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Zettelkasten.nvim

A simple Zettelkasten plugin.

Allows you to navigate through a zettelkasten using unique ID anchors, and quickly create links for new zettel.

These anchors, as of now, are simplified time stamps with 10 digits (YYMMDDHHmm), though the intention is to configure the plugin to be configurable for any ID anchor you have. Using ID anchors has the benefit that they are presumably unique, so wherever your zettel is within the directory, or on the file system, will be where you end up. You can even change the file name of everything (zettel, containing directory, etc.) and still end up at the correct note as long as the ID anchor is kept constant.

Currently allows note link creation (automatically appending a time-based anchor to each created note) in markdown and wiki-link style, as well as following links to other notes, wherever they are in the notes directory.

Not much more has been implemented yet, but some options can already be configured by the user.

Lastly, a warning: Though it works, this plugin is in very rough development still, so don't expect too much as of now. It works what I desperately needed it to work for and thus the additional functionalities will only come trickling in, but there's not much here yet.

Usage

All exposed functionality of the plugin can be reached either through lua bindings or through vim <Plug> mappings.

The one mapping you probably want to undertake (replacing the mapping as needed) is the following link mapping:

Linking

nnoremap <cr> :lua require 'zettelkasten'.link_follow()<cr>
vnoremap <cr> :lua require 'zettelkasten'.link_follow(true)<cr>

This will allow you to create new links when over any text, or having text selected; as well as follow links to existing or new notes. It will look through your notes in the zettel directory you set (look for the options below). If you pass in true it will work for visual mode instead of normal mode instead.

The function is also exposed as vim mapping <Plug>zettel_link_follow, so can be set via map <cr> <Plug>zettel_link_follow to get the same result as above.

:lua require 'zettelkasten'.link_open()
:lua require 'zettelkasten'.link_make(visualmode)

allows you to separate the link following and creation set by one function above. Again, you can pass in true for link creation to make it work correctly from visual mode.

The functions are again exposed as <Plug>zettel_link_open and <Plug>zettel_link_make respectively.

Index

nnoremap <leader>w :lua require 'zettelkasten'.index_open()<cr>

allows you to map going to your defined zettel index file. This functions by looking into your zettel directory for a file named 'index' and ending with the extension you set for your zettel. I.e. by default it will open 'index.md' in your zettel root directory.

If you wish to open a different file by default, you can pass it into the lua function as a string, e.g. :lua require 'zettelkasten'.open_index('myfile'), though it will keep adding the zettel extension at the end.

Indexing is also exposed as vim mapping <Plug>zettel_index_open

Listing

You can have a valid zettel anchor returned by using the :lua require 'zettelkasten'.get_anchor() function.

The only other exposed function currently is:

:lua require 'zettelkasten'.get_zettel_list(path, recursive)

to list all existing zettel in a directory. The path in this instance is required. Recursive is an optional boolean variable telling the function if it should recourse into subdirectories on the hunt for zettel and return those as well.

Options

Options can currently be set via lua:

vim.g["zettel_extension"] = ".md"
vim.g["zettel_root"] = "~/documents/notes"

or via vimscript:

let g:zettel_extension = ".wiki"
let g:zettel_root = "~/documents/notes"

The functionality is the same. The plugin will look up options by precedence buffer > global > default.

anchor_separator = vim.b["zettel_anchor_separator"] or vim.g["zettel_anchor_separator"] or "_",
zettel_extension = vim.b["zettel_extension"] or vim.g["zettel_extension"] or ".md",
zettel_root = vim.b["zettel_root"] or vim.g["zettel_root"] or "~/documents/notes",

Since, as long as the api still changes rapidly, a list of options would quickly be outdated, what you can instead is to look into options.lua, where at the top the currently effective options with their defaults and available values are defined.

up next

• note listing
• note jumping (existing to existing)

TODO: needed functionality

• note creation (new anchor)
  • create anchor
    • unique anchor creation checking existing zettels
    • unique anchor creation for multiple quick-repetition link creation (see [#anchor creation] section)
    • implement custom anchor creation function to go with custom anchor regex (turn anchor options into objects similar to parsers, to let them do the work)
  • create link (md / wiki)
• note listing (anchors / titles, no anchor)
  • list anchors
  • list filenames
• link following (to existing anchor)
  • fallback to filename if anchor invalid / not found
  • maintain location list of previous jumps
• link creation (to existing note)
  • list existing
  • create link (md / wiki)
• allow same command for following/creating link depending on cursor over link or not
• link switching (point to another existing note)
• note search (title / full-text)
• jump to zettel (open existing anchor)
  • select by anchor
  • select by link/title match
  • Opt: select by fuzzy title match
• options
• zettel anchor separator
• zettel extension
• link style (wiki/markdown)
• custom link style?
• link detection/following (under word, next on line)
• recursive dir lookup for zettel
• zettel anchor regex
• open zettel root directory / index page
  • index.md at root directory
  • custom index page name option
• option for automatic template creation for new zettel (e.g. # Title\n\n# Related\n\n #References and similar)
  • write on creation option, to create the actual zettel as soon as link has been created; or only when 'entering' zettel for first time

TODO: maintenance

• remove hard-coding of option vimnames in tests, now that we can dynamically change this through a single table
• change options handling, so there's no function having to be invoked every time (o.zettel().extension..) (e.g. through initial setup function)

Anchor Creation

• must be unique

• default: 10 digits, usually current date+time (YYMMDDHHmm)

• but, if multiple links created within one minute (or other circumstances), this would duplicate

• thus, duplicate-check before creating a new anchor

  • go through all existing zettels and check id
  • but also, what if generating multiple new zettels quickly after another? (e.g. vim macro)
    • then new zettel do not exist as a file yet, thus can not be checked for
    • possibly unique anchor function should check both files and existing anchor id's in currently open zettel (e.g. in links)
      • can not possibly check in all other zettels, and should rarely be necessary for zettel creation
    • then, merge the two existing lists and check for uniqueness in merged list?

• if duplicated, generate first non-duplicated link (recursive?)

  • try to move backwards through minutes not forward
    • i.e. if 2030101200 exists move to 2030101159, 2030101158, ...
  • if moving backwards, we do not take away id space from future note creation
    • if moving forwards, every zettel created within a minute would delay next zettel creation another minute

• to decide: should zettel creation create a zettel in current working dir or at zettel root dir? or set by option?

• (CODE) switch -- comments to --- doc comments for function descriptions etc

TODO: nice-to-haves

• refactor parsers (md/wiki) to be tables of functions/regex in options, so e.g. valid link detection can call options.parser.isValidLink(link) or transformation options.parser.styleLink(anchor, text)
  • use unified parser model (e.g. containing turn-to-link(), parse-link()) function
  • enables multi-parsing option (e.g. follow both md and wiki-links)
  • enable custom parser supply
• completion engine (e.g. for completion-nvim, look in completion_buffers/completion-tags for reference)
• zettel caching for big directories
• backlinks (via rg for filename anchor?)
  • keep tree of notes cached?
• zettel maintenance
  • fix malformed anchors
    • fix-link function which looks for most similar file to be found and renames file/link automatically (after confirmation)
  • add missing anchors
  • 'rename' anchor (goes against stability?)
  • recognize duplicate anchors (in directory, when listing, etc)
    • potentially warn user
    • provide option to rename and automatically change backlinks
• zettel 'lens' (preview first headline + content of linked zettel through floating window etc, on keypress)
• support both md-style and wiki-style links at the same time
• file/directory exception list for gathering files, which will be ignored
• 'strict' mode only matching and following valid anchor links
• link creation - remove special marks, make customizable (e.g. i- will: help. -> i--will:-help..md [currently] -> i-will-help.md [possibly])
• option to automatically save on switching zettel, making link jumping/ zettel creation easier
• function exposed to jump cursor to next/previous link
• index file functionality
  • several default options (index, home, wiki, ..)
  • optionally look for index file in sub-directories (could allow 'zettel' being directories as well)
  • if not existing could be auto-populated by adjacent zettel links (e.g. in same directory; backlinked; ..)

Developing / Debugging

start neovim with nvim --cmd "set rtp+=$(pwd)" . to automatically load the files in project dir as if they were on path.

Put the following function in the plugin directory as debug.vim or similar and you can instantly reload the plugin during development.

" TODO for DEBUGGING ONLY: reloads the whole lua plugin
fun! ZKReload()
  lua for k in pairs(package.loaded) do if k:match("^zettelkasten")  then package.loaded[k] = nil end end
  lua require 'zettelkasten'
endfun
nnoremap <leader>R :call ZKReload()<cr>