Everything else is a Python package with a CLI, dockerised for portability, and written entirely by me to support my workflow.
I am absolutely sympathetic to the "I want a tool not a hobby" idea of using prebuilt software, and indeed I have tried many of them (including every one I have seen linked on HN), however I have found that building my own automation has really helped me to think carefully about how I use my Zettelkasten and what it implies for my own thought process.
This reply probably falls into the category of "unhelpfully helpful advice", but that's what has worked for me personally.
I've always struggled with mapping any note organization mapping into strict directory structure with ascii file names being the only meta-data. I'm currently using Trilium Notes which solves most of these by using SQLite instead of filesystem.
Zettel are named as follows: z{%Y%m%d%H%M%S}_{slugified title}.md
Tags are formatted as +{hyphenated tag name}.
Scripts parse all the Zettel, construct a bipartite graph of tags and Zettel, and populate tables in the index with lists of Zettel under each tag, a visualisation of the graph, various other meta statistics etc.
The point (for me) of my Zettelkasten is that through links and tags, the structure of the notes is emergent rather than dictated a priori.
> The software I use is, at its most basic, a text editor. In my case, Sublime text.
> Everything else is a Python package with a CLI, dockerised for portability, and written entirely by me to support my workflow.
> I am absolutely sympathetic to the "I want a tool not a hobby" idea of using prebuilt software, and indeed I have tried many of them (including every one I have seen linked on HN), however I have found that building my own automation has really helped me to think carefully about how I use my Zettelkasten and what it implies for my own thought process.
> This reply probably falls into the category of "unhelpfully helpful advice", but that's what has worked for me personally.
And that, to my mind, is rather the point :-).
However, by way of contrast to many of the other comments on here, I found this particular explanation quite unhelpful, both in terms of the presentation communicating the idea as well as the parts of the idea that I was able to glean.
It’s probably an individual thing, but I don’t want to combine things into projects, and I certainly Don’t want to go down the route of having a folder structure.
Having recently converted my somewhat-organised notes into a Zettelkasten workflow, I have been amazed by the freeing nature of the medium. The core of my method is simple markdown files that can be easily written without the aid of any software. I have had fun building a significant amount of automation around the notes - building a traversable and plottable graph, implementing backlinking, templating and that sort of thing, but it is purely assistive and not necessary.
Some sibling comments make the point that BASB seems to be more of a complete theory, where as a Zettelkasten is a method alone. Here, I humbly beg to differ. It is the simple and mechanical nature of the Zettelkasten that frees the mind from the burden of too much information.
This is obviously an individual preference, but I think I’ve found the method that suits me.