How to get a good overview of notes whose filenames are similar?

[thetoblin]

Imagine that you have the following notes in your vault:

• Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction (p.162-163, Doyal and Gough, 1991)
• Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction (Adam and Eve, 0000)
• Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction (Adam and Steve, 0000)
• Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction
• …

that have very similar filenames but very different underlying definitions of the concept ‘Minimum optimorum level of basic need-satisfaction’. Further imagine that you have quite many of such notes that are similar from many different sources (say 50-100).

In such a situation, how can I in Obisidan get an easy overview of the different definitions made in the different notes (e.g. in the search field)? If I’m looking through the notes it may take me a long time to find the note I am after, or perhaps don’t even know I’m looking for (a powerful aspect of Zettelkasten is the ability to go through old notes and rediscover them).

As I specify here, the way I have solved the use-case until now has been to have long filenames. So the files would have names that specify their definition, for example:

• ‘Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction as “the minimum quantity of intermediate need-satisfaction required to produce the optimum level of basic need-satisfaction measured in terms of the physical health and autonomy of individuals” (p.162-163, Doyal and Gough, 1991)

As this is not feasible due to OS constraints on the length of filenames, I have run into the above-described problem.

What (if anything) do you recommend? Does the way you structure your notes solve the above use-case? How do you structure your notes?

[efemkay]

Perhaps alias in frontmatter (or YAML) would help you on that. Here I have how I shorten the filename to only GHG Scopes.md but I have an alias that appears in the search/quick switcher that is longer a bit more descriptive

To do so, YAML must be the first thing in your note and it is sandwiched between a pair of 3 dashes like this code snippet

---
alias: longer name
---

here I put alias at the top of my note

in quick switcher, it will appear

[pop]

As I said in your other thread, I think that using filenames for your taxonomy of notes is going to be very challenging. Consider: People have names, so do places and pets and so on. On the other hand, letters, books, bills on so on do not have names. Or have you ever met a bill whose name was Henry?

Besides, in your other thread you gave an example for a note where the difference between the ‘name’ of the note and the ‘body’ or ‘text’ of the note was negligible. For me the most serious difference was the choice of font. The name (or title) was set in bold and the body in a font suitable for running text. It might be just me, but I find reading the bold text much more tedious and much slower than the text in the font for running text.

The examples you give at the beginning of this thread do not make it clear at all in what aspect the note named ‘Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction’ is different from another note named ‘Minimum optimorum’ level of basic need-satisfaction’.

From your narrative in this and in the other thread I gather that there are authors which give different sets of circumstances under which a ‘Minimum optimorum’ shall be said to exist. Further, for each set of circumstances there may be one ore more notes supporting that view.

What I can not see is whether for any given (new) note you know beforehand whether is in full or partial agreement or in complete disagreement with other notes. If so, is this a permanent property of the notes or merely a temporary assessment?

The answer to this question might become crucial for the organization of your notes. You need different tools and even different descriptions of the concepts for an eager vs. lazy categorization.

Given your problem description, I tend to presume that you know the exact categorization for each note at the time you enter it into your collection. Otherwise you would be hard put to use the proper wording for both title and text. If so, then re-inspecting the title or complete note whenever you are looking for a matching one seems to be wasteful.

Can the ‘concepts’ be divided into orthogonal categories, even in a hierarchical set of categories or can they be better described as sheafs of properties, each ‘concept’ sharing any number of properties with the ‘competing’ concepts?

I suspect that the very organization of your material and your processes might become important obstacles to the effective use of Obsidian or similar tools. Maslow with the hammer and the nails comes to mind. Please forgive if I’m mistaken.

I’m an old hand in the information management and processing business, and representing information in ways which facilitate the save keeping and using has interested me for a long time.

[thetoblin]

Thanks for the reply. When I use the quick switcher it doesn’t seem to appear the way you suggest. I can see the note that contains the alias, but I cannot see the alias under the note in the quick-switch search field.

[thetoblin]

I appreciate the time you’ve taken to express your thoughts =).

Besides, in your other thread you gave an example for a note where the difference between the ‘name’ of the note and the ‘body’ or ‘text’ of the note was negligible. For me the most serious difference was the choice of font.

I primarily use the heading to summarize the content (and to see what the name of the file is since the complete filename cannot be seen in the GUI). The idea is to keep atomized (as small as possible) so that a network of notes can be created - thereby the content of a note should ideally be describable in a single sentence. The difference between the header and the text below is that the text below makes a reference to the authors as it would read in a scientific text.

What I can not see is whether for any given (new) note you know beforehand whether is in full or partial agreement or in complete disagreement with other notes. If so, is this a permanent property of the notes or merely a temporary assessment?

I’m not sure I understand. The example used is for literature notes where many authors may have different definitions of the same concept. When creating the new note it is not necessary to know how it relates to other notes as that relation can be discovered and established later (in other notes). For example by comparing the definition by author A with the definition of author B.

Can the ‘concepts’ be divided into orthogonal categories, even in a hierarchical set of categories or can they be better described as sheafs of properties, each ‘concept’ sharing any number of properties with the ‘competing’ concepts?

Possibly? Depends on the case. However, the power of the zettelkasten method (as I understand it) is to avoid creating conceptual tree-structures. Each idea should be self-contained and related in a network way to other ideas. So creating hierarchies for the notes does not seem optimal (it defeats the purpose of the enterprise).

[thetoblin]

The solution I’ve come up with (and am going to try) is to simply divide the long filenames when and if they reach the maximum limit.

If for example we have the following filename: “I am a very long name for a note that my operative system is not going to like for sure” in a note that looks like this:

I am a very long name for a note that my operative system is not going to like for sure

Content…

Then I divide the name and the heading like so:

I am a very long name for a note that…

my operative system is not going to like for sure

Content…

This way the note will probably be uniquely identifiable from the filename (since as much information about the concept is included as possible) while the full content of the heading can be easily read when referred to from other notes by referring to it as such: [[I am a very long name for a note that…#my operative system is not going to like for sure]].