 40 years. Org mode is great, but for me, OneNote kills it in expressiveness and fluidity of idea capture and recall. If someone makes a Markdown editor that supports pen/tablet ink drawing and multiple text blocks on a page, I'd be interested.
  • smilekzs 6y ago
    Long-time OneNote user chiming in. I've briefly switched to Evernote but due to their frequent screw-ups I switched back to OneNote. Stylus input is a big part for my dev logs, and one good thing about OneNote is that it accepts both handwriting and text without prejudice. Also, pages in OneNote are allowed to have 2 levels of indent. More than that you can organize with traditional folder structures. The difference is that a less indented "parent" page can still have content; a folder does not contain content on its own. I would strongly recommend OneTastic as it adds quite a few missing features from stock OneNote (crop image, calendar view, etc.)
  • ralls_ebfe 6y ago
    Regarding drawing: have you seen org-krita? https://github.com/lepisma/org-krita https://github.com/lepisma/org-krita
• threatofrain 6y ago
  I like the general look and feel but it still feels clunky to switch between the markdown and presentation view, copy-pasting markdown (tables, etc) doesn't work right, and more importantly, Latex is clunky. Still waiting for something to best VSC. What do people working with a combination of code and Latex use?
• bbx 6y ago
  One feature I have yet to find in any Markdown editor is a simple "block" mover, which I describe here: https://twitter.com/jgthms/status/1225513837379641350 https://twitter.com/jgthms/status/1225513837379641350 Underneath, the data structure would remain straightforward Markdown. So the data wouldn't be stored as separate blocks; the moving would act similarly to Sublime Text's "Swap Line Up/Down".
  • enobrev 6y ago
    I wouldn't call notion.so a markdown editor, but it's very similar to one (understands the syntax) and the "block mover" concept is inherent in their UI.
  • dr_zoidberg 6y ago
    In VSCode anytime you have text selected you can alt+up/down to move the whole selection (or current line if no selection) up/down one line. I assume STs "swap line up/down" works the same. Is that different from your "block mover" idea? I mean, if I select the paragrap I want to move and use it it sounds similar, thought it'd happen one line at a time, and I understand you'd mean to move it "whole blocks" at a time. But probably a plugin can be made to achieve that behavior.
    • bbx 6y ago
      Yes, ST works like VSCode in that regard. It works well with paragraphs and headings because they fit on one line (so 1 line = 1 block), but I'd like to be able to move whole multiline blocks, like lists, code blocks, and paragraphs that have line breaks. Also, for the empty lines that separate blocks, I need to move them as well (or select them as part of the block). But yes, the current feature is very close to what I'd like. The other part of my tweet though (about being able to move between 2 columns or files) is trickier.
  • cellularmitosis 6y ago
    I added your tweet to Panicz's excellent twitter thread of structured editors, cheers! https://twitter.com/cellularmitosis/status/1279113260407685120 https://twitter.com/cellularmitosis/status/12791132604076851...
• jeffbee 6y ago
  Is it the generally-accepted practice to run an app like this in a network namespace or sandbox? How do I know it's not pilfering my research? I'd like to use a system like this for my work but I don't see how it can be trusted. I don't have the time to read the source. To be honest, I prefer a hosted solution because then I get a written contract about the privacy of my data.
  • cellularmitosis 6y ago
    Not getting your data stolen vs. being able to sue after the fact are two different concerns which are somewhat in conflict. If you want to be able to sue, then yes go with a hosted solution with a written contract. But if the priority is to not have your data stolen, handing your data over to a third party is a non-starter.
    • jeffbee 6y ago
      I don't necessarily agree. I feel like hosted solutions may have better security than I personally have. Plus, companies like Roam are staking their entire business on honoring their agreements.
• bluenose69 6y ago
  I find vimwiki to be quite useful. I like that it uses plain files. It lacks a fancy GUI interface, but I prefer a hands-on-the-keyboard approach, anyway.
• konart 6y ago
  Eats up my CPU. I haven't even done any editing, just reading the tutorial and CPU is and 120%
• m-p-3 6y ago
  Is there support for diagrams, like Mermaid? That's something I use with Joplin for my personal knowledgebase.
  • DerWOK 6y ago
    Yes mermaid is built in. Just start a tripple apostrophe codeblock with code style mermaid and it will render the graphics when your cursor leaves the code block.
• bb88 6y ago
  Ultimately as an engineer, what I want to capture are things like schematics, vector diagrams, equations and mechanical drawings of things I have found interesting over my career. When I solve a problem I want to have an open source format and viewer(s) for whatever problem domain it's in. So for things like software, that's easy, it's just text. For things like electrical schematics and physics calculations, it's not so easy. So then I go down the path of how do I get X to show Y? Like how do I get github to show me a gerber plot from kicad? That's what's really keeping me from using tools like this, native format viewers for the tools we're using.
• bluenose69 6y ago
  zettlr does not seem to be able to import markdown files, which is a problem for people like me who have lots of such files. Maybe there is a way around that, but I am not motivated to spend much time seeking it, since I find vimwiki to be sufficient for navigating through links in my files. (Also, vimwiki makes it easy to create links, with the strike of a key.) My scheme does not offer me a nice GUI, but I prefer to see simple text anyway, and I like how vimwiki lets me navigate through my cross-linked notes without my fingers leaving the home keys. Markdown permits images, etc., and if I want to see them I can just open a terminal to a subdirectory and use pandoc. I don't see a way in vimwiki to get a "what links to this page" item, which I imagine an application like zettlr would offer, but it be easy to write a python script to do that, and to add a a line to my crontab file to update things every so often. The good thing about my setup is that the markdown format is not tied to any particular application. That's important, if you want your database of notes to last for a long time.
  • elric 6y ago
    You can just dump the markdown files in whatever directory zettlr is using, and you're done. There's no magic required here, zettlr is just a markdown editor.
• 0xbro 6y ago
  I notice no one compare the tool with Mark Text (topic ---> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21462832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21462832). Which is better for you? What are pro and cons of each one? I have to chose one of them... what do you suggest?
• _pmf_ 6y ago
  I'm just going to create a repo with a symlink to notepad.exe as Roam alternative and call it a day.
• supersrdjan 6y ago
  What triggered the sudden surge of interest in these knowledge management platforms in your opinion?
  • rmujica 6y ago
    HackerNews, obviously
• jtth 6y ago
  This will fall on deaf ears, but if you have to title a note, it's not a Zettelkasten.
• crooked-v 6y ago
  I really wish these knowledge base-type apps that have been popping up, like this and Obsidians would use preexisting Markdown and Multimarkdown syntax for links and link references rather than inventing and leaning on their own bits of syntax that aren't usable with other tooling. The whole [[double bracket link]] thing in particular is a pain when none of the cross-referencing supports standard Markdown links between files.
• ChuckMcM 6y ago
  Okay, I learned a new thing, the Zettelkasten. I've done half of this in my notebooks for a long time (where each page or set of pages that are about a particular topic are linked to the other pages in the notebook also on that topic with a doubly linked list) but the simplicity here is pretty cool.
• app4soft 6y ago
  > Zettlr is powered by Electron, Uh, I would prefer VNote editor + Viki instead. [0] https://github.com/tamlok/vnote https://github.com/tamlok/vnote [1] https://github.com/tamlok/viki https://github.com/tamlok/viki
  • pjmlp 6y ago
    And me Markdown Monster. https://github.com/RickStrahl/MarkdownMonster https://github.com/RickStrahl/MarkdownMonster
• thomasfl 6y ago
  «Developing Open Source Software is a Political Act.» damn sure is!
  • BeetleB 6y ago
    Anything one does can be construed as a "political act", making the whole concept pointless.
• 627467 6y ago
  I started keeping a hosted tiddlywiki since this new round of zettelkasten rebirth (also, digital garden). Additionally I started taking notes on Left https://100r.co/site/left.html https://100r.co/site/left.html
• estacado 6y ago
  I've tried a lot of note-taking apps, I've settled on Simplenote. It's lightweight, syncs, and searchable. It's text-only. I find linking media and other stuff is just cumbersome, and takes a lot of effort to organize when all I want is a quick way to jot down notes. https://simplenote.com/ https://simplenote.com/
  • gregwebs 6y ago
    I preferred InkDrop on my laptop, but I had to switch back to SimpleNote because SimpleNote does both sync and mobile extremely well. Doing mobile well just requires it to never take time to load. InkDrop would usually have to refresh its contents when switching to it.
• divbzero 6y ago
  I’m a fan of Typora [1] which also combines the simplicity of Markdown syntax with a WYSIWYG editor. [1]: https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  Markdown and AsciiDoc would do well to embrace (1) hashtag syntax and (2) modification times. For me, that’s the key to discoverability and categorization.
• gdevenyi 6y ago
  What's with all the weird communist references?
  • dxdm 6y ago
    They're in the eye of the beholder. I'm assuming you're talking about the name of the project? To me, Zettel is a German word, meaning a slip of paper useful for taking notes.
• odilontalk 6y ago
  I'm using Inkdrop [1] and works really great for me. Knowledge + task management without forcing you any workflow. [1]: https://www.inkdrop.app/ https://www.inkdrop.app/
• sitkack 6y ago
  How do folks incorporate drawings and images into their notes? At least when I used a wiki, I could upload photos as cumbersome as it was, as it is now, I rarely use visual media. I found notes on the iphone to be excellent, but the content appears to be locked up inside of apple's swamp. The pdf exports were horrid.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• fab1an 6y ago
  Interesting to see this kinds of tools get so much attention in the past couple of months! I have seen a lot of buzz around Roam (which is interesting given how outright terrible the initial user experience and conversion funnel is - I did not have the patience and unsub'd immediately..) I ended up buying https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/ https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/ Super straightforward Zettelkasten system, and most importantly utilizing plain txt and not some weird proprietary format.
• garfieldnate 6y ago
  What are the open source options for storing PDF annotations? These are just as important as free-form notes for me.
  • alltakendamned 6y ago
    Have a look at Zotero ?
    • garfieldnate 6y ago
      Interesting. This also led me to Zotfile.
• BasilPH 6y ago
  If you use Zettlr, or any other editor to create a linked graph of text files, you might be interesting in vizel[0]: It visualizes the graph and calculates some stats. I find it useful to track the growth of my Zettelkasten, but also to find notes and components that are unconnected to the rest of the graph. I built it to scratch my own itch, but I'm always happy to get feedback. [0]: https://github.com/BasilPH/vizel https://github.com/BasilPH/vizel
• bubersson 6y ago
  I was using Zettlr for couple months, but some things were a bit clunky and it was missing better key-bindings, etc. Most of what I need is just "show me my folder with .md files and let me edit them nicely". For now I ended up with Mark Text (https://marktext.app/ https://marktext.app/), which is open source, cross platform, works nicely and the migration time was zero (folder with .md files ftw).
• garfieldnate 6y ago
  I want all of the backend features as a standalone system; I just don't feel comfortable being tied to a single editor, though this one does look pretty great. Are there systems out there with comparable features but which are editor-agnostic?
• Grumbledour 6y ago
  I really struggle with the UI on this one. Some notes: - No title bar makes using the window harder than it needs to be. - Huge symbols I have to hover over to see what they do + a hamburger menu. A traditional menu would be easier to use for me at least. - Speaking of hover, whats with the weird, animated back-button for folders that when it appears overlaps other elements? - Font sizes. Really, they seem to big even for me as a visually impaired person - General non-nativeness. That Options dialog as a website modal is just weird and jumps around when switching categories. I don't mean to be to negative here, maybe I am just getting old, but this really seems not to be my cup of tea, though apart from the UI, I really like the idea and the use of pandoc/latex, YAML Frontmatter, saving as just files etc. If this had a more traditional UI and would use less ressources it would come pretty close to a note taking app I often thought about but was to lazy to try my hand at myself.
• someusername99 6y ago
  “Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune