The hover-preview trick is an old Ben Shneiderman idea. It’s not perfect, but I think it might be handy. We do something like this for the suggested links list.
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How far back?
I think it’s in the paper with Alan Borning, which would have been ~1986. Intl J Man-Machine, I think. But that’s a pure shot at venture – can’t really check properly away from the office.
Landow’s 1987 paper on the rhetoric of arrival and departure also seems pertinent, and I think he does mention the idea of seeing some sort of a preview of what the destination will offer. Of course, Landow is very much aware that the destination might want to tempt the reader, or wish to seek out readers who don’t (yet) know they want to read it…
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Thanks. // On the main thread again, does the search & retrieval of context present a loading inimical to existing structures. IOW, regardless of the idea (which is good!) does this load a desktop app? By comparison, Roam seems to be on a large back-end database so has more capacity for always-on scanning.
I’m wondering to what extent the needs of some of the zettelkasten-focused ideas fit well for a broader hypertextual tool. It’s easy for us to ask for things, but delivery may be harder or come at cost to other valued features, thus the question.
Random aside: I’ve been in a book club with Alan this winter. Fun to see his name pop up here.
Mirroring the suggested links functionality would be perfect. Instead of the whole note, an n amount of preceding and succeeding characters could be displayed with the link text as locus.
Regarding effects on load, I would have thought a desktop app in general would be even more performant than a web-based one, but I’m no software engineer, and I’m sure such considerations hinge on a whole suite of mitigating circumstances.
I’m curious about what zettelkasten ideas wouldn’t fit within a broader hypertextual tool, or what tool but a hypertextual one would be perfect suited to implement zettelkasten ideas. Luhmann’s method (or whoever truly originated the concept) practically sounds like hypertext in analogue.
I’m certainly no expert though, would love to hear more from you all who are well-versed in hypertext lore.
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The ability to move data in any way you please, and without ever destroying the original source,…is what I’ve been looking for my entire existence. Bi-directional linking is absolute brilliance. Embedding any type of information - regardless of structure, form, or arrangement - in any and as many locations as…pfff, my goodness. Knowledge graphing & esotericism are the key concepts here. In the context of knowledge organization, there is nothing that comes even close. However, still a long way to go before it becomes fully functional.
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Hi, everyone, I’m new here, considering buying Tinderbox. I’d like to use TBX with notes taken/stored in Roam and DevonThink. What I want to ask you is – do I get the following correctly?
TBX does not recognize wikilinks. That’s what I understood from the forum and with experimenting with the trial.
I know about Ziplinks but what I’m after is getting a bunch of text notes into TBX (e.g. in markdown) and preserving their intra-links (done by wikilink syntax).
If TBX cannot do this out of the box, is there a potential workaround, with AppleScript or by settings something up directly in TBX?
Thanks for help.
Hi, welcome to the forum. 
That’s actually a rather wide category with more definitions than you perhaps assume. So, what are you expecting Tinderbox to detect in imported data (and data in what form). Programmers like now code so aren’t to hot on history, yet old names for things get recycled and end up meaning similar but not necessarily compatible things. Thus what you assume to be a ‘wikilink’ won’t mean the same to every person here (or app!).
You may find very old references in some Tinderbox-related material about Tinderbox Wikilinks or ‘TinderWiki’ links (whereby CamelCase words could be treated as wiki-style link-stubs). This fitted with the original meaning of a wikilink but it likely isn’t what you mean and is no longer supported in Tinderbox.
If there is Markdown in imported notes, it is not altered but using the Preview tab of the text pane it may be able to use the links (@PaulWalters might know this area better).
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As far as Roam is concerned: if you export Markdown and import that into TB, TB does not seem to recognise [[something]] as a link to the note “something”. There may be an import method or manipulation that can automate the linkage, but it’s beyond my current knowledge.
At present, you’ll need to hand-edit the ziplinks — perhaps deleting and then reentering the final bracket [[destination]].
We could support this on import, though it raises difficult questions of disambiguation. Suppose we import a file States.txt with a zip link [[Washington]], but we don’t have a Washington. Do we make a note for Washington? If so, how is Tinderbox to know, when you import the notes for Washington, that it should use the existing Washington stub and not create a new note?
The customary Tinderbox rule applies here: if there are people with important work who need this feature to do their work, we are very likely to support it.
Does Roam not have an export function for Tinderbox use. Why, does Tinderbox have to change simply to meet Roam’s sub-par export mechanism?
<removes admin ‘hat’> These are my personal views. The sheer amount of time wasted on “Why doesn’t Tinderbox work just like [the app I use more often]? I’m too lazy to learn any other method.” is a real drain for those of use volunteering our free time to help others here. Why can’t Roam have better export, given how much is charged?
I’m not suggesting that. I was simply posting an answer to one part of the OP’s question.
There are many aspects of Roam, especially when it comes to administration and maintenance, that are sub-par. The price is premium, but much of the offering is built on a cottage industry of browser extensions and command line tools, with support from enthusiasts. It’s more like the Homebrew Computer Club than anything else right now.
And in any case, while it would be nice to be able to get linked notes from Roam into TB, Roam supports (in a very elastic sense of the term “supports”) a wide range of functions that aren’t compatible with Markdown, so even if import worked seamlessly, for Markdown content, it would struggle with many other functions.
Sure, in which case some form of XML data (Tinderbox’s native storage format) export from Roam would seem to be the way to go.
don’t get me wrong. OPML, Markdown and the like are great but seemingly few use their canonical form and users, ignorant of this fact, think the app with which they are most familiar is the ‘correct’ one, though usually wrong in that assumption.
In the smart phone app age I get that folk, knowing no different, find it outrageous that [wanted thing] doesn’t ‘just work’. I’ve used Tinderbox long enough to know @eastgate’s point about accommodating new inter-app interchange is not idly made (and as a beta-tester have spent many an hours testing such things). But it’s all a bit more complex. I guess Tinderbox gets all the negativity because it tries to deal with undocumented variants of supposed ‘standard’ exports by other apps. Plus, people ask here as they’ve normally been told [other app’s] developer simply isn’t interested in fxing their import export; they understand the ROI of running a walled garden.
After 30-odd years of information plumbing (doing inter-app data transfer) I guess I’m still surprised why people invest time/effort in apps that, frankly have sub-par data import/export. As I say this is my experience, I’m sure others may take a different view. In my ‘community’ hat’, I’ll still try and help folks fixing issue that should really be fixed at source in [some other app]; I think my record in this forum and previous versions speaks to that.
Thanks for claryfing. Yes, I meant links created by double square brackets. It’s something I’ve used for some time, even before Roam and DevonThink, with TiddlyWiki.
Basically I wanted to make sure I’m not mistaken and also add one little voice saying “this would be cool”.
I can imagine there would be issues related to the implementation this feature. As for the two specific ones you mention, after inserting a link, both Roam and DevonThink create the (blank) note automatically if it doesn’t exist already. That seems much better than not doing it (the case of TiddlyWiki). As for importing, I guess using “the existing stub” would also be preferable, following the rule “only one note with this exact name exists”. (But I get that this might be in conflict with other TBX principles and I’m not saying these should be abandonded.)
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I tested Roam a couple of months ago and left it quickly. I did not see the value. Four weeks ago I started again. I have worked with many tools in the past years and I am really amazed about Roam. It helped me to build a knowledge map in a fraction of time compare to any other app I used in the past years including Tinderbox. There is so much thought in detail you will see once you dive into it. Automatic linking with a few key strokes let you quickly walk through notes and connect ideas. The block links let’s you reference even tiny details across many places. I think in a network fashion in a constant flow I was never be able to do so with Tinderbox. In Tinderbox alone linking takes 3 times longer. I love Tinderbox for its maps, but the note linking has never worked for me and I believe it is the absolute essence. In Roam I link in fast speed as thoughts pop up. I can quickly move between notes, because the search is brilliant (much better and faster than Tinderbox). For example the search focus first on titles and than on text. Small nice details that speed up the note taking process. Or pages that are emtpy and have no links are removed automatically. I can only repeat the value in Roam are the core features and how these works with so little friction. I need so many more key strokes in Tinderbox to achieve the same and I have worked with Tinderbox for 3 years. I can’t say much about the meta theory behind all of it, but from my first hand experience Roam works so much more intutitve to me than Tinderbox and therefore is the best note taking app I have seen in years. The issue here is not about features, but about frictions. Interesting discussion here where I also mention Tinderbox: https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/hbmfrz/how_long_will_the_5_years_believer_plan_be/
and this tutorial series is really nice: - YouTube
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Sorry – I don’t read Reddit in memory of the late Aaron Swartz. But thanks anyway.
As for links not working for you: ok. I don’t recall your asking about that here, or through tech support. We’ve hardly had a link issue query in years.
@ckreutz I’m as bit lost but what is your question about Tinderbox. If you have issues with Roam not matching Tinderbox’s features why not ask Roam’s developers?
@mwra: This is an Off the Wall forum, that (I thought) encourages users to discuss other tools. @ckreutz was simply sharing his impressions of another tool that complements TB (and perhaps, dare I say, is better suited for them). There is no need to be defensive every time someone mentions Roam.
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