jer32
Posts: 6
Joined: 25-Feb-2021, 06:54

linking snippets to markdown outline

When I am doing research, I want to link my snippets immediately to an outline.
Later I could use this outline with the information in writing my paper.
If that is in Markdown, I could use it in other software as well.

If Zettlr would implement it, keypoints and Zettlr could work amazingly together.
https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/issues/1834
msteffens
Site Admin
Posts: 32
Joined: 17-May-2017, 14:28

Re: linking snippets to markdown outline

Hi, thanks for the request!
jer32 wrote: When I am doing research, I want to link my snippets immediately to an outline.

Yes, Keypoints is meant to incorporate such a workflow, however, only the basics of that feature have been implemented so far. In Keypoints terminology, such an outline is called "overview note" (see also here). Others call this kind of note a structure note, hub note or map of content (MOC). But the gist is always the same: These overview notes can be used to group other notes (e.g., by topic), and arrange them in a hierarchical structure (an outline). By adding sub-headings and comments, explanations and/or TODOs etc, one can further structure this hierarchy of linked notes.

The idea is that, in Keypoints, you could mark any note as an overview note (e.g. by adding an {@overview} collection tag). You could then open this overview note in a separate window and build your outline of notes by dragging in other notes, commenting on them and/or assigning a link type (like "supports" or "disagrees with") etc.

Related to overview notes: Keypoints will also offer a "Note" filter view. Like any of the other filter views, this "Note" filter view is displayed to the left of your regular notes list. Each filter view has its own search field so that (e.g. in case of the "Note" filter view) you could restrict the list of filter elements to, say, only overview notes. Selecting a note in the filter view will then display all of its linked notes in the main notes list.
jer32 wrote: Later I could use this outline with the information in writing my paper.
If that is in Markdown, I could use it in other software as well.

Keypoints notes get written in MultiMarkdown, but in order to facilitate the app's features, there are a few custom syntax additions (mainly w.r.t. to the note's metadata). So there may be some syntax incompatibilities when directly using the Keypoints notes in other apps. However, Keypoints features an extensive scripting API, and the plan is to use this API to provide custom integrations with other applications. So scripts could export notes to other apps using a standard Markdown (or whatever) format, or directly create matching entries in scriptable apps such as DEVONthink or Tinderbox.

These scripts could be triggered automatically on certain events (e.g. on auto-save, open/close document/app, etc), so the data exchange could be made quite seamless.
jer32 wrote: If Zettlr would implement it, keypoints and Zettlr could work amazingly together.
https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/issues/1834

If I understand your suggested Zettlr feature request correctly, then the above "overview notes" feature will still be different from that. Overview notes in Keypoints will be separate notes, not an outline of a note that's displayed in a separate view. However, at a later stage, the filter view would likely allow you to also display & edit the selected note (within an editor view at the bottom of the filter view). That way you could display & edit two notes next to each other – w/o the need for separate windows.

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