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# Build a Zettelkasten with the Hyperbole Rolodex
Ramin Honary ("Rah-mean" (hard-H) "Ho-na-ree", he/him, <mailto:ramin.honary@gmail.com>, <https://tilde.town/~ramin_hal9001/>)

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"Zettelkasten"  is a  methodology  for  marshalling 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, but  it is not the only Emacs
package  to provide  such tools.  But  there is  an alternative:  an
oft-overlooked Emacs package called Hyperbole, and in particular the
"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.

Outline:   (about 1 minute per outline item)

1.  Quick overview of the Zettelkasten methodology
    -   1.1. What is a single quantity of knowledge
    -   1.2. Linking between pieces of knowledge
    -   1.3. Composing pieces of knoweldge into hierarchies
2.  Tools provided by the Hyperbole Rolodex (HyRolo)
    
    2.1. The plain text database format
    
      2.1.1. Possible brief digression to explain Hyperbole menu
    system
    
    2.2. Demo how to add a new entry
    
    2.3. Demo how to searching entries
    
    2.4. Demo how to hyperlink entries
    
    2.5. Overview of the many various types of hyperlink actions
    
    2.6. How to compose a hierarchy of notes.
3.  Practical examples
    -   3.1. Managing daily tasks
        -   3.1.1. Integration with Org Agenda to manage TODO lists
        -   3.1.2. Keeping track of people, conversations, mail
        -   3.1.3. Keeping track of work, projects
    -   3.2. Doing research, writing blogs or papers
        -   3.2.1. Note hierarchies become your table of contents
        -   3.2.2. Following chains of ideas to fill in each section, trimming excess prose
        -   3.2.3. Keeping track of sources, references
    -   3.3. Writing fiction
        -   3.3.1. Heirarchy is less rigid, should follow the story telling model: intro -> conflict -> climax -> resolution
        -   3.3.2. Rolodex of fictional characters, chain ideas such that they construct a personal history for each character
        -   3.3.3. Chains of events are not as important as establishing tone and mood. Order of exposition need not be linear
4.  Conclusions



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