Do you like working from terminal? Perhaps you're a vim user? If that is the case, here is a simple program for maintaining your zettelkasten for you.

It creates and manages links for a collection of plain text zettelkasten files. The main use for the program is to manage links between the individual notes, which is the most toilsome part of maintaining a plain text zettelkasten.

ZKHS -- simple text based zettelkasten system

Usage: Zettel COMMAND
  Manipulate zettelkasten

Available options:
  -h,--help                Show this help text

Available commands:
  create                   Create unlinked zettel
  link                     Link zettels
  find                     Find zettels
  resolve                  Resolve references in zettels
  export                   Export zettels as JSON
  elucidate                Suggest improvements in ZettelKasten
  neighbourhood            Zettels linkwise near to this one
  body                     Extract zettel body, ie. text without headers and
                           links
  references               Extract references from a Zettel
  addreferences            Add references to a Zettel
  auto-fill                Fill missing wikilinks and references from origin
  touch                    Record opening a zettel (for logging purposes)

For further details, pass --help as argument for each command (e.g., Zettel link --help)

Here is an example from my collection:

The binomial distribution
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

           ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
           │              ⎛n⎞                       │
           │ B(k; n, p) = ⎜ ⎟ * p^k * (1 - p)^(n-k) │
           │              ⎝k⎠                       │
           └────────────────────────────────────────┘

"What is the probability to get k successes in n trials, each with probability
p of success?"

cf. `pbinom` in r.

----- External references ------------------------------------------------------
[1]: Binomial distribution - Wikipedia [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution (accessed 2.20.20).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tags: statistics
Links: 
67257A06-4634-40EA-A788-011771081C40-book-bayesian-statistics-the-fun-way Origin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are bit random at the moment as they were meant to demonstrate uncommon features. I'll do more common examples later on.

How to create your first zettel and do basic navigation

Quickly select an outbound link

This is a program build by me and for me. It misbehaves every now and then, but since I and it are on familiar terms, it doesn't really matter.

But, if you decide to use it, this might matter a lot. Unless you like debugging and fixing issues, it might be better for you to write your own personal system instead.

• Structured zettels
• External (bibliographic) references
• Links with descriptive text
• [wikilike links], which can be embedded in the text
• Navigation and searching
• Some link structure based tools, like neighbourhood search, which I find really useful
• Neat 'elucidate' command, which causes the program to prompt you to improve something. Currently it asks you to link unlinked zettels, but in the future it will likely ask you to split up long zettels or return to zettels that you have marked as WIP or TODO.

• You can't use symbols or linebreaks in [wikilike links]. Sorry.
• If you abort fzf, the vim integration can do whatever it likes. It often likes to close a random buffer.
• Zettels with broken structure cause commands to fail silently in vim. But they are easy to find using Zettel find -q 'anything', so I've not bothered to do anything about this.

There is a somewhat badly behaving nvim integration. source <path where you put it>/zettel.vim to your init.vim or vimrc to enable it. Here is a quick user quide:

• :Zcre <arg> : Create a new zettel with this name (Use only for topics)
• :Zext <arg> : Extend current zettel with addition of linked zettel (use often)
• :ZFill : Automatically fill in links and refs from origin zettel
• :Zf : Do full text search on arqument.

All the mappings need to be prefixed with the 'localleader'. If you don't know what that is, put let maplocalleader='g' in your vim config. Then, prefix each of the below commands with 'g' (or the letter you chose). For example, to add links, you would type gzl.

• zl : Add Links to zettel. This will put a [wikilink] at cursor position.
• zw : Add WikiLinks to zettel (put cursor inside a [wikilink] before using)
• zs : Split visual selection to a new zettel (see ZFill above)

• zr : Navigate to wikilink. Creates the link if it doesn't exist (put cursor inside a [wikilink] before using)

• zf : Find a zettel (type a new title, or press to create a new zettel)
• zf : Fuzzy find zettel by title
• zFF : Full Text Find, word under cursor (needs tantivy)
• zF : Full Text Find, prompt for word or use current visual selection (needs tantivy)

• zn : Show neighbourhood of the zettel
• zt : Show origin chain of the zettel
• zo : Show outbound links of the zettel
• zb : Show backlinks of the zettel

• zR : Show recently edited zettels
• zT : Show zettels that are often opened when this zettel is opened

• zp : Paste stuff from clipboard as a quote (Currently works only on OS X and if you have pandoc installed. Non essential).

You can also create new zettels by invoking find and then typing a title which produces no find results (or if you can't do that, type title and press -n). This is the fastest way to create zettels.

There isn't a shell integration. Here are some common commands you might use:

• To edit zettels you could do Zettel find --search <term>|xargs -o nvim -O

• To create an unlined note, run Zettel create --title <title>|xargs -o nvim

You need to install the excellent fzf and rg programs first. Also, the search command can use tantivy-cli for full text searches.

Additionally install neovim-remote and copy PopNVR.fish to your path. If you happen to use some other shell, then additionally, port PopNVR.fish to your shell. (I really need to incorporate that into the program as whole...)

Then install stack. Then clone this repository and issue stack install inside the repository. Then go have a coffee and a sandwich while the program builds.

After the program has been built, create the directory ~/zettel/ and create your first zettel by Zettel create --title <title>|xargs -o nvim.