Workflows with Markdown

Mac & Windows (Desktop)
#33

Yes, but with an import you need to reimport every time you have done an update of the file, and it can trigger a lot of problems… and if you do an update in Aeon, you will need to export back to your files on disk… possible causing other errors…

At the moment this was just a comment, I Don’t need sync, but if there was an editor that just opened-edited-saved markdown notes stored in a folder structure, it would be helpful…
It didn’t even have to render the files until export to pdf or other formats… and for that Pandoc already exist :slight_smile:

#34

You don’t need to “sync” a file on disk, since it is just one version of it, you can open it, edit it in an embedded editor and save it…

It would be the same as when I first create a file in Foam for VSC, save it and then open and edit it in Obsidian and save it again… Obsidian has a auto push of new edits of the file in near real time, same has Zettlr (another great markdown editor for scholars etc. focused on writing).

The import of the files to your Aeons own file format could be done in export and as an option, because you don’t always want to send your Research Notes to other people… but it often is of great help when using multiple tools to only have one set of research notes…

User would need to add those files manually, but I think the benefit would be greater than the work of adding files manually… and in addition for new files added in Aeon, you could just set a “Markdown file root folder” and a folder picker for saving…

PS. this is nothing but a comment and a thought for a useful feature, no feature request or similar…

#35

We may be talking about different things here, I suspect.

I am picturing something similar to what we do with Scrivener or Ulysses syncing, but using markdown files instead.

The syncing isn’t necessarily about the contents of the text files (although it could be), but if it is expected that those documents are linked to items in the timeline or narrative, then syncing is necessary to keep those things appropriately linked… so that we know which file corresponds to which timeline item, etc.

#36

And this is a frequently encountered problem with the sync solutions that exist.
The WriteMonkey3 json+attached file solution might work - it works for WM3. I have had no autosave clashes even with same file open and being worked on in a number of programs concurrently (not quite simultaneous use, since it’s just me using them). I’m unsure whether it could be worth it: is there a real need to have all the written text, and ability to edit it, in Timeline? I don’t know. However barebones it was designed to be there’d commence an avalanche of feature requests. Of course, integrating WM3 would suit me perfectly. :grinning:

#37

This is what was in my mind.

#38

I don’t expect we would go that far. There are better text editors than anything we created would be, and I don’t anticipate moving in a direction that competes with those.

But the problems described apply if you just want to represent those documents on the timeline… you still need to be able to establish, maintain and trust those links.

Matt

#39

Yes, I think there is differences, because you describe syncing object to a file and folder structure containing markdown files, while I’m just talking about Viewing/editing a manually “attached” markdown file in an embedded “notes editor” alá replace the multiline text field in properties with an embedded markdown editor, or allowing Text objects to be Items, and stored externally…

If you think syncing is easier regarding markdown, there is no “problem” storing ID’s and “update dates” in a markdown file, just add them as YAML…
something like this:

---
aeonID: Note123456789
aeonsyncdate: 2021-09-30T23:23:56
---
{body of note here with formatting}

my point as a researcher was that for me, the best benefit was if I could reuse my notes in multiple software, but only have the need for one file for it, and also only need to edit one file, not 2-3 different copies and re-copy text or re-attach or reimport the file every time I did an edit in the file…

Of course a full sync of Notes would be great, but to utilize them, you would need to map both YAML keys and the note body, if it should be useful, while if it was just an editor opening to read or edit a file on disk, all you need is a editor with a view for a linked file, the editor itself would be an “item” of type text or note maybe…

I stopped using Scrivener when they was not interested in adding support for a plugin for bibtex/csl-json or Zotero, so I have not used the sync function in Aeon. It’s way easier to just use markdown and be able to use Zotero with very little extra work…

ut as I wrote, this is not an request from me, just an idea in a discussion… I will just link the files I need, clicking on the link will open it in the default view I hope, and then I can edit it and save it, as long as the filename is the same and not moved, the file will be “in sync”. but it would have been great to see the Notes as text in the “inspector”.

As of now, I just create item types for my research journal structure, add 3 multi line text fields to them and copy the text I need to those fields, a lot of extra work, but doable…

I do the same for Citations one citation item linking between any other object and the source item…, then I create a multiline text field and copy the citation string from zotero, and in the source I copy the bibliography string… I also am also going to add a few document items, like agreements, crew lists manifests of ships, legal documents for companies etc. this documents will be childs of the source item…
Then I just have to find some workarounds to get thing working… including my zotero library, my markdown files, and “other stuff”…

#40

I have been considering my own workflow, and think that I can manage perfectly well without any sync.

  • If I do a lot of planning pre-writing, then export via Scrivener into a single document, gives me a text which contains the name of all scenes, characters, locations, events etc. I can individually enclose all those I want in Wikilinks and Obsidian will then create new blank files for them.
  • If I don’t do much planning, I can just do this manually.
  • I can then put links to those files into the appropriate places in Timeline, allowing me to open and edit them directly while I consider myself primarily in Timeline. Plottr would work in precisely the same way. The file would open in the default editor, though that can’t be Obsidian; WriteMonkey and all the other editors would be possible.

That will do me. I don’t need anything more sophisticated.

1 Like
#41

All i wish for is a way to see my markdown note for an item and open the note in the default software if I need to edit it.
I don’t need sync either for that, even though it would have been a nice feature if the body of the notes also was synced to a text field viewable in “preview mode” or something in Aeon…
much of the same you write… I actually do link the Markdown files (directly as files on disk) and the Zotero items (as Zotero URL’s) when needed, just like you…

Some reason the default editor can’t be Obsidian from Plottr?
I did buy a license for that software, but dropped out when they went subscription based, it just didn’t give me that much, that I couldn’t do in other software, most of my projects are based on historical events and objects so it was important for me to actually see the dates in the timeline…

Digression
but I do use Obsidian extensively, and testing Foam for VSC.
Here is a little printscreen of a little part of a project displayed using the Juggl plugin because it can save to cytoscape.json that can be opened in the Cytoscape desktop software:

image
image1920×1422 66.9 KB

#42

Can’t be Obsidian from any file link because Obsidian needs to know vault before it can open a file. So it can’t be default .md editor.
I can see that Plottr wouldn’t fit your use case at all.
I had a look at Foam once. I’ve looked at all similar programs, I think. I dislike VSCode, so Foam would never have been for me.

Nice graph.

#43

Aaah, yes of course… I forget about that all the time…

I use Zettlr as default MD Editor, but in addition I have set up VS Codium (no telemetric) with only a minimal of Markdown extension incl. Foam plus I have added the graphviz and joplin extension for VSC.
Only reason I use VSC is because it can open so many different files and has a extension for nearly anything, so it can be a helpful tool when I find something strange, or just want to look at huge text files that Notepad++ use a decade to open…

Thanks… it is larger, but Juggl struggle with large graphs…

#44

One semi-related item idea that has been suggested a few times is a pop-out editor for notes etc. that provides a larger, more comfortable space to write those notes.

It is feasible this could be expanded to be somewhat of a markdown editor in future, allowing the basics of rich text into our notes (i.e. bold, italic, links and perhaps lists… but not tables etc.).

Full text export of narrative related items
#45

Of course you do! :grinning: Citations, Zotero etc.

Prompted me to check mine. Noticed that there has just been an SSL issue, so I’ve switched to the v2 beta (I had updated to 1.8.9 after the iFrame security issues in May). I don’t actually use it often, but I like having it as one of my options.

#46

A pop-up editor would be nice, but even a viewer, something similar to Okular or Quicklook for Windows (I know there is a lot better viewer for Mac, this was just two examples that I use myself).

I think there are multiple text editor libraries that support both RTF and Markdown, but programming for me is just a theoretical knowledge… i.e. I can read the logics, but when I try to do it myself, it seems that I never get it right… :rofl:

Personally I use markdown tables a lot for lists, so supporting preview of them would be nice, editing them is not necessary, we can do that in the Markdown editor of choice…

So an export/import or sync would be nice, you could add the important data you need to the YAML header of each file…

A simple viewer that will display the content of a linked file of correct format, and that can open the linked file in a default editor if needed, I think is more than enough for most users using markdown files…
And if you use the right viewer/editor, it would even display linked pdf’s, docx, etc.
Click a link or button to open it in default editor, do the changes, save it, click “refresh” and the preview in Aeon will show the updated content… (If you don’t find a way to auto refresh.).

Back to sync
To be able to sync both a folder structure and content both ways between a folder with markdown files and the content of the files would be amazing, and you could use YAML to define Properties, and the body of the markdown note could be text in a text field for the editor you mentioned.
If it was a push-pull auto sync, it would be possible to edit the notes in your preferred markdown editor while timeline is open and the changes would be updated IRL time, that way you could actually use the markdown editor as a companion to Aeon…
(Yes, I do understand this is a lot of technically obstacles to plow through, so it is just some thoughts for a “perfect” solution).

As an example of how I do it today and did it in version 2.
I create a link to a file, i.e. one of my markdown research notes for that object (item), If I don’t have any research notes for the object, I will create my folder structure of:

  • Research Journal for {Name of object}
    • Research Logs for {Name of object}
    • Research Plans for {Name of object}
    • Research Notes for {Name of object}

and add a Markdown file for the research objects where it belong…
I also distinguish between research notes and other notes about the object, and can also have my own notes in a research- journal/log/plan/notes, that is not a research note…

It is a lot of extra work, but I have “lost” so much information because I have written it down “somewhere”, never to be found again… and it is even more work to find that information again, if even possible…

Even more digression
All this is also why I applaud any software that have some good interchangeable formats or even implement interoperability to other tools… I really love the idea of “open data open source”, Open Data being the most important of those…

(I am so good at really spinning way of topic)

#47

I don’t love YAML solutions: although readable, they tend to be program specific in use. And it’s very easy for files to become overburdened with a ton of YAML definitions.

#48

Are there? I don’t know any. I’m assuming that you mean .rtf and .md (or variant) files.

#49

How many key pair that is used is up to the user, but it is a way of adding structured data to a file with unstructured text…

I am not sure I understand “program specific” in this context…
YAML is only data key pair… so for Aeon, that can be 2 key pairs:
aeonSyncID: 123456BB
aeonLastSdata: 2021-10-110T18:34:56

I use a lot of custom YAML in my notes, in average maybe 15-20 key pair for most notes types, never had problems with that in the software that fully support it except that some software is case sensitive (don’t support uppercase first letter in key name)…
But of course there are some software that only look for its own key pairs, then its not for much use…

#50

Those Aeon pairs would be program specific to Aeon.
Unless you decided to set up another program to work with them.
My general concern is that I don’t like lots of stuff taking space in my plaintext files. YAML has a tendency to accumulate. I have a preference either to keep stuff out of YAML (I only use inline tags, for example) or to only have pairs with multiple uses (though I have none of these currently).

I have a design issue with it. It’s a method of creating a faux database using only plaintext files; for me, that’s okay for very simple uses, but non-optimal design otherwise. Countless Obsidian plugins have been produced adding line after line in the YAML; looks fine when the YAML is hidden, but use an editor that shows the whole file and there’s too much crud.

#51

Aaah, Yes, then we agree…

I mostly use YAML as data about my own data…
Obsidian and Foam (and partially Zettlr) read those keys and they can be utilized in the software…

i.e. if it is a research note for a person, I have the birth date, the name, type etc. in addition to tags aliases etc.
Some of this keys are used globally for all my notes, others is type specific.
i.e. a ship has an owner that most likely is a Shipping Company…
A Place might have an “enclosed by” or “encloses” key (taken from Gramps).
Some of this is actually redundant data, since I also use a folder structure for hierarchical structures… But I have learned that it is better to have one “field” to much, than that one is missing…

I mostly use this keys to configure the graph view, or via Juggl, create properties/attributes for a network graph file that can be saved in Juggl.
It make me be able to open a network graph of my whole folder structure in Cytoscape Desktop (network graph software) for more advanced analyzes and styling of the graphs.

#52

I noticed someone recommending the Obsidian Itinerary plugin to construct a timeline; uses YAML, as they tend to do. Not sure I’d want to do that myself.