In terms of reducing my arsenal, I find these apps are just the heads of the same technological hydra. I feel better off picking and choosing tools for the occasion without fully committing to one if I don’t have to. Of course, a task manager and a Zettelkasten don’t work well unless you choose one for either. But outliners serve different purposes for different projects for me.
What I mean by having them in my DEVONthink database is just that I drag and drop the file into DEVONthink where I think it best belongs.
I use MindNode more for coming up with and organizing ideas in an initial phase. Beyond that, it does lose utility and I feel better off transferring the ideas elsewhere. OmniOutliner is nice as an outliner within itself. I don’t use it to connect elsewhere much. If I do, it’s just functioning as a springboard.
I don’t do much collaborative online working so I’m likely increasingly in the minority, but I will continue to trudge on in whatever directions seem to make sense at the time.
Just to add, your comments on Scrivener’s corkboard are spot on. It is just one of those unsung heroes. I mention it from time to time, but it’s just not spoken of enough. Being able to slice and dice a thought, turn them into index cards, arrange them, and then commit to an order is fantastic.
Fascinating discussion. I understand people liking Scrivener’s cork board, for the ability to “slice and dice a thought, turn them into index cards, arrange them, and then commit to an order”, but I found the utility of this diminished as the number of notecards increased. There comes a point when they can’t all be seen at one time … whereas with OmniOutliner, I was able to slice, dice, arrange and re-order a greater number of notes, far more easily. At least for me. YMMV.
It’s not so much that you can’t create outlines in DT (obviously you can) but that dedicated outlining tools (OmniOutliner) or mindmapping tools make it easy to slice and dice, move stuff around, whatever.
And of course one can just store those files inside of DT as @Kourosh points out.
I guess in my case, the maximum number of notecards I can see at once is comparable to the largest structure I can manage cognitively. If I exceed a “screenful” of notes, loosely defined, it’s time to add another outline level.
There is a lot of discussion of tools that support backlinks (ie: Obisidian, Roam). DT now scans for links between documents and keeps a list of incoming/outgoing links in the document info panel (links tab). Hadn’t seen this mentioned here yet.
Yes, but a key to what I argued (or what I observed) is how easy Roam & Co make it to see connections through a clever design of the interface. It is not just having a functionality, somewhere, somehow but putting the links and search at the fingertips.
Right, this is also something I did not have on my radar but then realised that these new apps make it easy to see and edit several files. In Obsidian one can split the screen as one wishes, and there is the preview of notes when hovering over a link. The idea of atomic notes does help this as well.
The collapse and fold of blocks is a key feature supporting the editing of several notes (paragraphs/units) within a page. The transclusion of notes is another element. Splitting the screen is a minor point in this but still, a corkboard view of several notes in DT would be great as it supports the atomic notes ideas of Zettelkasten ans Evergreen Notes.
There is nothing clever about Obsidian’s UX for backlinks. Its a panel with a list of incoming/outgoing links, just like in DT. If you’re referring to the graph then yeah I guess that’s sorta clever but is it really useful? Those are the only two things I know of in Obsidian unless I missed something.
I didn’t use Roam long enough to have any opinions on what it does
I could not get used to the UI of Obsidian and have not found a use for the graph (and even an project trying backlinks has so far not worked for me). I also don’t like the switch between markdown and its preview although they are working on a WYSIWYG version.
What I refer to is something else, which it becomes clear here, is not easy to explain. I do think RemNote and Roam do something different and I like these ideas. Roam implements a graph database and the workflow is very interesting. There is however no way I would store my notes on their servers and have user-developed java script running on it. There Obsidian is better because it works with plain text files on my computer and one can index them in DT, thereby combining. I did not click with their UI.
Yes I would love if Obsidian had a Typora-style editor. I liked it but honestly at the end of the day my needs are simple and I used DT for years before wandering off looking elsewhere. Back to DT because I basically just need to throw stuff somewhere and be able to search it.
But your point about Roam being cloud-only is one reason I’d never use it. I also want my files local. It’s another reason I just ended up moving back to DT. The in/out links feature they just added in 3.6 is a handy thing that i’d been wanting for years. For me having that list in the panel is enough.
@jasonekratz would love to hear from you as to how you use the links productively in a way that search itself does not make the data available.
I personally really liked Roam’s approach and am surprised that more DevonThink users are not clamoring for Roam like features. The second panel in roam and the auto creation of document based on tags should not be difficult for Devonthink to create, given what they have created by way of DevonThink itself.
I did not continue using Roam but wish for Roam like features in DevonThink every single day.
their interface was online only and an opaque database
seemed like it should be possible to achieve Roam like features by building on Markdown files (and that system can be far more “permanent”)
longevity of their platform is hard to assess
and most of all, I like the idea of DevonThink structurally, in how it can house all kinds of documents (therefore hoping that you all will adopt some of the best ideas from Devonthink and really make it a notes repository for people - even if it is through a separately paid for extension say. just thinking out loud.)
I have all my documents and archives in DT3 (mostly PDF/PPTs/DOCs), and my Zettelkasten/Note taking in Obsidian. In Obsidian, I also often include Markdown links to PDFs in my DT3 database. (Using the x-devonthink-item:// syntax).
When indexing the Obsidian Vault in DT3, it is also possible to see backlinks from PDFs to Zettelkasten notes inside DT3 as it detects all Markdown links which I put in my Obsidian notes. This is another useful feature for me, so both apps play together pretty well for me.
(Also, as Obsidian does not have an iOS client yet, I use the indexed database + DTTG when I want to access my Obsidian vault on mobile).
Hi @mals. so quite honestly search is usually what I end up using. However there are times when links come in handy because sometimes a search gets me close but the links I create between documents are what surfaces what I’m looking for. For a very specific example, in my side gig as a software development contractor I keep daily notes about things I’ve done, issues I’ve run into, etc. I also keep snippets of code. I heavily link those together. So I might remember OK I wrote this bit of code to accomplish a given task but the code doesn’t say why I did it. Links will show every note where I used that code (or something similar) to solve a problem but search might not necessarily surface that.
Admittedly this does not happen often but it has saved my butt often enough I continue to create links that way. In DT with the three options of wikilinks combined with incoming/outgoing links the ability to surface information just becomes better.
@jasonekratz Thanks - that makes sense. And I tinker too with programming and would love to have a way to capture my snippets in DEVONthink. As of now, all my notes go in as a markdown file with some tags for organization. I don’t capture as much code snippets as perhaps I should - because I am often rummaging through past scripts.
