Roam Research, new web-based outliner that supports transclusion & wiki features - thoughts?

[Erica]

@Alan

What’s cool is you get a very clickable UI. Click ((my project)) and see things under the project and references to ((my project)). Then See and click ((@Robert)) and see everything that mentions him. Then you see ((picnic june 1) to find all the details on that and click a node which has advance Setup Plans.

(Aside: Currently [[ hot-runs an immediate find and generates the UID link to the item you chose. The keenest aspect of this feature is to have plain text be used as link, not the UID.)

We were wondering in an internal discussion earlier, how is this different from tags that allow spaces? Say if Dynalist allows for #any stuff#, is that better than, worse than, or the same as [[any stuff]]?

(P.S. We did realize #tag currently triggers a document search, not a global search. Assume this can be solved somehow.)

[Alan]

Quoting me from earlier:

@Alan

I think the notion is that [[Thing]] is more like in DynaList #Tag, and clicking on [[Thing]] is just the same as clicking on the tag in DynaList. But the interaction is different. Clicking on a link in Roam switches you to the other link. Clicking on a tag when you already have a tag selected in DynaList adds the tag to the filter. You would need to edit and remove the previous tag to get the same effect of navigating.

[Erica]

Then it’s much closer to the global search, which leads to a new page.

Clicking a tag does update the URL as well, but the back/forward navigation doesn’t work as well.

Anyone else got opinions on how similar #any stuff# is to [[any stuff]]? Our motivation to not use [[ ]] is that in Dynalist, [[ ]] links will lead you to a Dynalist item, not a search result. If [[any stuff]] simply leads to a search result page, it works much more similar to a tag than a [[ ]] link. For the sake of consistency, we want to maintain the tag syntax is that’s not too different.

[Craig_Oliver]

From my perspective, I don’t see any advantage of creating a [[ ]] syntax for this purpose.

• If I want to link to a particular page/item, I can use a regular Markdown link or raw link* to the Dynalist URL of the item.
• If I want to link to a tag search, I can just place the tag itself in the node.
• If I want to link to a general Dynalist search, I can likewise link to the URL of the Dynalist search page.

I admit I’m probably missing the point of the request – maybe someone could help me understand?

On the other hand, I do see value in a related request for showing backlinks to a node, or more generally showing search results in-line. I would love to see a transclusion syntax** which would display as an interactive node or list of nodes that match the search. This would allow us to create handy lists of references to a particular topic or term, or show all our tasks in one place, or a variety of other applications. I think this would be a very powerful tool in Dynalist’s toolbox.

Craig

---

* I recently discovered that putting a raw link to a Dynalist item will display the up-to-date title of that item – even if the item title later changes! Super cool.

** Examples of powerful transclusions:

• {{backlinks:abc123}} : renders as a list of backlinks to the given node.
• {{is:checklist -is:completed}} : Renders as a list of all unfinished tasks in this document.
• {{\#tag1 \#tag2}} : Renders as a list of all nodes with both tags.

[matro]

Greetings from a new user!

@Craig_Oliver

On the other hand, I do see value in a related request for showing backlinks to a node, or more generally showing search results in-line. I would love to see a transclusion syntax** which would display as an interactive node or list of nodes that match the search.

Oh well, I love this idea. I was also looking at Roam Research, and while I was intrigued by their backlink concept, there was something not convincing me with their implementation.

But well, it’s what Craig is proposing: inline search results by transclusion syntax. I vote for this!

[Kenneth_Aar]

@Erica

How is “automatic reference aggregation” different from backlinks? Sorry I didn’t fully understand. Could you elaborate how they work differently?

I think it relates to this:

Total tally behind each tag

I have been testing Roam to see what the fuss is about lately and found one feature in common that Dynalist could do well to display better. References. Roam has it for links to other parts of Roam, Dynalist has it for tags. I would find it usefull if Dynalist displayed the number of times a tag has been used behind every tag not just in the tag pane. Could we have this in Dynalist? Alternatively how can I use javascript and or css to display the number of times a tag has been used behind ever…

@Craig_Oliver

• I recently discovered that putting a raw link to a Dynalist item will display the up-to-date title of that item – even if the item title later changes!

But not if you move it to another document…

@Erica

(P.S. We did realize #tag currently triggers a document search, not a global search. Assume this can be solved somehow.)

Maybe by ctrl clicking the tag?

[Erica]

Yeah, Ctrl+Click was what we were considering; Alt+Click has already been taken by tag deletion.

[ruud]

In Wiki style [[this is a page]]. There is also the CamelCase style linking. Usually both are supported, for example in Zim Wiki.

#word is like a search: it lists all instances of #word

[[ word]] leads to the specific page word which has as Title word

So putting the syntax of #…# or […] aside, we’re talking about two very different mechanisms.

The flow could be (insert mandatory “this can be optional/pro”):

1. Type [[word]]
2. If [[word]] exists as an entry, link to it
3. If [[word]] doesn’t exist, create the entry (perhaps by default this could be the inbox: the link UID’s are definitely going to be a problem, but that was to be expected; links should be permanent)

The 2nd strong feature is that Roam can link occurrences of word retroactively. Most if not all wiki systems break down here. You’ve made 100 entries, now you think about linking [[word]] and creating an entry…but you have 100 entries where it isn’t linked.

Search & replace is already pretty powerful and smart when it comes to S&R with links, so linking retroactively could be an option.

The bi-directional links Roam mentions a lot is basically 2 lists: a list of linked occurrences, and a list of unlinked occurrences.

[Erica]

@ruud

The flow could be (insert mandatory “this can be optional/pro”):

1. Type [[word]]
2. If [[word]] exists as an entry, link to it
3. If [[word]] doesn’t exist, create the entry (perhaps by default this could be the inbox: the link UID’s are definitely going to be a problem, but that was to be expected; links should be permanent)

Unfortunately I don’t think Dynalist works this way. Roam Research doesn’t allow duplicate page names, but in Dynalist the document name and item name can be anything. So when there are multiple documents named “Page name”, what should [[Page name]] link to?

I think the fundamental difference is that in Roam/Wikipedia/Zim Wiki, the page name is the id of the note. In Dynalist, every item has its randomly generated unique ID. This difference is very important… Evernote/WorkFlowy/Dynalist/Simplenote etc are on the “unique id” side whereas Wikipedia/Roam are on the “unique name” side. As much as we like some of the features from Roam, such a dramatic change is impossible and also undesirable at this time, when Dynalist is already so far along.

I know some of you guys are excited about Roam, but there are also many others who are using Dynalist as usual. They are the silent ones so I don’t hear them, but they are also our users and customers and we have to take them into consideration.

Therefore, we will not make any significant changes to Dynalist that don’t align with our original vision and surprise the majority of our userbase. We’ve wanted to make backlinks more visible for some time now, so it’s nice to bump its priority given this opportunity.

Honestly, it might be better to build something new at this point, given that I’ve personally been itching to build a knowledge base app for years (I started experimenting with TiddlyWiki/TheBrain almost 10 years ago)

[matro]

@Erica

Therefore, we will not make any significant changes to Dynalist that don’t align with our original vision and surprise the majority of our userbase.

I completely agree and honestly, despite I’m one who expressed his vote on a specific feature here, this thread is making me somehow uncomfortable.

[pottster]

@Erica

Honestly, it might be better to build something new at this point, given that I’ve personally been itching to build a knowledge base app for years (I started experimenting with TiddlyWiki/TheBrain almost 10 years ago)

I can see why people are looking for this type of functionality but I also think that this is a separate app. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to see it, or use it. Maybe one day.

[Coffeeling]

This is a good, sane look and I support it 100%

[Michael_Potter]

@Erica

We’ve wanted to make backlinks more visible for some time now, so it’s nice to bump its priority given this opportunity.

I think improving backlinks (not copying Roam) will excite the majority of the user base. Thanks Dynalist team!

[ruud]

@Erica

Therefore, we will not make any significant changes to Dynalist that don’t align with our original vision and surprise the majority of our userbase.

Absolutely agree. Bolting things on to Dynalist doesn’t make Dynalist a better Dynalist; it would make it a worse “whatever”

[Erica]

Happy to see you agree to this. We’ll definitely try our best to learn from the things that make sense – step 1 is the “Show all references” option we just released today: 2020 January update (Email to Dynalist)

[Alan]

@Erica

I think the fundamental difference is that in Roam/Wikipedia/Zim Wiki, the page name is the id of the note. In Dynalist, every item has its randomly generated unique ID. This difference is very important… Evernote/WorkFlowy/Dynalist/Simplenote etc are on the “unique id” side whereas Wikipedia/Roam are on the “unique name” side. As much as we like some of the features from Roam, such a dramatic change is impossible and also undesirable at this time, when Dynalist is already so far along.

I agree it’s very necessary to keep the unique id. I wonder though if it’s not easy to also attach a name to a thing, and you can https://dynalist.io/named_link/ariana%20grande to get to it, and that functions as a redirect to https://dynalist.io/d/EeoH9pVyzPezU2T_i7iBF_4fM
But the big deal is being able to go #[Ariana Grande] and it generates the link. And the big deal of that is it’s easier for me to remember a name than it is to locate that item and copy/paste the link.

[Jack_Smith]

there seems to be a lot of hype around Roam recently. but I’ve found it FAR too confusing in checking it out vs Dynalist

[TJ_Goan]

I totally agree with keeping Dynalist as it is, but honestly I’d love to see you build a new knowledge management app with most of the Dynalist front end in tact

Roam has me hooked after a few days. I use it to dump my brain every day and it is very freeing to not worry over creating pages, or renaming them, or creating indexes… I have about 40 pages so far and it isn’t stressing me out yet because I didn’t even know until I just went and looked. We’ll see how it scales over time.

It isn’t that I couldn’t do the same thing in Dynalist but the speed with which I can write or integrate new ideas is pretty amazing. I think this is mostly a mental thing…there are dozens and dozens of tiny decisions I don’t have to make regarding organization, linking, and tagging.

[glassy99]

Been using Dynalist for a while, moved from workflowy, however I find I use it less and less. I think what TJ_Goan said above:

@TJ_Goan

there are dozens and dozens of tiny decisions I don’t have to make regarding organization, linking, and tagging.

Is the thing that makes Roam the most interesting for me. It would free me to just write whatever and don’t worry about organization because the links/backlinks will link everything together for me.

Currently whenever I want to note down something in Dynalist, there is a mental and time burden where I need to think about where it should go in the overall hierarchy before being able to write it.

The automatic daily entries in Roam look like a great ‘inbox’ where I can write whatever I need to and if I do links properly then it will be easy to find it whenever I need it - practically everything I wrote about the topic would show up for me automatically.

I think Dynalist can definitely replicate these core advantages/workflows that Roam has and integrate it with the great features it already has.

Here are my ideas:

• [[ ]] style links currently already works, but could be improved a bit. When typing/editing, it is insanely long because it includes the whole super long dynalist url. This ruins the editing experience. This is because the [] gets converted into a []() block. If it was handled specially so it still showed as [[ the item text ]] then that would help a lot … or maybe at least the url in the []() might be a special shortened one. This would help a lot with encouraging usage of internal linking.
• [] suggestions should prioritize items that already have references, should also show number of existing references so user is sure they are picking the correct one.
• Next feature is to add special ‘dates’ file with ‘date items’. It would automatically be a hierarchy of year / month / dates like this:
  
  It will contain a list of all notes that reference that date, a list of all notes that were created on that date, and you can also add any additional items that you want to each date.
  Any dates that are not referenced/empty will be skipped. Possibly clicking or ctrl-clicking on a date tag in other notes would jump into a zoomed view of that date item. New date entries can be created and you can create entries for the future.
• Create a button to quickly jump to today’s date item. Maybe have an option to start the app at today’s date item by default. With the option to just note down things in today’s date item, then you would be free of the burden of having to figure out where the item has to go in before even writing anything as it currently is. The ability to create date items for the future would also work nicely as a reminder system because when that date comes your Dynalist would show everything noted down for that date (if you have it as the default note to show). There are probably a whole lot of other features this ‘date item’ system would enable.
• Should be able to create new items when typing []. Could be the first option in the search popup. Where it would be created is the question. Probably easiest ways is maybe the user can specify where to create by default in settings. Or maybe default could be in today’s date item.
• Automatically list references (backlinks) of the item currently zoomed to at the bottom. When viewing a list of child items where some of the child items have references, then show some kind of icon that can be clicked to expand to show the references to that item.

These features combined with the powerful organization tools Dynalist already has I think would result in an extremely powerful functionality set.

[Thiago_Doria]

That would be amazing!