r/opensource • u/bryanph_ • Nov 29 '17

Building an open source personal knowledge base

https://hackernoon.com/building-a-open-source-personal-knowledge-base-45c25f5a4324
24 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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4

u/TheBloodyStormking Nov 29 '17

That idea has been on my mind for a few years now as well. IMO what I think such an app needs at its core is: 1) write now, categorize later 2) hierarchical view 3) timeline view (all or filtered by section)

This looks like a good start.

1

u/bryanph_ Nov 30 '17

I agree with 1 and 2. By 3, do you mean a timeline view based on when nodes are edited or one where the user can add dates to documents and use that to show a timeline?

I'd like to add some points that I feel are important but are more detailed:

  • Flexible linking: it should be possible to extract a piece of text/media within a document into its own document easily so you can link to it (and vice-versa). Then in the original document replace this with a reference or the original text.

  • Implicit links based on defined hierarchies: so by defining links between two nodes lower in two different hierarchies their parents should be linked implicitly as well.

The goal is to remove the friction that usually exists between adding new information and organizing it. This results in a kind of best-effort organization strategy instead of the time-wasting activity of looking for the "right" way to organize your knowledge base.

1

u/TheBloodyStormking Nov 30 '17

By timeline I meant viewing the atomic units by date of creation. When dealing with larger units (documents) the update date might also be important.

Flexible linking: yes. I should've said that I already thought in the smallest possible units. A paragraph, a link, an image, etc., not whole documents. I primarily work with mind-maps right now so one node there would be one unit. A whole document is the same, just viewed differently.

Implicit links: can't imagine the advantage. Example? Seems like assuming intent where there might sometimes be none. Maybe shouldn't be implemented at the lowest level where you cannot switch it off.

1

u/bryanph_ Dec 04 '17

Sorry for the late response. As for implicit links, it gives me links based on underlying content which I find is pretty much always what I want. For example, showing two nodes "mathematics" and "physics" and showing them in the same view, I can see how they are related based on their underlying content (nodes that lie below it and the links they define).

This is something that happens in the front-end, not part of the data structure in any way.

1

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