Now that’s annoying for an app supposed to handle text like a champion and goes hunting on Scrivener’s turf (which has no such issue). Have you filed a bug report?
Yes. This was one sheet out of several I was working on and it was rather large. Ulysses is optimized for writing books broken into chapters, but several individual sheets were book-length themselves. I was using them for managing and searching research material, which isn’t specifically what it’s designed for. I used to keep files like that as text that I’d access with BBEdit, might go back to that…
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I was just going to post about this.
Great implementation and tool. I’m in VS Code everyday so this is perfect for me.
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Thanks @JohnAtl for promoting that list .
BTW, I’d to say that the value of that list .
The value of this list is NOT list self.
The value of this list is that "How I do NOT use these tools or LESS use them ? Not how to use them or more use. "
The purpose is not select tool, the purpose is figure out what we don’t need and what we need .
- Deciding what tools not to use is as important as deciding what tools to use.
- Deciding What Not To taking notes Is As Important As Deciding What To taking notes.
- Find the same point and find different point among all of tools.
- What tool can do / what tools can’t do . what we need / what we don’t need. for filter, select matrix.
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After weeks evaluating a number of options, I’ve adopted Roam. I’m currently undergoing a sort of personal creativity Renaissance, and I attribute part of this new energy and increased output to Roam.
Using a modified version of the Zettelkasten method and Roam, I’m making new connections among concepts I’m interested in … and not just when using Roam. And while backlinks are definitely a powerful feature, I believe Roam’s emphasis on blocks as the individual units of thought (as opposed to Obsidian’s focus on pages) is the feature that changes everything for me, in the same way that Ulysses’s focus on sheets over documents upended my writing process.
I’m sharing what I learn and how it’s impacting my life on my personal site. Meantime: I’d advise setting aside the hype and trying out the software, especially while reading (or reviewing, if you’ve read it before) How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens.
I am not a person who uses the phrase “It’s changed my life” lightly, but in this case, it applies. For me, Roam is well worth the $15.00 per month I’m currently paying.
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Thanks for sharing, Mark. Could you give us an example of a connection between two things you made in Roam (perhaps through your use of blocks) that you believe you wouldn’t have made otherwise?
Thanks!
Beck
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Would you trust it with client data?
A major factor must be the client’s security/privacy policy. My clients expect me to sign up to their policies, which generally forbid keeping their data anywhere not under direct control (either theirs or mine).
On top of that is the due diligence aspect (my responsibility to manage their data properly).
Taking those together, I would not use Roam for client data. Their policy isn’t explicit enough for me to tell a client with confidence that their data is safe.
And the Roam infrastructure is still glitchy as is their support service.
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Well, trust and allowed by laws and regulations are 2 vastly different things.
I agree with @ThatGuy that:
Another thing to take in consideration is, imo, that there is a difference (in their privacy policy and TOS too) between your data (i.e. you that create a roam account) and the data you put into your databases.
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Roam Research this week (I think) announced it was holding bi-weekly office hours for customers to interact with some unspecified group of Roam personnel. It’s a nice feature for those who have time or inclination.
First one has just finished. Planned to be every Tuesday and Thursday. Details in the weekly newsletter.
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So, while reading How to Take Smart Notes, I made note of references to virtuous cycles – self-reinforcing loops of behavior that spin up when we do something good, feel good about it, and then do it some more. This specific reference is to exercise, and how successful programs introduce people to a broad range of exercises until they find one they like, which encourages them to do it more, which generates benefits, which encourage them to exercise more, etc.
Because of how I tagged that block (#self-improvement), Roam directed my attention to another block in which the term self-improvement was used, but not linked: a journal entry on my meditation practice, which I’ve recently increased from ten minutes to twenty-five minutes per day. It occurred to me I’m living a virtual cycle there: doing more of something that’s been beneficial, only to find it becoming more beneficial, which is perpetuating both the activity itself and my research into it.
Once I saw this relationship, I had a realization that the same thing is occurring with my journaling practice (it’s gone from intermittent to daily), my blogging (now back on a schedule of sorts), and my diet (which is now more on-plan, especially when, as I noted in another Roam-based journal entry, I’m “eating more mindfully”).
And bang: there’s an important insight for me: that mindfulness – and the pursuit of a flow state – is operating across multiple domains in my life: note taking, meditation, exercise, diet. I’d been considering writing about resuming my meditation practice and the benefit’s I’ve seen from that … but now I see that possible entry in a larger and richer context, and what I eventually publish on this topic will be richer for it … and easier to write, since I can drag blocks out of Roam (which, thanks to the Zettelkasten method, are essentially ideas expressed as first drafts) and into Ulysses, polish them, and publish them – without having to start with a blank page.
Would I have had the same insight otherwise? Maybe. Eventually. But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done so in a matter of seconds. And even if I’d had this insight hours or days later, I wouldn’t have experienced this intensely pleasurable flash of insight … which is driving me to use Roam more … which is producing more rapid insights … which – oh, there, you see? Another virtuous cycle!
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I am trying to understand the nuances as in multiple times reading the Zettelkasten method it states only to have one idea per Zettel or notecard.
If my understanding is correct, why is Roam Research’s method of linking to blocks of text seen as an advantage over Obsidian use of linking per card/note?
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My personal take: the Zettelkastem method is necessarily a creature of its time. Given the media available, one idea per card was optimal.
Roam’s use of the block as the smallest unit of thought allows interaction at both the block level and the page level, if desired … allowing pages more flexibility, as they can be containers for related blocks and/or containers for unrelated blocks (like paragraph entries from journals or items from meeting notes). You can choose the level of granularity needed in the moment.
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Zettlekasten is a technique. Roam, Obsidians are technology implementations. Technique and technology are not the same thing. Important not to confuse the two.
Roam has block-level linking because it stores data in blocks, not because of what users do with Roam. E.g., someone could make a dictionary in Roam – a dictionary is not a Zettelkasten – though, same technology, different technique.
Obsidian does not have block level linking because it stores data in individual plain-text files, that do not support data blocks (unless the user chunks her data into one-block-per-file). Not because of what users do with Roam. (There has been a lot of discussion of this on Obsidian’s two forums, if you want to dig into it.)
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I really liked Roam, but the lack of a free plan to test properly outside of 14 days made me skittish. I went back to Drafts, but might keep an eye on it.
Another thing to note is that Obsidian isn’t really a direct competitor to Roam in this regard. It’s a note-taking app at the base with an amazing feature set to link concepts together. Roam is primarily designed around linking concepts and thoughts together. You can use both similarly, but Obsidian is more optimized toward note-taking/Zettelkasten workflows, and Roam toward much more fluid thought and capture.
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Is that a distinction without a difference?
I think “Obsidian is … optimized toward … zettelkasten” significantly under values and deprecates the thoughtful design that has gone into Obsidian. Obsidian isn’t a one-trick pony (nor is Roam for that matter).
Zettlekasten is merely the fad du jour. Perhaps because the blogo-poddo-sphere enjoys telling people that they can get on that train and ride it to geniusville. The zettlekasten craze will die out. It’s too much work in the long haul.
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I fully agree with your thoughts here – there are subtle differences between the two that make them very different even though major features are similar. That’s majorly what I was trying to highlight. I’m an Obsidian user, too.
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