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[[!meta title="Build a Zettelkasten with the Hyperbole Rolodex"]]
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2022 Ramin Honary"]]
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# Build a Zettelkasten with the Hyperbole Rolodex
Ramin Honary ("Rah-mean" (hard-H) "Ho-na-ree", he/him.

- Email: <mailto:ramin.honary@gmail.com>
- Homepage: <https://tilde.town/~ramin_hal9001/>
- Mastodon: <https://emacs.ch/@ramin_hal9001>
- GitHub: <https://github.com/RaminHAL9001>

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"Zettelkasten"  is a  methodology  for  marshaling your  knowledge,
ideas, creativity, into  a database of hyperlinked  notes, each note
representing a  single quantity of  knowledge. The method  was first
devised by  a well-published social scientist  named Niklas Luhmann.
Though he constructed  his database with actual slips of  paper in a
box with a notebook for indexing, naturally, modern software removes
the manual labor  from the process.

In  the world  of  Emacs packages,  Org Mode  is  the most  well-known
package that provides the tools necessary for building a Zettelkasten,
along with extensions such as  "Org Roam" which add functionality that
manage links between Org Mode documents.  But Org Mode is not the only
Emacs package to provide such tools.

In  this talk,  I demonstrate  how  to use  an oft-overlooked  package
called Hyperbole as an alternative to Org Roam for managing hyperlinks
and  building  a Zettelkasten.   In  particular  I use  the  Hyperbole
"Rolodex" feature,  called "HyRolo."   It was originally  designed for
tracking  your personal  relations,  but it  can be  used  to build  a
Zettelkasten  with almost  no  additional  configuration or  3rd-party
packages.  HyRolo is  a purely textual database, and  does not require
an external database software to index  the notes.  It also provides a
very rich set of "actions" so that  notes not only link to each other,
but can also trigger Emacs to execute code as well.

# Presentation outline:

## Introduction

  - Ramin Honary

  - Software Engineer, App Developer (mostly Python and Haskell)

  - Emacs user for about 4 years (since 2018)

## Key Takeaway

  - The Hyperbole hyperlink markup language lets you create links that
    execute arbitrary Emacs commands.

  - To link entries, create a hyperlink that executes a **HyRolo**
    search.

##  Quick overview of the Zettelkasten methodology

  - **Note:** most of what I say about the Zettelkasten method comes
    from Sacha Fast of <https://zettelkasten.de>

  - **Zettelkasten is:** a database of interconnected ideas

##  Tools I use in day-to-day writing

  - **Hyperbole:** for hyperlinking, search, project management

  - **Embark:** arranging text, copy and paste

  - **Org-Mode:** for markup

  - **Dired:** for working with sets of files

  - **Consult, Vertico, Orderless, Marginalia:** interactive search

  - **Magit:** Git revision control of my plain-text database

##  Quick overview of Hyperbole

  - **Core functionality:** a markup language for hyperlinks

  - Applications such as **HyRolo** and **Koutline** built on top of
    this core functionality.

  - **HyRolo** is the feature I use as my Zettelkasten.

##  Configuration of Hyperbole using `use-package`

    ```emacs-lisp
    (use-package hyperbole
      :config
      (setq hbmap:dir-user "~/.emacs.d/hyperb/")
      (setq hyrolo-file-list '("~/.emacs.d/hyperb/ideas.org"))
      (setq hyrolo-date-format "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"))
    ```

##  The Hyperbole Menu-Driven User Interface

  - Menus are a kind of modal user interface

  - Enter menu with Hyperbole leader key `{C-h h ...}`

  - Select menu items with key presses

  - Works a little like `which-key`

##  Getting started with **HyRolo**: Create a *zettel*

  - Add entry: `{C-h h r a}` "*hyperbole rolodex add*"
  - Prompts you for a title for the entry
  - The Zettelkasten file (e.g. ~idea.org~) is opened
  - Write the body of the *zettel*, save the file.

##  Searching the *HyRolo* database

  - Multiple search options: by **string**, by **regex**, by **word**.

  - I use **string search** most often: `{C-h h r s}`

  - String search provides logical `AND`, `OR`, `XOR`, `NOT`

  - Executing a search opens the `*HyRolo*` buffer.

  - Read-only mode buffer with useful single-key navigation.

##  Searching the **HyRolo** database

  - **`{o}` as in "overview":** hides all but the headings

  - **`{a}` as in "all":** shows all information under each heading

  - **`{t}` as in "top":** shows top-level entries

  - **`{n}` and `{p}`:** next/previous result

  - **`{h}` and `{s}`:** hide/show a search result subheading

  - **`{C-u r}` as in "regex":** prompts for a new string search

  - **`{e}` or `{M-RET}` :** jump to that entry for editing, although
       using this command inserts a new timestamp, I just use `{C-/}`
       to undo insertion of the timestamp.

##  How is **HyRolo** a Zettelkasten?

  - **Key take-away:** The Hyperbole hyperlink markup language lets
    you execute *arbitrary Emacs commands.*

  - To link Zettelkasten entries, create an hyperlinks that execute a
    **HyRolo** search.

##  How to create an explicit link

  1. Highlight text to be linked

  2. `{C-h h e c}` to create a link

  3. Prompted for link text with highlighted region (press enter)

  4. Prompted for action: `hyrolo-fgrep`

  5. Prompted for search string: `hyperbole`

##  How "explicit buttons" encode actions

  - A **separate file** from the HyRolo flat-file database.

  - By default, called `.hypb`, exists in the same directory as the
    HyRolo flat-file database.

##  Conclusion

  1. A Zettelkasten is database of ideas linked together

  2. The Hyperbole **HyRolo** can run search queries

  3. The Hyperbole markdown creates links that execute queries

  4. This results in a minimal but useful Zettelkasten.
# Discussion

## Notes

-   My blog: <https://tilde.town/~ramin_hal9001>

## Questions and answers

-   Q: Why is the time-stamp not implemented as an Org mode PROPERTIES
    entry? (e,g, :CREATED:)
    -   A: Hyperbole pre-dates Org-Mode, although the maintainers have
        made efforts to make Hyperbole compatible with Org-Mode as much
        as possible. You could ask Bob Weiner directly, but it could
        just be for backward compatibility, trying to keep the
        formatting for current Hyperbole users. You could raise that as
        an issue, they may be willing to include a config option
        allowing you to specify the time-stamp format.
-   Q: why Hyperbole/HyRolo over Org-Roam? (I don't use either, just
    curious)
    -   A: HyRolo and Hyperbole require no other software beyond code
        builtin to Emacs.  For example, when I first built Org-Roam, it
        did not work properly for me and I had to modify the build
        process to get it set up.  With Hyperbole, you install one
        package and you can start working.
    -   A: ^this, and I find it to be a lighter-weight solution. I was
        able to get it working without depending on SQLite or doing any
        indexing. Hyperbole is also a more general solution that can be
        applied to a wider range of use cases than just Zettelkasten.
-   Q: How does this scale to very large data bases?
    -   A: It works very well with fairly large personal databases.  No
        one has ever complained about performance.  Generally, people
        are surprised how fast it is given that there is no separate
        indexing in the background.
    -   A: I personally do not have a large database so I don't know
        for sure. But it is basically as efficient as Grep is, and I
        have used Grep on multiple-gigabyte files without noticing it
        being too slow. Modern computers are fast enough that indexing
        isn't required for reasonable performance on smaller databases.
-   Q: The demo displayed how to search occurances of certain keywords
    in a giant single-document text database. But what about other open
    (or not open) Emacs buffers? Think of IRC chars, emails, etc.
    -   A: Set the hyrolo-file-list variaable to include any directory
        of files you want to search.
        -   I mostly referred to non-file buffers.
            -   Searching through (for example) an IRC buffer is a
                different command than searching through a directory of
                files, and this makes sense for the "Rolodex" use
                case, since typically your database will be a file, and
                not an in-memory buffer. But you can create a hyperlink
                button that triggers an ordinary "isearch"-like
                command the same way you would execute other Emacs
                commands.

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[[!taglink CategoryHyperbole]] [[!taglink CategoryZettelkasten]]