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https://github.com/hedonhermdev/zettl

A blazing fast note-taking system
https://github.com/hedonhermdev/zettl

Last synced: 11 days ago
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A blazing fast note-taking system

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README 

        
# Zettl

⚡️A blazing fast way of maintaining powerful notes with connections between them.



[![asciicast](https://asciinema.org/a/vSIiOqDOEsIuGuOgTOMlBPTN3.svg)](https://asciinema.org/a/vSIiOqDOEsIuGuOgTOMlBPTN3)



(i know its broken im too lazy to re-record)



## Installing Zettl



To install Zettl, you will need the Rust toolchain installed. You can install Rust using [rustup](https://rustup.rs). Once you have Rust installed, you can either install zettl from [crates.io](https://crates.io).

```bash

$ cargo install zettl

```



### Using Home Manager

Zettl now ships as a Nix flake with a `home-manger` module. Since zettl is not part of Nixpkgs (yet!), you need to add the zettl overlay to your nixpkgs. 



If you use a flake to manager your NixOS configuration, you can add the following to your `flake.nix`

```nix

  inputs = {

   zettl.url = "github:hedonhermdev/zettl";

  };



  ...

  pkgs = import nixpkgs {

    inherit system;

    config = {

      allowUnfree = true;

    };



    overlays = [

      zetl.overlays.default

    ];

  };

```



And to add it to your home programs, you can do something like: 



```nix

programs.zettl = {

  enable = true;

  settings = {

    zettl = {

      zettlDir = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/kasten";

      editorCmd = "${pkgs.nvimPacked}/bin/nvim";

      author = "Tirth Jain";

      name = "zettelkasten";

    };

  };

};

```



## Initializing Zettl

You will need to create a directory to store your notes. You can tell zettl to use this directory  by setting the `$ZETTL_DIRECTORY` variable. Note that zettl will use this directory for all operations so you will probably have to set this variable in your `.bashrc` (or your `.zshrc`).



```bash

$ mkdir ~/kasten

$ echo "export ZETTL_DIRECTORY=~/kasten" >> .bashrc

```



Initializing zettl creates a `.zettl` directory in your base directory.

```bash

$ zettl init

```



## Configuring Zettl

You can change config options by setting values in the config file.

```

$ vim $ZETTL_DIRECTORY/.zettl/config.yml

```



Currently, zettl supports the following options:



```yaml

---

name: My Zettelkasten

author: Me

editor_cmd: vim

editor_args: []

indexes: true

graph: true

```



An example, customised config will look like this:



```yaml

---

name: My Zettelkasten

author: Tirth Jain

editor_cmd: nvim

editor_args:

  - "+Goyo"

  - "+Limelight"

indexes: true

graph: true

```



## Using Zettl



Once Zettl is initialized, you can use it to write notes from anywhere.



```bash

# Create a new fleeting note. These are like daily notes.

$ zettl fleet

# Create a new note. This will be created in notes/some-idea.md. 

$ zettl note some-idea

# Create a new note in a category. This will be created in notes/project1/some-idea.md.

$ zettl note project1/some-idea

# Listing all notes.

$ zettl list

# Listing all fleeting notes.

$ zettl list -f

```

These commands will open a markdown file in the editor you specified. 



### Graphs and Indexes



Zettl creates `_index.md` files in each directory to index your notes. You can turn this off by setting the following in the config directory.



```yaml

indexes: false

```



The `fleets/_index.md` file will look kind of like this:



```md

---

title: Fleets Index

author: Tirth Jain

created: "2021-04-29 11:16:25"

---



# Fleets Index



- [[fleets/2021-04-28]]

- [[fleets/2021-04-29]]

```



Similarly, Zettl creates a `.graph.json` file to track connections between your notes. You can visualize this graph with a visualizer of your choice. I prefer [3d-force-graph](https://github.com/vasturiano/3d-force-graph). Note that connections are made using the [[mediawiki]] link format. 



To turn off this graph generation: 

```yaml

graph: false

```



To manually create the graph and the indexes, you can run:



```bash

$ zettl graph

$ zettl index

```



## How Your Notes are Saved

Zettl saves your notes as markdown files. After a few days of using zettl, your zettl directory will look something like this:

```

/Users/hedonhermdev/kasten

├── _index.md

├── fleets

│   ├── 2021-04-28.md

│   ├── 2021-04-29.md

│   └── _index.md

└── notes

    ├── SDNs

    │   ├── _index.md

    │   └── p4-notes.md

    ├── _index.md

    ├── devops

    │   ├── _index.md

    │   ├── git-server-setup.md

    │   └── homegrown-autodeployment.md

    ├── git

    │   ├── _index.md

    │   ├── cli.md

    │   ├── error-handling.md

    │   ├── git-in-rust.md

    │   ├── implementation.md

    │   └── internal-objects.md

    ├── how-to-zettel.md

    ├── vim

    │   ├── _index.md

    │   ├── autocmds.md

    │   └── vimrc-for-servers.md

    ├── workflow.md

    ├── zettl

    │   ├── _index.md

    │   ├── philosophy.md

    │   └── roadmap.md

```



## Integrations



While zettl doesnt have a programmatic way to support integrations (yet!) but here are some integrations I can think of:



- Version control with git

```bash

$ cd $ZETTL_DIRECTORY

$ git init

$ git add .

$ git commit -m "Saving notes"

```



- Publish your notes as a static site with [Hugo](https://gohugo.io). This [theme](https://github.com/crisrojas/Zettels) handles mediawiki links as well. 

```bash

$ ln -s $ZETTL_DIRECTORY path/to/hugo/content

$ hugo serve

```



- Fuzzy finding notes with [fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf)

```bash

# for notes

$ zettl note $(zettl list | fzf)

```