Your org-roam config for Zettelkasten

buhtz

How do you use org-roam for a Zettelkasten (ZK)?

I am interested in your init.el, in key-bindings, in capture-templates, tags (+filetags or others), categories (+category), other helping packages or other magic stuff I have never heard about. How is your org-roam specific ZK-workflow?

There is a lot of very good tutorial stuff out there about org-roam but not from experienced ZKlers. Even David Wilson (SystemCrafters, Emacs From Scratch) talks about that topic but do not dive into it very deep.

ArchiMark

I'm in process of getting this setup myself.

Not Zettelkasten per se, but somewhat similar is using org-roam for BASB (Building a Second Brain).....

Here are links to a colleague from the BASB course who has gotten quite far with this approach:

https://renatgalimov.github.io/org-basb-code/

https://github.com/renatgalimov/org-basb-code

So far, I've installed per his instructions and been successful in capturing text from webpages.

Check it out.

Mark

buhtz

The galimov links are quick and dirty notes. No pros and cons. No workflow description or a "bigger picture". Not helpful. Maybe I am to used to David Wilson's way to describe things.

ctietze

@buhtz Now that's a rather dismissive reply. It's not Prot's level of prose for sure. But "not helpful"? You wanted an init.el, and configuration details and got exactly that, and nothing more -- no sales page pitch why you need this, for example. My open source heart is bleeding for all the people who share stuff on the internet.

kohled

@ctietze said:
My open source heart is bleeding for all the people who share stuff on the internet.

Indeed. I was about to post some of my config code. Perhaps not.

One of the things I love about emacs is that it is very rewarding to just start trying stuff and seeing what happens. If something breaks, so what. I like to find out why it broke.

Tinkering is fun. But it's not for everyone. And that is all good.

As far as org-roam configs (init.el) go, one could do a lot worse than seeing what the developer has in his config. It's in a public repo. He's an amazing developer. A very generous person. He is one of many very talented programmers who share their configurations in public repos on github.

buhtz

I think my sentence "I am interested in your init.el." is not correct formulated. My needs are more fitting with the subject - it is about the orgroam "workflow" in context of ZK. Which features and type of tags do you use here?

What totally confuses me are the "tags". This topic mixes up with "org-mode" itself. There are +filetags, +project, +ROAM_TAGS and something else?
The orgroam manual is not very detailed about them and how they affect something.

kohled

@buhtz said:
What totally confuses me are the "tags". This topic mixes up with "org-mode" itself. There are +filetags, +project, +ROAM_TAGS and something else?
The orgroam manual is not very detailed about them and how they affect something.

Yeah I can relate to the 'tags' implementation in org-roam being a bit confusing. There's been some discussion about it.

You probably already saw these, but here's a few links to threads for the reasoning behind it and some discussion about the confusion.
https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/how-to-use-roam-tags-and-or-tags/190/23
https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/are-tags-a-thing-really/123
https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/whats-the-difference-between-org-tags-and-org-roam-tags/1163/2

I personally use #+filetags: Even then, I only have a few... lit, code, and dream.

Anyway, wishing you well with your exploration @buhtz .

Totally unrelated sidenote: I've found that recording lucid and semi-lucid dreams using a 'dream' tag and then filtering by tag in the org-roam-ui-mode graph is an intriguing way to get a visual map of one's unconsious mind. For any aspiring oneironauts out there.

buhtz

On reddit (sorry did not saved the url) someone explained not using any tags but Zettels (org-files) as tags.

If I understand that correct for example you would create a org-file with title "dream" - nothing more.
Then every "dream" related org-file does create a link to the "dream" zettel. For that you can see in the backlinks-buffer of the "dream" org-file all topic/tag related org-files.

Interesting. Not sure how this would affect org-roam-ui-mode or other modes or workflows.

buhtz

I tried it out a bit.

What you see in that picture is a snipped of org-roam-ui-mode of my test-zettels.

MyMeta is a node which is intended for "grouping" nodes. It also has the #+filetag: Meta.
A_meta and B_meta have direct links to MyMeta.

But C_meta and D_meta also have #+filetag: Meta. But you can not see this "connection" in the graph.

But org-roam-ui offers you (in a separate setting window) to filter (block- and allow-lists) the graph view for that +filetag:.

Interesseting.

kohled

@buhtz Yes that's the idea. There's a number of interesting uses to experiment with. In the 'dream' example, each recalled dream is its own .org file. #+filetags: dream in the header. For example:

:PROPERTIES:
:ID:       12805c51-88eb-4caf-93d5-5d9c448e15a2
:END:
#+title: insert title here
#+created:  your favorite date format
#+filetags: dream

Interlink notes with org-ids by calling org-roam-node-insert. Filter tags in org-roam-ui-mode via whitelist/blacklist as you referenced above. Connections in the graph come from org-ids linking various notes.

Hope this info proves useful for your experiments.