Suggestions Wanted - Naming convention for Drafts

mediapathic

I am looking for a naming convention for Zetteln files that will allow me to see at a glance, and search for, documents that are works in progress, pulling from (and, in my case, actually including using transclusion syntax) other documents in the ZK. Essentially I mean drafts of finished documents that still live within the ZK, and in fact the way I differentiate them right now is to use a #drafts tag. But I want a way to be able to see these things in a file list in other applications that don't support tagging, which means putting that information in the filename.

My first approach was to name files things like

- D - 201911061648 A Work In Progress 

It's very visible, but it wrecks sorting. I then tried

201911061648 - D - A Work In Progress 

But then I learned that search in most software cannot search for an exact string, so search on filename gets me anything with a D and a - in any order.

I'm considering something like

201911061648 § A Work In Progress 

calling back to the old usage of §, but I worry about compatibility across devices and future-proofing (I did recently learn how to make a § in iOS, it' a long press on the &).

Has anyone else tried to do something like this? Any suggestions or thoughts?

Thanks,
-- S

Sascha

Can you give us more insights into your workflow regarding the need to recognizing them in the list?

orderinthecourts

I've come to postfix the IDs in my notes like this: 201911061648.D - A Work In Progress. To find it, search for .D

mediapathic

@Sascha said:
Can you give us more insights into your workflow regarding the need to recognizing them in the list?

I am frequently using The Archive to get overviews of the status of projects. For example, I'm using it to track submissions, so I have a bunch of Jobsheet documents, one for each story, so in a search for relevant tags I can easily see which stories need editing, which are currently out for submissions, etc.

I often will work on pieces (both fiction and non) in my Zettelkasten, and I like to be able to see those as well. The #draft tag works well enough, but I also want the ability to look at all of my notes sorted by modified date and see which Drafts have fallen off my recent working list. It helps me make sure nothing falls between the cracks. Also, for the sake of software agnosticism I'd like the ability to distinguish active works in progress in a file list, without having to depend on the ability to search for tags as easily as The Archive can.

Does that help?

mediapathic

@orderinthecourts said:
I've come to postfix the IDs in my notes like this: 201911061648.D - A Work In Progress. To find it, search for .D

That's a really good idea. I'll do some experimenting with that, thanks!

Edit: Tried this, it won't work for me because, just like the "- D" above, it matches every file that contains both a period and the letter d, which is a lot of them.

Will

@mediapathic, To make - D - work as a proper search term encapsulate it in double-quotes as in "- D -". This string would be unique to the "Drafts" and then you can sort this search using the View - Sort By - Modification Date - Oldest First to see the which drafts haven't been worked on in a while. Easy to set up a Saved Search for this. There doesn't seem to be a way to include the sorting in a saved search but it is not too onerous to select.

mediapathic

@Will said:
@mediapathic, To make - D - work as a proper search term encapsulate it in double-quotes as in "- D -". This string would be unique to the "Drafts" and then you can sort this search using the View - Sort By - Modification Date - Oldest First to see the which drafts haven't been worked on in a while. Easy to set up a Saved Search for this. There doesn't seem to be a way to include the sorting in a saved search but it is not too onerous to select.

That is true in The Archive, but the way quoted searches work in other software (which I regularly use for working on drafts, such as Typora and Highland) seems to be... inconsistent. The main problem I'm trying to solve here is, I suppose, software agnosticism.

Eiff

How about "qqq"?

ctietze

@mediapathic I can totally relate to your case: I found that words like "Outline" in the file name didn't cut it and prefixed my notes with § as well because it was a handy and visually appealing character on my German keyboard layout (⇧3). I find it less convenient on U.S. keyboards (⌥5) and often forget how to type it at all, and I press the Option key with my thumb most of the time, so it's hard to reach, etc., and maybe I'd then prefer œ (⌥Q) nowadays.

I actually used § for project stuff, and § O for outlines. The project stuff should now be moved into my emacs org files, where I put all my work notes.

(I count 61 notes starting with a §)

mediapathic

@Eiff said:
How about "qqq"?

A reasonable suggestion, but I'm already using #qqq as a signifier for something else (quick access to current stack, sort of a /tmp so I can have things I'll need quick access to on mobile).

mediapathic

@ctietze said:
@mediapathic I can totally relate to your case: I found that words like "Outline" in the file name didn't cut it and prefixed my notes with § as well because it was a handy and visually appealing character on my German keyboard layout (⇧3). I find it less convenient on U.S. keyboards (⌥5) and often forget how to type it at all, and I press the Option key with my thumb most of the time, so it's hard to reach, etc., and maybe I'd then prefer œ (⌥Q) nowadays.

I actually used § for project stuff, and § O for outlines. The project stuff should now be moved into my emacs org files, where I put all my work notes.

(I count 61 notes starting with a §)

I note that you lack UIDs in these files. That seems counter-intuitive to me, but I suppose I'm building things in a more nonlinear way than you are (fiction v academic writing). I guess you consider them only destinations and not sources?

Also, do you not miss the ability to sort by explicit date?

Sascha

@mediapathic said:

@Sascha said:
Can you give us more insights into your workflow regarding the need to recognizing them in the list?

I am frequently using The Archive to get overviews of the status of projects. For example, I'm using it to track submissions, so I have a bunch of Jobsheet documents, one for each story, so in a search for relevant tags I can easily see which stories need editing, which are currently out for submissions, etc.

I often will work on pieces (both fiction and non) in my Zettelkasten, and I like to be able to see those as well. The #draft tag works well enough, but I also want the ability to look at all of my notes sorted by modified date and see which Drafts have fallen off my recent working list. It helps me make sure nothing falls between the cracks. Also, for the sake of software agnosticism I'd like the ability to distinguish active works in progress in a file list, without having to depend on the ability to search for tags as easily as The Archive can.

Does that help?

Ah. Ok. In that case, I'd suggest something that pops. That is an unintented but useful side effect of my structure note signifier "Ü1", "Ü2" and "Ü3". Reading is a highly automated process that uses a lot of left-brain based expectations. That is the reason we can read texts like this. But if you violate the expectations of normal reading habits (kind of very basic unconscious habits) you can make a string pop. Special charakters, Leet Speak or simple combinations of letters and numbers (those two are processed differently) would be brain-friendly (in a brain unfriendly way.. )

ctietze

@mediapathic said:

>

I note that you lack UIDs in these files. That seems counter-intuitive to me, but I suppose I'm building things in a more nonlinear way than you are (fiction v academic writing). I guess you consider them only destinations and not sources?

Also, do you not miss the ability to sort by explicit date?

Well, the whole thing sometimes gets on my nerves badly That's why I transition the outlines to proper structure or buffer notes, and the other § notes to project notes in emacs org-mode.