Zettelkasten

If you want to access the zettelkasten, see: index.md.

This is my personal zettelkasten based on the work of Niklas Luhmann. It all started after reading Edwin Wenink's post building a note-taking system with vanilla vim. At the end, he mentions that the folder structure became too complicated, and instead he plans to allow for organic growth zettelkasten style. I thought, "Wow, zettelkasten sounds German. My last name sounds German. I should look this up!". I find it crazy what motivates us. ~~Hours~~ ~~Days~~ Months later, and after going down the multiple ~~layers of hell~~ rabbit holes, I settled using vimwiki with the vim-zettel plugin. I am using Zotero as my reference manager. This set up is nice because with only a little of extra work it is fully compatible with Zettlr. Now, I have the option of a nice GUI, or I can stick to the command line, and Vim, and feel like a badass. Update: I have been taking notes for almost a year and have never used the Zettlr after installing it. This is not a knock on Zettlr at all. I just really like vim.

Visualization

Recently, I stumbled across plotext which creates plots and displays them right in the terminal. I wrote a little python script that finds all the notes in the zettel directory, sorts them by month and then plots a time series. Super fun! Here is my zettelkasten as of Jul 12, 2021.

Zettelkasten Plot

Inspiration

The following sources have been influential in the creation and structure of my zettelkasten.

Configuration

I use markdown instead of the wiki syntax (partly because I am lazy and don't want to learn wiki, but mostly to make it more compatible with other resources I use). I added the .md when vimwiki creates a new file and changed the format of the file name to yyyymmddHHMM.md. This allows links to be clickable and files names to match when using Zettlr. In addition to vimwiki tags (e.g., :tag:) I also add hashtags (e.g., #tag). This allows me to search tags directly in Vim and use the tag feature in Zettlr.

In the last few months, I have started using nvim pretty much exclusively. It has been such a journey I don't remember exactly when I switched or the exact reason that made me switch, but The Primeagen had a lot to do with it. The most relevant reason to use nvim for Zettelkasten is telescope. This makes it super easy to find notes. I've left the fzf and fzf.vim plugins included, but I mostly use telescope to navigate files. The only reason I still use fzf is for [[ to insert the name of a zettel in the current zettel I am writing.

In addition, I have added the Vim plugins pencil and ~~ goyo ~~ zen-mode to make the writing experience more enjoyable. Vim livedown allows me to render the markdown in a browser in case I want to see it before committing.

~~The portions of my ~/.vimrc related to zettelkasten are found below. If you are interested in my full config checkout my dotfiles. I use Vim-Plug as my plugin manager.~~ I have made the switch to only using Nvim and have been slowly converting from .vimrc to init.lua. My dotfiles are still available, but almost everything has changed. I have also been on the search for a nvim zettelkasten plugin. Telekasten looks promising, but I like the features of vim-zettel better. I will leave the config for ~/.vimrc below in case it helps someone else, but if I ever decide to move on to a nvim only plugin I'll update remove it and point to my nvim config.

""{{{=====[ Vim-plug ]=========================================================

call plug#begin()
    Plug 'vimwiki/vimwiki'
    Plug 'junegunn/fzf'
    Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'
    Plug 'junegunn/goyo.vim'
    Plug 'michal-h21/vim-zettel'
    Plug 'shime/vim-livedown'
    Plug 'reedes/vim-pencil'
    Plug 'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim'
    Plug 'nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim'
call plug#end()

"}}}
"{{{=====[ Word Processing ]===================================================

"doesn't split words
set linebreak

"fix backspace
set backspace=indent,eol,start

"Replaces closest spelling error with number one suggestion. From Chris Toomey.
function! FixLastSpellingError()
    normal! mm[s1z=`m"
endfunction
nnoremap <leader>sc :call FixLastSpellingError()<cr>

"}}}
"{{{=====[ Vimwiki and Vim-zettel ]============================================

set nocompatible
filetype plugin on
let g:zettel_format = "%Y%m%d%H%M"
"Main zettelkasten plus two github repos I use for work
let g:vimwiki_list = [{'path': '~/Zettelkasten/zettel', 'syntax': 'markdown', 'ext': '.md'},
            \{'path': '~/Coding-in-Math-Class', 'syntax': 'markdown', 'ext': '.md'},
            \{'path': '~/coding-class', 'syntax': 'markdown', 'ext': '.md'}]

" Why learn vimwiki format when I sort of know markdown?
let g:vimwiki_markdown_link_ext = 1
let g:vimwiki_global_ext = 0
let g:vimwiki_ext2syntax = {'.md': 'markdown', '.markdown': 'markdown', '.mdown': 'markdown'}
let g:nv_search_paths = ['/Zettelkasten']
let g:zettel_options = [{"front_matter" : [["tags", ""], ["citation", ""]]}]
let g:markdown_fenced_languages = ['html', 'python', 'ruby', 'vim', 'lua']

"I prefer ripgrep to ag, but honestly I just use telescope now
let g:zettel_fzf_command = "rg --column --line-number --smart-case --no-heading --color=always"

"let g:fzf_layout = { 'window': { 'width': 0.9, 'height': 0.9 } }
let $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--ansi --preview-window 'right:60%' --layout reverse --margin=1,4"
"Nice way to see how markdown will render
nmap gm :LivedownToggle<CR>

vnoremap nz :<C-U>ZettelNew<CR>

"adds #tags in addition to wiki tags for use in Zettlr
function! AddTags()
    normal! mm0wly$$p`mlv$:s/\%V:/ #/g
AkbkbýaF:lx$
endfunction
nnoremap <leader>at :call AddTags()<cr>
nnoremap <C-e> :Buffers<CR>

"toggle file type between md and vimwiki filetypes
nnoremap <leader>md :set filetype=markdown<CR>
nnoremap <leader>vw :set filetype=vimwiki<CR>

"open zettelkasten to search notes while working in vim
nnoremap <leader>zk :vsplit ~/Zettelkasten/zettel/index.md<cr> :cd %:p:h<cr>

"don't expand links in normal mode
augroup hide_links
    autocmd!
    autocmd FileType vimwiki set concealcursor=nc| set conceallevel=2|
    autocmd FileType markdown set concealcursor=nc| set conceallevel=2|
augroup END

"}}}
"{{{=====[ Telescope ]=========================================================

nnoremap <leader>ff <cmd>Telescope find_files<cr>
nnoremap <leader>fg <cmd>Telescope live_grep<cr>
nnoremap <leader>fb <cmd>Telescope buffers<cr>
nnoremap <leader>fh <cmd>Telescope help_tags<cr>
nnoremap <leader>fc <cmd>Telescope command_history<cr>

"}}}
"{{{=====[ Pencil ]============================================================

let g:pencil#wrapModeDefault = 'soft'   "default is 'hard'

augroup pencil
    autocmd!
    autocmd FileType markdown,mkd call pencil#init()
    autocmd FileType text         call pencil#init()
augroup END

"}}}
"{{{=====[ Goyo ]==============================================================

function! s:goyo_enter()
    set nonumber
    set nornu
endfunction

function! s:goyo_leave()
    set number
    set rnu
endfunction

augroup Goyo
    autocmd!
    autocmd! User GoyoEnter nested call <SID>goyo_enter()
    autocmd! User GoyoLeave nested call <SID>goyo_leave()
augroup END

nnoremap <leader>gy :Goyo<CR>
"}}}

rhelmstedter / Zettelkasten

readme

Zettelkasten

Visualization

Inspiration

Configuration