From: wayne@waynewerner.com

From: [email protected]
To: everyone.everywhere.all.at.once
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2021 13:32:05
Subject: My Wiki

My Wiki
=======

I've seen a ton of tools for note taking and software. Any number of tools from
blogs to wikis, from mindmaps to Zettelkasten. And these are all great except
they're all more complicated than they need to be. You can accomplish almost
every single thing found in these other methods with what I call Wayne's Wiki.

My method is a combination of:

- [topic journals and daily journals][1]
- [Zettelkasten][2]
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee's [hyperlinks][3]
- [WikiWikiWeb][4]
- [physical notebooks][5]

Ultimately the ingredients for Wayne's Wiki are:

1. A single text file
2. A TableOfContents
3. WikiText, WikiCase, or CamelCase
4. Timestamped entries
5. Optional: version control/syncing.

It's probably easier for me to show, rather than tell. After this, things are
organized as WaynesWiki.

---

- HowTo
- OtherTools
- TableOfContents
- WaynesWiki

HowTo
=====

The process of creating the wiki is easy. Just create a new text file. Hooray!
Now you have your own wiki. Cool, huh? Well... it's pretty cool but maybe you
need some more description.

Try this. Copy the contents of this wiki to your text file and use your editors
find to search for HowTo — make sure you're using case-sensitive search. If
your editor wraps to the beginning, the next result should take you to the
actual TableOfContents. Then find again and you should be back at this entry.
Sweet, huh?

And that's basically it! You just keep your TableOfContents sorted and add
entries to the body of your file in alphabetical order. Then, anytime you want
a new entry you just add it to the table of contents. And you use your editor's
search function to cycle through uses. Because you're using WikiText/CamelCase
there's no risk of accidentally coming across entries that are referencing
something else. Basically you're creating HyperLinks, which power the
WorldWideWeb. And the other cool thing is that if you're looking for something
to write and you find a word that doesn't have an actual entry, there you go!

To sum up, each entry consists of:

- Sorted entry in the TableOfContents
- Entry in the wiki body, sorted alphabetically
- Headerbar for the entry

---

(An aside - for vim users)

I personally use vim. It's a fantastic editor and makes this type of
shenanigans *so* easy. Here's how to add CalvinBall to the wiki:

1. Start anywhere in the table of contents
2. `o- CalvinBall<esc>` (this adds a CalvinBall entry to the ToC)
3. `*vip:sort<cr>n` now your table of contents is sorted again.
4. `yyj*P02xyypjVr=` This takes advantage of the fact that you sorted your
entries and your table of contents. `*` will find the entry for what comes
*after* CalvinBall - you may have to press `n` a couple of times if you've
pre-linked the term, but now you have a header with the bar. Slick, huh?
5. `o` and start writing your entry.

Use * to find exactly the word under the cursor, and n/p to jump forward and
backwards among the search results. If you want to add timestamps,
`^r=strftime('%F %T')<cr>` while you're in insert mode.

---

That's basically it! At least for the topic entries. If you'd like to add
timestamped entries, all you have to do is append those at the bottom of the
file. They'll automatically be sorted, and all you have to do is jump to the
end of your document to be able to add more entries.

The lazy way to keep this in sync is using syncloud or Dropbox or something.
But I use `git` because I get built in version control so if I have any issues
with conflicts I... don't. And as long as I still have a device that has my
repo on it I can recover 100% of my entry. And its history. I just use `git ci
-am "journal++"` as my commit message.

OtherTools
==========

2021-03-11 16:45:21
-------------------

Honestly I just put this in here because it means I have more than 2 or 3
entries. Vim is cool, though. Also, if you like PhysicalNotebooks, you might
want to check out my [other article][5].

TableOfContents
===============

The table of contents is how you keep your WaynesWiki organized. It lives at
the top of your wiki and just consists of a CommonMark-style list:

- something
- like
- this

That's all it takes.

WaynesWiki
==========

My style of wiki. Just needs a single file, boo yeah!

---

[1]: https://sive.rs/dj
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWikiWeb
[5]: gopher://gopher.waynewerner.com/ideas/notebooks.md