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110 | Connected Notes is a tool for non-categorical notes and flashcards. It encourages
111 | usage of the Zettelkasten method and spaced repetition,
112 | and is open source and free to use.
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116 | Connected Notes is in beta, so expect some roughness.
117 | Please report any bugs at the project's
118 | GitHub page.
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Table of contents
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123 | - Main features
124 | - Getting started
125 | - Running your own instance
126 | - Future work
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Main features
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132 | Notes are stored in your personal cloud service, meaning they're accessible from anywhere, including
133 | mobile.
134 | Currently the only backend option is Google Drive, but Connected Notes is designed with interchangeable backends
135 | in mind, and the next major feature will be local filesystem support (using
136 | File System Access API).
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139 |
140 | Connected Notes supports the Zettelkasten method. This means first class support for tagging and
141 | connecting notes - in fact, Connected Notes doesn't use folders to organize notes, but uses the tags you've
142 | added to structure them (see 'getting started' below).
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146 | Notes are written using markdown and stored as plain text markdown files.
147 | This means your notes aren't locked in to a proprietary format, and since
148 | they're stored on your personal cloud you'll always have access to them, even if this site was to shut down one
149 | day.
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153 | Connected Notes is free and open source. The project is designed to support notes that will live a
154 | long time (as any note taking system should), and open sourcing is an essential part of that promise.
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158 | Spaced repetition (ie. flashcards) has been shown to give superior results in learning tasks, not only
159 | when measuring the ability to recall, but also when making inferences from learned material
160 | (source). The current version of Connected Notes
161 | has flashcard support built-in. The support is currently quite simple but more features will appear in the future.
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Getting started
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Creating a note
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173 |
174 | Creating a note is as easy as clicking on the 'create note' icon (or pressing ctrl + k) and entering the name
175 | of the note.
176 | You don't need to choose which folder the note is added to, since folders don't exist - instead, organizing notes
177 | is based on tags (see next section). This greatly reduces the friction of creating notes and avoids having
178 | to think in strict categories and hierarchies
179 | (more).
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Tagging notes
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184 |
185 | Using tags is an integral part of Connected Notes. Since tags essentially replace folders,
186 | learning to use them is worthwhile.
187 | To add a tag, simply add a Twitter style hashtag anywhere to the note, like
188 | #this. You will then see the hashtag appear in the left side menu, and if you click on it,
189 | you will see all the notes that contain the tag:
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192 |
193 |
194 | If a note
195 | doesn't have any hashtags, it appears under the special 'untagged' tag. Similarly, all notes appear under 'all'.
196 | Also, since notes can contain multiple tags, they can also appear under multiple tags:
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201 |
202 | Tags can be nested under each other, creating a 'tag/subtag' structure.
203 | This might be sensible if you have a tag which is clearly a part of some
204 | other tag. For example, if you have tags #texas-holdem (a popular card game) and #texas-holdem-strategies,
205 | you might not want to have #texas-holdem-strategies appear on the top level.
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207 |
208 |
209 | This can be achieved by dragging the child tag over the parent tag:
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214 |
215 | Finally, tags can appear under multiple tags. Let's say you have tags #car-brands and #electric-cars.
216 | In a traditional
217 | folder structure you'd have to make a choice where to place #tesla, but in Connected Notes #tesla could
218 | appear under both tags. To achieve this, click on the three dots menu next to #tesla and choose
219 | the parent tags.
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221 |
222 |
223 | In comparison, traditional folders are essentially
224 | equivalent to each note having a single tag and each tag having at most one other tag as their parent.
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Connecting notes
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229 |
230 | Notes can be connected by typing two square brackets '[[' and selecting the note you want to reference from the
231 | autocompletion list.
232 |
233 | You can also directly write the name of the note [[like so]] and the note will be linked. You can then use ctrl
234 | + click to jump to the note. If the note doesn't exist, a new note will be created when jumping into it.
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236 |
237 |
Flashcards
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Create a new flashcard by opening a note and pressing ctrl + j. This will open a dialog where you can edit
240 | the front and back of the card before saving it (TODO image).
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By default, the flashcard is populated with the sentence your cursor is currently on. If you have selected a
243 | piece of text before pressing ctrl + j, that text will be prepopulated instead.
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To study your flashcards, click on the 'study' icon in the left menu. By default, you'll be shown all due
246 | flashcards you have created.
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248 |
Currently there's no interoperability with Anki but in the future I'd like to have a more Anki-like flashcard
249 | experience and allow exporting/importing.
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251 |
Attachments
252 |
253 | You can upload attachments to notes by drag-n-dropping the file on the corresponding note.
254 |
255 |
Running your own instance
256 |
257 |
258 | More details on how to set up your own instance of Connected Notes will be at the
259 | GitHub page once the project exits beta.
260 |
261 |
262 |
Caveat
263 |
264 | If you're planning to start your own instance, note that Google Drive files are only accessible from whitelisted
265 | domains, so notes created in connectednotes.net won't be accessible from someotherdomain.com. The solution is to
266 | copy the files and re-upload them via the new correct domain, or whitelist the domain (although I'd discourage
267 | this).
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Future work
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273 |
274 | Currently the code base is lacking a lot of tests and has some known issues, but as we finalize the design
275 | and structure the number of tests should ramp up and that of issues down.
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