this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Looking for a program to document things in life. (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hello all. I'm looking for (a) program(s) to manage & document things in life. Mainly these features are what I need:

  • Diary, random notes(like a wiki?) with version control
  • TODO list, auto added to diary at that time period
  • Ability to attach images and text files to those diary, notes
  • Calendar with schedule synced with TODO
  • Easy backup, preferably in plaintext or simple db
  • Text search

Currently I'm using SeaMonkey and my phone(android) to manage calendar (so two separated ones), a paper note to write diaries and use dokuwiki for random notes. This setup is too complicated and isn't productive at all.

I do think my requirements are kinda abstract, and there most likely isn't a single program that can do all this. Although basic I'm a novice FreeBSD & Emacs+evil user so *nix-only or text-based utilities are okay. I'm not aware of any program that meets these needs, is there anything that resembles what I'm thinking? Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Have you looked into https://obsidian.md? I just briefly looked and found this plugin for a calendar.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I second obsidian! I use it for a daily diary and various notes. You can either use a network share and Syncthing to sync your files between multiple devices, or just pay a few dollars for their (completely encrypted) cloud service

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Thanks, though it isn't open source (and no BSD support) it looks cool, I might try. I'm curious, is there a version control system available in it? Or would that be possible with a plugin?

Edit: Seems like it's Electron based :/ Looks pretty good but that's such a big con..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can version control it yes. To your Electron point, personally I think it's a very well put together app, it doesn't at all feel like it's Electron with usual sluggishness; it's very responsive and quick.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I do not know enough about Electron, but I definitely notice slow startup on Oneplus Nord (2020). I even use different configs for desktop and mobile to disable some plugins on the phone and make it start faster. Still I think twice whether I want to look up sth in Obsidian in dynamic situations, like in a conversation - it just takes too long. However, once its up, is really snappy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As an emacs user, have you considered org mode, with org-roam enabled? You can use source control to back it up or, use something like syncthings to move the files around.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

org-mode itself is really good. i haven't really studied emacs properly & is only using it as some sort of fancy notepad so I haven't actually heard of org-roam until now xD. Thanks, will search for that!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

For notes, commit to a consistent folder on each of your devices, and use Markdown.

You'll discover tons of utilities for various contexts are amazing for Markdown.

For Todo lists, look for support for the todo.txt format.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've been using Emacs org-mode a bit lately and it seems overall similar to markdown. Obsidian below also seems to be a markdown thing..

What do you personally use for organizing things with markdown?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Nice! I understand org mode is fantastic, and more feature complete than todo.txt.

Obsidian was too web-based, for me, but I've heard good things.

I've configured my text editor (VSCodium), to add files to a folder called Journal in my home directory.

Every note file gets named with a two digit prefix for the current month. So currently, 07-[name of note].md. If I create the same note twice in the same month, my setup opens the existing note file. Sometimes I'll have a couple of months 05-foo.md, 06-foo.md that match. Sometimes I'll copy/paste to merge them, sometimes I'll leave it.

Every nine months or so, I scoop all the files into a separate backup folder named after the current year. This helps my full text searches focus on more recent notes, by default.

When I need to send someone my notes, all formal-like, I'll use md2html and then an HTML to PDF converter.

I periodically sync my ~/Journal folder to my home Network Attached Storage, which, itself, later backs up to a private AWS S3 bucket.

Edit: Since you asked about version contol elsewhere. I used to religiously version control with git, but lately I've found that the version history provided by my NAS is enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Cool setup you got there! I just tried Obsidian and some of its features are great but I have to admit it's too web-based for me. That file naming scheme seems quite good, I'll take that in mind. What NAS do you use that also handles version controlling by itself? It's a bit tedious to do a git commit every time after editing something so I was considering automating it but that wouldn't be so easy to access later.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

What NAS do you use that also handles version controlling by itself?

I use a Synology NAS. It took me some time to get past the sticker price, but I'm very pleased with it.

It comes with backup clients for my phones and laptops, does local versioning of backed up files, has a photo backup app, and has software supporting stuff like home security cameras and various cloud backup solutions (for an additional off-site encrypted backup).