Personally, I woudl start with the “first principles”:
- The outcome, what outcome do I want to achieve? Is it a paper, presentation, talk, or simply> I’d want to have a loose idea on the output structure; I’d trust that I could produce any template want to get there, but I want a general guide. In addition to the primary objective, I’d keep in mind that I want to build atomic assets (i.e. standard alone notes) that will help me for future projects.
- The elements, what elements do I think I might need (e.g., people, terms, concepts, places, events, notes, media, entities, pages), I’ll turn these into attributes
- The attributes, what attributes do I thnk I’ll need, e.g., $Terms, $People, Concepts, $Places, $Events, $CitationKey; as well as, linktypes. I’d add these to the attributes
- Action Code and templates, I’d then set up my action code that will enable Tinderbox to automatically generate the element notes as I populate the various related attributes as I’m doing my reading. This will help me get the manual work out o the way. I’d pull form my existing files and efforts to do this.
- Execute and Incremental Formalization, I’d then start reading and following where the winds take me. Mostly I’d use an outline, but I’m right to pop into Map or the other views as the need arises. I’d start to explore and increment my elements, attributes, action code, and templates along the way. I would keep all media (images and video) external to TBX, as I can pull them in through attributes and value. If the visual in TBX is really necessary, I’d use $HoverImage and $Fill. I would heavily leverage linked notes and the tear-off window feature so that I can stay in context of whatever topic I’m writing about or taking notes on, rather than wasting time navigating all around the file. If I had original source text in Tinderbox, like @archurhh’s example, I would also use the .highlights operator to extract highlight text.
- Side trips, I’d expect to experience some side trips, and speedbumps, like the recent non-breaking experience issues that I raised. I’d look forward to these rather than seeing them as an issue. They are a health distraction and help me learn the fundamentals so computing and knowledge management in the modern age; I’d trust that the learning I gather, if not immediately useful, will be in the near future. When in doubt, I’d leverage my Sangha (i.e., the TBX Forum), my Buddhas (@eastgate, @mwra, forum, and backstage members, and others in the community), and my Dharma (aTbRef, TBX Forum, Backstage).
Most of all, I’d go in with a beginner’s mind and remind myself to have fun!