Logseq & Knowledge Preservation
Migrate old Markdown files to Logseq, preserving knowledge in the AI age with Logseq Doctor
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Logseq & Knowledge Preservation
Migrate old Markdown files to Logseq, preserving knowledge in the AI age with Logseq Doctor
Read more →
A practical Zettelkasten guide for developers: write atomic notes, link concepts to code, avoid folder traps, and build a useful knowledge system.
well, fuck it. just yesterday I was writing about the logseq plugin that I'm making to help organize my graph files. I use logseq both for work and for my personal life, but I want to keep a separate graph for each, which in practise means using my work laptop exclusively for my work graph and then using a personal device for my personal graph. in theory I could just use it on my phone, but I loathe writing on touchscreens, so I am preparing one of my old portable devices to run logseq with the idea of bringing it to the lab with me.
the device is a computer tablet from 2019, from that time when windows was experimenting with tablet-laptop hybrids, so it has a physical keyboard (very important to me) but it's also reasonably slim and light. and honestly, I love that thing to bits, I've traveled a lot with it even thought it has only 2GB of ram. however, it does have about 30GB storage, so I thought, cool. that's more than enought space for my graph and I no longer need any of my uni software, so after uninstalling all of that and updating the OS logseq should run without issues.
but of course, the device has a 32 bit architecture. and electron (the framework that logseq runs on) discontinued support for 32 bits ages ago 😞
yesterday I did something foolish: I started working on a plugin for logseq.
logseq is an opensource notetaking program similar to obsidian. it has pages arranged in a graph structure, and you just write whatever you want on them. it supports markdown formatting, you can add pictures, and even reference another page (or a part of a page). you can also make tags and tag pages.
so when I play ttrpg I like to make a tag like "ttrpg/currentGame" and put my character's information and anything relevant to the game under that tag. but when the game ends, now those pages live forever on the graph, which is incredibly inconvenient if you consider that I synchronize the entire program's files on most of my devices.
logseq has no convenient way of archiving "outdated" pages (unless you want to delete them entirely). I can go to the directory that stores the pages' files and put them somewhere else, but the files (such as pictures) embedded in the pages are stored in a different directory, and it would be a pain to go looking around for them in there. and any pages that referenced the pages you removed have unexplainable dead links now.
this problem has been bothering me (and a couple of a my friends) for a bit, but now that I've decided that I want to keep my work and personal notes separate, making a tool to export all of my pages tagged with "work" out of my current graph while preserving the embedded files and page links is the most convenient way forward. if I do the export well enough those pages should be able to be added seamlessly to my new, work-only graph.
I checked logseq's marketplace first and I was honestly a bit surprised to find that there isn't a plugin for this already on there, but maybe that's because it's likely that the people who use logseq intensively enough to have this problem are also the users with the necessary skillset to make a python script that does that for them. (honestly, if I was doing a python script I would be done already). and it avoids the uncomfortable issue of allowing a stranger's hastily programmed plugin to delete files from your filesystem.
...I've just realised that I've been using logseq as a PKB for over a year and I haven't made a single backup 😬
I think I've finished reorganising my work files! and just in time for my boss to ask me for all my published articles in pdf lol.
there are still some kinks to work out, but that's for next week. organisation systems are living, ongoing projects -like cleaning your house or decorating a room, I'm never going to be "done" organising.
if there's something I must credit tiago forte's book with, is that it's made me think about my life in terms of information flows. I have information sources (email clients, twitter, books, AO3, podcasts, etc) and information "sinks" -not in the sense of information being destroyed, but in the sense that I have discovered that I have "places" where I consume information. the places that I have discovered thus far are:
my RSS reader (I use feedly. please, somebody make a better reader than feedly)
my kindle
the "reader" function in the firefox browser
my logseq
my chosen filesystem
I think that it's obvious why I see an RSS reader and a kindle as information sinks, but it's a little bit less obvious why a notetaking program like logseq or a filesystem "consume" information. it's because I often have little bits of information (tweets, pictures, screenshots of a conversation, a book that I may want to read but can't yet) that I want to keep. like, I don't know if there are people who simply let all of their files live in the downloads folder, but personally, I need to "process" the files in some way in order to do anything useful with them.
usually this simply involves moving them from "downloads" to a different directory, but sometimes I also need to take notes on them (if they are a book, or a fanfic, or an academic paper), or maybe I want to add the new snippet to the existing collection of snippets about a topic, and I may have to string all of them together in some coherent order. so that's why I think my notetaking program and my filesystem are information sinks.
I think that finding my information sources and information sinks in my life can really help me write more and be more creative in general, because a thing I've noticed is that when the information travels fast and smoothly from my sources to my sink, the faster I read it and the easiest it is for me to actually work on it and use this new information in my life.
(and also, I know I'm using very abstract terms, saying things like "processing information" that maybe put the picture of a maganer pleased with how the lines in their graph are all going up. but please, have in mind that the use case that made me realise the importance of having my data sources and sinks well connected was me wanting to leave a nice comment on all the fanfics I read. my "line going up" is "I can post around a dozen nice comments per week now!")
A privacy-first, open-source platform for knowledge management and collaboration.
I haven't written in here since february 😬
in march I discovered logseq, and not only have I become a bit obsessed with it, it's also proved to be perfect for many of the uses I had planned to use this blog for. I am considering using logseq for my more private and rambley thoughts, and keep this blog for interactions and for publishing more polished things -all of them still open to discussion, of course.
another reason I haven't been posting is because I got wayyy more interactions than I was expecting, and I've been dealing with it poorly. I still want to learn how to deal with that, I think it would be beneficial for me in many ways! also, for some reason, tumblr hasn't been letting me use the "answer" button under my own posts, so when someone answers something interesting, the only way I can answer is by screencapping it and answering in a reblog/new post, which strikes me as a bit rude. like, if the person wanted to be reblogged, they would have answered to me in a reblog? I dunno.
anyways! logseq is amazing, and when I have figured out a proper workflow with it I'll probably blog about it. logseq is taking over some of the organizational aspects of my life, and the change is being a bit rough because I've been organising myself almost exclusively with trello for... close to ten years, I think. like, my life has *not* been falling apart during march, exactly, but I was used to being clued into a structure by a particular digital tool. now that it has become obsolete, and until I figure out/get used to the new clues and new structure, I'm more forgetful and tired than usual. this also feeds into me not blogging; I no longer have time blocks for "free time" in my routine (I am technically at work rn).
anyways x2, that's what's been up with me this last month. I have some things in the backburner for this blog already, let's see if I can wrap up my work and do something about that