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How could I implement a "Forever Journal" with the archive, 1Writer, and dropbox?

qqqqqq
edited March 2 in The Zettelkasten Method

How would I implement "The Forever Journal" with 1writer, the archive, and dropbox?

The Forever journal is a system based on apple notes, that allows for an "infinite digital journal". The "logic" of the calendar is best explained in the two links below.

The trick is a combination of a set of 383 notes (366 daily notes, 12 montly notes, 4 quarterly notes, and a "years" note), and crucially the ability to always pull up "today's" note.

A daily note has a title like 03 March, quarterly notes have a title like ✱ Q1, monthly like ✱ March, and the "years" one ✱ Years.

I'm focussing on the ability to open "today's note'. The implementation that the Forever Journal uses, uses apple shortcuts and linking to be able to always pull up. So something like ✱ Today would always link to the relevant daily note. I currently don't see how to implement a dynamically updating link like that that would work for both 1Writer and The Archive, as they use "linking-as-searching".

How could I implement this?

If it is inherently impossible, I'll just try out the apple notes implementation, I would however rather use plain text notes that integrate with my current set up

Cheers,

(a nice implementation in Apple Notes)
(seems to be the source of the idea)

Comments

  • GeoEng51GeoEng51
    edited March 2

    @qqq Thanks for sharing the idea and the associated links. The system is interesting but also sounds complicated to set up in The Archive (at least, the Apple Notes version; the simpler version in the second link is easily set up). Perhaps others here will have better insight into that.

    One of my daughters has kept a five-year journal for many years and loves it. I'll pass these links on to her.

    Other ZK software focuses on the daily journal, such as Logseq, which I use for my ZK. Logseq automatically takes you to the current day, but you would have to search for entries on that day for previous years. I suppose someone could write a plug-in to accomplish that (i.e., to show all entries for the same "day" from previous years on one page); as far as I am aware, no one has done that yet.

  • qqqqqq

    @GeoEng51 , thanks for your input

    Yeah I'm playing around with possible approaches,

    I am completely unfamiliar with both the scripting capabilities of The Archive and the x-callback system, but I suspect that an implementation would require both.

    Something like an x-callback url that takes a parameter, or an apple shortcut that creates an x-callback link, dynamically.

  • qqqqqq
    edited March 3

    I tried using x-callback-urls for 1Writer but I haven't been able to work with files ending in .md. It seems to expect .txt.

    I've decided to go the One Big Text File (OBTF) route with one file structured like

    Q1

    Jan

    Feb

    March

    01 March

    02 March

    03 March

    2025, Monday

    [2025-03-03 06:12:02] Started testing this system

  • Dr_FeelgoofDr_Feelgoof

    I primarily use the Archive as a journal, commonplace book, with the Archive database in dropbox.

    I keep the archive database file in dropbox as text files. easy to preview in finder folder. Not a fan of markdown.

    For journaling, I like the Iso Week Format as a heading . e.g. "2025 Week 10" and tag with #2025 and #week.
    The tag "#week"lets me know its a journal entry as opposed to something else...like a book note or something...

    I can query the Archive by searching "Week 10" and see what happened those weeks years ago.

    Here's what a 'Journal' entry looks like this:

    2025 Week 10
    tags: #week #2025
    uid 2025.0309.0515
    ===========================================================.
    Monday

    • Blah blah blah
    • etc, etc, etc

    Tuesday
    Wednesday
    Thursday
    Friday
    Saturday
    Sunday

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