Personal Knowledge Management PKM Weekly - 2024-06-22
A look at the latest Personal Knowledge Management app news from the past week.
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to all new subscribers and hello to all existing ones.
What a week, we officially entered the month of football with Euro 2024 and Copa America 2024 kicking off and to top it off, we have the Spain F1 this weekend. And if that wasn’t enough, we have also had some amazing news being published by various PKM / note taking apps, so let’s get to it.
The developments from this week come from:
Capacities
Tana
Obsidian
Logseq
Anytype
Clibu Notes
Other Productivity Thoughts
CAPACITIES
After a bit of trouble with the Android app, pleased to say that the devs communicated “the mobile app on Android has been fixed now. You can install the newest version from the Play Store”
Looking to set up PARA (PROJECTS, AREAS, RESOURCES, ARCHIVES) in Capacities to manage project notes with a project object type which could be a game-changer for your workflow:
They can become a hub for you to work out of, bringing all relevant information and resources to this central place.
You can set up custom properties to help you track what's important for each of your projects.
You can use these properties to make queries. You could see all your in-progress projects at a glance, all your projects with a certain colleague, or all projects related to a certain area. The possibilities are endless, but they all start with a project object type.
Read more about PARA in Capacities here.
Reka posted a very interesting article covering A day in the life of my Capacities spaces. “Capacities is the beating heart of my entire digital life. I start and end my day in Capacities, and I use it for all aspects of my personal projects”. Check out her latest post here.
TANA
Tana Invites have been added: All Tana Core subscribers and triallers get five exclusive invites to Tana loaded up to your accounts. The invites also have Pioneer Pricing (if they sign up before the end of June), so you can gift someone the opportunity to lock in a lower price. You’ll find the invites in the settings menu. The people you invite will get an email from us saying you’ve invited them. Like you, they’ll get a 14-day free trial. To access Tana, they must add their credit card details, but they can easily cancel the Core plan at any time in Tana. As with every user, they’ll get a reminder before the trial ends.
An interesting thread on feedback on Tana Core following the recent release. My summary:
Users love the related content feature
Google Calendar integration has gone down well
AI Chat could do with some improvements
Meeting Agent a bit hit and miss. Those that can use it like it, but a lot of users are unable to due to corporate rules.
A cool video by Cortex Futura has been released where he looks at the Open Beta & Insane AI Features
OBSIDIAN
Obsidian Desktop v1.6.4 is now available for [Insider] testing! Full changelog is here, but here are a few highlights.
Improved the overall experience of editing files with inline properties hidden. If properties are hidden in the editor and the Properties core plugin is enabled, any action that attempts to focus the properties will now focus the property in the sidebar.
Clicking on a property from the global search view now focuses the property.
Added "Copy" menu item when right-clicking on external links. This copies the displayed text, not the underlying URL.
Automatic link renaming now correctly escapes custom display text links (
\|
) inside tables.Adding a link via the Outgoing Links view now escapes the pipe (
\
) character if the link is inside a table.Fixed links inside callouts not appearing in the Backlinks view.
Fixed toggling checkbox on the last line of a file or callout.
Added better support for mixed LTR and RTL tables.
The inline find/replace bar now uses icon buttons instead of text buttons.
For those unsure how to use Properties, check out this Obsidian Properties Explained (how-to for beginners) video.
Rob Haisfield (robhaisfield.com) asks - Anybody interested in some contract work with advanced dataview / templater use in Obsidian and airtable automations? Must know javascript, early in career okay. DM him, if you are interested.
LOGSEQ
The Logseq team has published some official news concerning the DB version with some updates to timelines. The DB pre-Alpha Testing is likely to start sometime in July 2024. There are mentions that the Logseq are fixing bugs with queries and others, [Logseq] plan to collect more user feedback and bug reports during the pre-alpha test, it can take a few months to be stable for daily usage.
The initial release will be done though the web app so that everyone can test it out without needing to download a desktop app.
Unfortunately for those looking to join the pre-Alpha testing - For alpha testing we already have a group of ~25 power users we've been working with. They're people who are very comfortable using buggy software, know how to troubleshoot, and know how to provide detailed logs/steps to reproduce issues.” But it sounds like if the devs want to expand the number of testers, there will be a post on how to sign up.
If you want to stay up to date / have any questions, check out this post by Ramses.
The Real Time Collaboration is also getting close to completion with a couple of updates being finalised of late. Things nearly getting there for Logseq.
ANYTYPE
Wrapping Up Spring with an Update, including:
Batch Relation Editing - This new function allows you to add Tags and Relations to multiple Objects at once, making it much quicker and easier to organize your content and tidy-up your graph
Improved Global Search - Search now highlights, shows more total results, allows searching for text relations, blocks, tags, statuses, and links & backlinks.
Reuse Files - Incorporate existing files within file blocks in the editor.
Text Justification - New option to justify text in blocks for better formatting.
Link Block - Link style can be changed to Card.
Library - Now has sorting options.
Shared & Collaborative Spaces - The multiplayer release marks the start of a networked era for Anytype, supporting local first collaboration over encrypted data. Today it nicely works for collaboration in small groups - like teams and families, later we will introduce public spaces and collaboration for creators and communities. You can find examples here.
June Town Hall: Thursday, 27 June - check out the time in your location and grab a seat here.
CLIBU NOTES
Although note taking apps are popping up at a rate of a dime a dozen, and I promised my counsellor I would stop looking at new apps, one app that recently caught my attention was Clibu Notes.
The app seems to tick a number of boxes for features that I look for in my PKM world including:
Available on Browser, Smartphone, Tablet or Desktop with all data being stored locally
List and grid views
An interesting concept of Tree of notes and Workspaces
Interesting search that seems to work
Block based and more.
The app is currently in closed testing, but worth checking out / one to keep an eye on for the future. If you want to check out what it looks like as a sneak peek, see here.
BONUS
My test with Microsoft Edge has been running for a good few weeks, and I am happy to say that it has become my daily browser. It feels like Chrome was resting on its laurels with Edge having more features, less bloat (if you remove some pesky bloatware through dev mode), quicker and less CPU usage.
I have been enjoying the SATURDAY IDEA LAB by my internet buddy Aaron Lawson. Each Saturday he hangs out and talks about Tools for Thought, Note Apps, AI and then builds stuff live. He also has guest and there is a lot of cool stuff to take away from his show. Do check out his Twitter / Twitch account for more info. Keep up the good work, Aaron.
I have also been enjoying the content produced by Tom at The Paperless Movement and this video on Professional Note-Taking at Work: Why reMarkable 2, iPad, and Paper Notebooks Aren't Enough was no exception.
That’s all for this week. Thank you very much in advance for reading and I look forward to bringing you more PKM news next week.