Zettelkasten Forum


Choosing the archive when launching app

Is there a way to specify the "Archive Directory" from the command line when launching The Archive?

The command line call to open The Archive is open -n /Applications/The\ Archive.app. Is there a switch that might specify the archive directory like -d ~/Dropbox/zettelkasten?? I have 2 directories that I want to keep separate. One is a book project with 59 notes that when processed with pandoc, best want to be separate from the 100's of my other notes.

Considering put archive in github. Does anyone have experience putting notes in github? Pro/cons?

Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com

Comments

  • During development of The Archive, I put my notes under version control via git to see if anything changed unintentionally. Like the contents of file A being copied over file B in the early beta.

    Pros: you can see what you changed; and if I had used this for the Epstein videos, I could've traveled back in time to compare project progress :)

    Cons: I think it gets in the way to make meaningful commits during the workflow. I ended up committing once a day to preserve the changes using an automated script. Then it's not as useful to have a commit history, though, so why bother? For backup, rsyncing a full copy to a cloud drive might work just as well.

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • @Will Did you ever get or figure out an answer to this question of switching archive directories? I have combined all my archives except one which I would like to keep separate. I would like to be able to just "flick the switch" and jump between archives instead of going through The Archive's Switch Archives... dialogue.

  • @DavidWJ I solved this for myself with a couple of workflow changes. My thought process around keeping the archives separate was because one was the first draft of a book I am writing and the other is my zettelkasten. I find processing the book notes with pandoc, for formating and compilation into an ebook, was easiest if the book notes were all gathered together in a separate directory.

    I solved this by.

    1. I combined all notes into a single archive. I then tagged all book notes with a unique tag. I could have used a unique naming convention but I chose to use a tag.
    2. I set up a saved search for the book notes based on the tag.
    3. Then select the search and ⌘A to select them all.
    4. Right-click on the group and from the drop-down menu select "Reveal in Finder"
    5. Then all the files will be then properly selected in Finder and I can copy them to a temporary folder where I can manipulate them with pandoc.

    A couple of extra steps but this way my original notes are safe from manipulation errors and having the book notes in my Zettelkasten facilitates interlinking which would not have been possible with separate archives.

    Will Simpson
    My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • @Will Clever. Thank you.

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