I still want a graph layer atop my notes.
Yes, I want my personal locally stored data unlocked memex. Since the passing fad of the web is now, you know, passing, maybe I’ll get one.
Maybe someone will play with this now that there’s not much point in doing another searchable memory augmentation app. Apple and Google each have their “good enough” solutions. Those solutions have scary data lock issues, but for their vendors that’s a feature, not a defect. (For the record, I’m still on Simplenote/nvAlt, despite the extremely very insanely annoying search bug in the Simplenote Mac client. [1])
The idea is as old as time. Each open data format note has a title, a body, tags, and a unique identifier. The app maintains a separate data store of noteID pairs (relationships, no directionality or additional relationship attributes necessary). When viewing a note one sees titles of related notes. There’s a UI for viewing the graph that also treats tags as nodes [3], and a UI for editing relationships.
The key is that the individual notes remain separate files and the note-note store is plaintext/rich text as well. [2]
One day…
PS. I think this was kind of what Gopher did.
- fn -
[1] My own extended memory collection has moved through DOS text files, FileMaker Pro text base, PalmOS Notes, DateBk Memo, AvantGo files, Outlook Notes, Evernote, Google Notes (killed!), Toodledo Notes/Appigo Notebook, and Simplenote/ResophNotes/NotationalVelocity/nvAlt. No wonder I’m a nut on data lock issues and distrust Cloud solutions for extended memory even as I use them. Also: Before Simplenote, Palm Notes, iOS Notes, Keep, EverNote and OneNote there was Tornado for DOS.
[2] Remember when Mac Classic gave every file its own unique ID? Those were the days. How to get the unique ID for the notes is the trick for a plaintext implementation especially across platforms. With rich text one can bury the unique ID in the metadata. Unique ID could be an IP6 URI.
[3] Remember when graph data visualization was a thing? That was the early 90s I think, around the time of VRML and MCF/RDF.
See also:
(This is started out as a tiny post but I kept finding more old material I wanted to think about …)
- All I want for Christmas is a graph (mind-map) … on App.net 11/2012 discussion of this on ADN.
- XMind: Impressions and comments on the mind mapping market 11/2012. I buried the lede in this post, the discussion of the graph layer for a Notes collection is buried within. I gave up on XMind because client-side Java died.
- Tinderbox, Simplenote, MindNode and data freedom 10/2011. Earlier version of this plea. Lists some Personal Information Managers I’ve known. My plaintext/rich text standards love is born of much painful experience.
- Escape from Outlook Notes - ResophNotes, SimpleNote for iPhone and Notational Velocity 7/2010
- Cloud data: Should I trust (Simplenote) Simperium? 8/2010. Only while nvAlt works.
- Before Simplenote, Palm Notes, iOS Notes, Keep, EverNote and OneNote there was Tornado for DOS.
- Taking note: Tornado Notes Lives—Sort of (an entire blog on note taking. I just subscribed!)
- Escape from Outlook Notes - ResophNotes, SimpleNote for iPhone and Notational Velocity 7/2010
- Palm/Palm Pilot: Personal Experiences and Tips: my old Palm Pilot web page. For nostalgia.
- Jon Udell’s Interviews with Innovators: Evernote as Memex 7/2008. (Evernote is still in business!)
- Gordon’s Notes: xanadu and Gordon's Notes: memory management
- Full text search and digital prostheses: new email, new mind 7/2008 - A few years after full text really went mainstream. This doesn’t seem to show up on in our productivity stats, which is more than a bit curious. It is almost as if digital tech is simultaneously increasing and decreasing economic productivity, so we see only the delta.
- The Mundaneum 2008
- Mac NoteTaker for PalmOS with TextMate 1/2006 (oh, the pain)
- Palm to iPhone - the summary 8/2008
- Farewell Palm I didn’t get rid of all my old PalmOS gear until 2010
- The rise of software rental (aka software as service) 2/2010
- Moving Palm notes to Toodledo via CSV file - what worked. (Hard!) 9/2008
- Google’s IQ boost is only beginning 12/2009. Even as I wrote that Google was making a hard turn into evilplusness. Now it’s the AI assistant moment.
- Project Memfail: Tackling my search space problem 9/2013. I rely on my Notes as pointers to other stores but I still need Google’s increasingly shaking custom search engines.
- Thinking tools 2014 - holding steady but future unclear 5/2014. Two years later it’s basically the same toolset, but I created kateva.org/sh as a backup given ADN’s expected lifespan.
- Why we need to retire at sixty 3/2010. Memory augmentation is not an option.
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