Set up a Zettelkasten with Tp-Note
This blog post shows how to set up Luhjmann's Zettelkasten with Tp-Note and how to work with it.
This blog post shows how to set up Luhjmann's Zettelkasten with Tp-Note and how to work with it.
Tp-Note's main design goal is to convert some input text - usually provided by the system's clipboard - into a Markdown note file with a descriptive YAML header and meaningful filename. This blog post explains how to configure Tp-Note for multilingual note-taking. Consider the following note file example:
---
title: Demokratie und Menschenbild
subtitle: Vorlesung
author: Prof. Rainer Mausfeld
date: 2023-04-21
lang: de-DE
---
Kognitionswissenschaftliche Einsichten in die Beschaffenheit des Menschen.
The YAML variable lang:
indicates the natural language in which the note
text is authored, here de-DE
. This IETF language tag is useful when
working with grammar and spell checkers. For example: when placed in last
position, the grammar checker LanguageTool (LTEX) reads the variable
lang:
to activate the grammar and spelling rules for the indicated
specific language (c.f. blog post). The recently released Tp-Note
version 1.21.0 integrates linguistic analysis provided by the Lingua
library. This new feature allows Tp-Note to determine automatically
the natural language of new note files during their creation process.
One downside when you take notes with your keyboard and laptop is, that you can not enter mathematical formulas.
To remedy this, Tp-Note version 1.19.8 comes with a new feature: its note viewer and internal web-server can now render MathML in note files written in Markdown. It also features syntax highlighting for source code.
I recently discovered the text editor Helix, a relatively new project written in Rust. Many features, like Tree-sitter integration or support for the Language Server Protocol LSP are available by default without any plugins and laborious configuration. This short note shows how to integrate Helix with the template tool Tp-Note and the grammar checker LanguageTool under Linux.
In one of my previous posts Note Taking for Minimalists we argued about the importance to keep full control over all the tools we take personal notes with. In this approach personal notes are simple text files, that live in the filesystem next to other resources they refer to. As (note) files are identified by their filename, special care needs to be taken to ensure that the files are named consistently e.g. using so called sort tags, that specify their sequence or chronological order when listed. Secondly, the filename must reflect the content description (meta data) of a note. This is where the note taking tool Tp-Note comes into play: it takes care, that the filename of a note exposes the note's meta data. Technically, Tp-Note reads the YAML header of the note file - in particular the title field - and corrects the filename of the note, if does not comply with some synchronization rule. From it's first version on Tp-Note was able to synchronize the note's meta data and filename unidirectionally. With Tp-Note version 1.16 comes a new feature: bidirectional filename synchronization. This new feature allows you to add automatically YAML header to any existing text file. Used in scripts you can convert your random text file collection into ordered note files with meta data.