Viewing multiple index cards simultaneously

vhbelvadi

Apologies if this has been asked before but I couldn’t find it in the forum search. In using The Archive for my Zettelkasten of late I have been wondering if it might be helpful to have a view where multiple notes could be visible at once. Perhaps the digital equivalent of a scrollable grid of index cards on a cork board.

I find myself looking for just such a view to be able to glance at a couple of different notes at once, and draw better parallels between them, an important advantage that physical index cards provide over digital notes which are often viewable only one at a time. I could use multiple windows but that would be a clunky workaround. Meanwhile, is there an alternative approach to this that I am missing, which I can incorporate into my workflow?

ctietze

I always wanted to play around with a visualization for virtual desktops like this, but never got around to implementing a tool like that.

With The Archive, your desktop is, well, your computer's desktop App windows are the things we arrange on computer desktops; so open multiple notes in multiple windows, hide their sidebars, and arrange them on your screen. -- That's not permanent, though. If you want to keep a permanent desktop of sorts, structure notes are your friend. (From which you can open all linked notes in separate windows with a Command+Shift+click

vhbelvadi

Thanks for your response, Christian.

open multiple notes in multiple windows, hide their sidebars, and arrange them on your screen.

I thought as much and it’s how I’ve been doing it over the past couple of weeks. But this is proving to be a clunky and time-consuming approach, especially when I have other windows open as well (and I almost always do).

If you want to keep a permanent desktop of sorts, structure notes are your friend. (From which you can open all linked notes in separate windows with a Command+Shift+click

I agree about the role structure notes play in giving an overview, which addresses part of my concern. But they still don’t offer fuller views of select notes.

As the best of both worlds I’m wondering if a feature in The Archive where cmd+clicking a bunch of notes to show all of them in a grid might actually be quite useful. At the moment selecting multiple notes shows (a) n notes selected on the main section and (b) ‘(Nothing selected)’ on the bottom bar. Perhaps the two could be switched around and the main section can become even more useful this way?

GeoEng51

@vhbelvadi Are you talking about switching between multiple views of different notes? If so, just create and then use several tabs. Look for the plus sign near the top right of The Archive window, click, and away you go.

Will

Hi @vhbelvadi,
This is an interesting idea. I use a two-window workflow that keeps the target in focus, but I hadn't thought about targeting each window from the start. Here is a gif showing the selection of two notes, the execution of a Keyboard Maestro macro, and the specified notes placed in windows, side-by-side. Each note has all its backlinks in its note list. Sorry about all the highlighting; it's a feature of The Archive.

This is a nascent macro. It currently only works with two notes. I might develop it more to handle a variable number of notes, but my vision is such that a smaller window would lose its value, and I'm not yet convinced of the use case for more than two windows.

vhbelvadi

@GeoEng51 no, not multiple views of different notes but multiple select notes being viewable at once, with which tabs do not work well.

@Will This is actually a great step towards what I was looking for, and testament to your skills with Keyboard Maestro which I have only now come to discover myself thanks to lingering around these forums. I want to see if I can tailor your macro on the other thread to suit my requirements, perhaps over the next weekend.

As for smaller windows, you are right that too many windows would not work well. Perhaps the four-window quadrant set-up default on macOS would be a reasonable limit with this set-up too. However, if implemented within the Archive itself (not needing multiple windows I mean) I can see a scrollable index card-like set up working just fine without any upper limit whatsoever. Until then I’m off to tinker with Keyboard Maestro and a few windows—thanks for the wonderful idea and your working example.

Will

@vhbelvadi, I forgot to share the actual macro. This is a starting place,
https://www.dropbox.com/s/noq95cx1rw03y1b/Two Window Workflow Targeted.kmmacros?dl=1

vvirr

I liked using Obsidian's canvas for just this sort of thing. I haven't tried The Archive, but I assume you could use Obsidian in tandem, even it's only to use the canvas.

I don't use Obsidian anymore, so I've mostly just been using multiple editor windows, which is basically what others have recommended above. It works well enough.

Maybe you could also try opening your files in Mac's native TextEdit. The interface for plain text is quite minimal, so it might be a good option for the no-frills juxtapositioning of ideas. It also lets you zoom the text in or out for each file individually, which is something Obsidian's canvas doesn't let you do.

vhbelvadi

@Will said:
@vhbelvadi, I forgot to share the actual macro. This is a starting place,
https://www.dropbox.com/s/noq95cx1rw03y1b/Two Window Workflow Targeted.kmmacros?dl=1

Thanks so much, Will. I actually managed to follow the macro as you’d discussed it on the other thread and made one myself. I’ll leave a link to the macro here if someone else finds it useful:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pg7b4978kidq918ptcd7i/Open-note-in-new-window.kmmacros?rlkey=qaerszcfg39hl32nswmytwlwg&st=44dvxe6v&dl=1

This opens two notes in vertical split, three answers half and two quarters, or four notes as quarters in sequence (depending on how many Archive windows are open) and gets rid of the sidebar in all but the first window. All one has to do is select a note and Ctrl + Shift + \ to open that in a new window and the original window returns to the previous note.

I’m not sure if there are any bugs/edge cases because I’m new to macro and your own macro was extremely helpful.

@vvirr Indeed, that’s what I’ve resorted to now. I guess that’s the best solution for now with some automation thanks to Keyboard Maestro.

ctietze

@vhbelvadi said:
As the best of both worlds I’m wondering if a feature in The Archive where cmd+clicking a bunch of notes to show all of them in a grid might actually be quite useful. At the moment selecting multiple notes shows (a) n notes selected on the main section and (b) ‘(Nothing selected)’ on the bottom bar. Perhaps the two could be switched around and the main section can become even more useful this way?

Yeah, the selected note count doesn't offer a lot of value (apart from, well, counting). I added your remark to a feature idea for v2 (which is all about bringing notes together)!