Logseq Time 2023-05-13: Logseq Releases, in-app support, features vs core, Langchain and Logseq, feature requests, plugins and more

Hi Everyone. So here we have it, another week has passed, and it is a pleasure to meet again.

This week feels like it was intensive. I learned a little more about Nelson Mandela through my work travels which was an eye-opener. Really puts things into perspective. We had the return of the Champions League with some excellent matches, and some other noteworthy news like a new Twitter CEO (not too sure if that will change anything), arrests of high profile politicals left, right and centre and, of course, more AI news which while great, also make me a bit anxious of the future.  

With all that, and more, going on, there were also a lot of happenings in the world of Logseq. We have new releases, potential in-App support being developed, comments on where Logseq should focus its resources and other fantastic and thought-provoking posts. Let's get to it.

Releases

Logseq released versions 0.9.5 and 0.9.6 over the past week. The main features and updates include:

Features

• Ordered(numbered) block list support
• Breaking change: dwim lists are disabled by default since we now have block based lists. To reenable them, add :dwim/settings {:list? true} to your config.edn

Enhancement

• Whiteboards - Allow interactions with published embeds and hide lock/unlock
• Whiteboards - Keyboard shortcuts
• Whiteboards - Page name sanitization
• Date time repeater UI
• Mailto and other protocol URLs creating invalid pages
• Copy & Paste improvements
• Add settings for graph view
• Update config.edn template

The latest release of Logseq can be downloaded here. For Android (Download the latest .apk) and for IOS, you can download or update Logseq from the AppStore.

Logseq In The Wild

In-App Support?

It seems that Logseq is working on integrating an in-app support system which should hopefully make issues and problems so much easier to deal with by the team. I feel like, at the moment the support is a little scattered, so having a central place for issues should make things easier.

I hope though, that the necessary resources are in place / Logseq is making sufficient plans to ensure this will be well-resourced and worthwhile for the users and the Logseq team. The last thing people will want is a support system where no responses are provided or take a long time.

Only time will tell if this will become a feature, and if so, it's success.

New Features vs Improvements

A user shares their thoughts on the path Logseq should take for the near future:

First, I want to acknowledge that I pay nothing, can expect nothing, and for any functionality in whatever form or shape, I can only be grateful. This is not a complaint, but feedback for the potential benefit of the project.

As a reasonably dedicated user who has observed LogSeq’s evolution and development for some time, I believe that the direction of the development needs to be reevaluated.

The core functionality of LogSeq remains unstable. Numerous bugs concerning the core functionality have been reported a long time ago and are still not fixed. Some rough edges in the core functionality have not been addressed.

It appears that the development is focused on adding shiny new features rather than ensuring that the foundation the tool is built on is stable. While these features might be very useful and provide value, I feel it is a significant mistake to invest effort into them before the core of LogSeq has received a substantial overhaul.

There seems to be insufficient bandwidth to maintain the current features, and developing new ones appears to lead to an even greater backlog. (And it’s worse than a linear effect, due to the combinatorial effects.)

The post has some interesting responses which are worth reading.

My personal thoughts - I would tend to agree with the above. The number of features Logseq offers out of the box is incredible, but I fear they tried to push the boat out slightly too much and are now spread a bit thin. Ensuring all the amazing features they build are being maintained and functioning perfectly takes a huge amount of effort, and sometimes it seems that quantity overtakes quality.

Having said the above, I am also sure that it is like a curve, you push several things, cannot seem to get anywhere, and then all of a sudden, everything falls into place.

One Graph to Rule Them All or Multiple Graphs?

Are you in the one graph for everything, or do you have multiple graphs for, say, personal and work things?

This was an interesting question raised in the forum where the following interesting quote was posted:

For people like Bergen who use the same app to map both their personal and work lives, there can be downsides, Touroni adds.

"The obvious benefit is that your work and personal life are likely to intersect and using the same app will take account of this for more efficient time scheduling,” she says. “The disadvantages are that it will become more difficult to create boundaries between work and home life, as you’ll have to navigate both parts of your life whenever you use the app.”

What are your thoughts on the one graph vs multiple graphs point? Also, check out this Reddit Post discussing the same sort of thing.

For me, I am well and truly in the one-graph approach. Swapping between one graph and another sounds like a lot of hard work.

Hierarchical Organisation

@Alex posts a very interesting comment on hierarchical organisation in Logseq. Indented lists in #Logseq used to organize stuff hierarchically. Entries can be plain text or an "object" whose class is indicated by the icon used as the bullet point for example, a book, a person, a folder or a URL.

• Collapsed entries have an icon with a button-like style to indicate that clicking on it focuses the view on its children.
• If an entry is a page (i.e. a reference to a page), the icon is coloured accordingly.
• If a page reference is used as a folder, it has a folder icon coloured too.

Pitfall of Block Referencing?

There have been a few grumblings of issues when with block references and especially when you delete a block that is referenced elsewhere. The main posts on this issue are here and here.

The main problem seems to be that if you link Block A on Page 1, and down the line delete Block A there is no warning or alert that you are deleting a linked reference and are left with meaningless characters on Page 1.

Hopefully this is something that can be sorted out by the Logseq Team.    

Langchain and Logseq?

It seems that the potential for Logseq to be able to answer questions on the go are increasing. A demo image by Tienson showed what is capable.

I have no idea what sort of integration will be made, if any. I just think it is quite cool to be able to use Logseq to asks questions and get responses.

Namespaces in Logseq

I thought this post by WQing on using namespaces in Logseq was excellent.

The post looks at the main usages of namespaces:

• The pro-Namespaces extensively apply namespaces for organizations, similar to how they would categorize notes or tags in traditional software. Here’s a popular critique from Alex: Different ways to structure data and I agree namespace is easily abused, manually capping the potential of a relational graph.
• The naysayers have trouble justifying the use of namespace in logseq where it could be done in more flexible ways. This quote represents this perfectly what’s the benefit of cli-tools/cat over cat (cli-tools) ?

A namespace is mainly useful for one-click retrieval (not only of subpages but also all backlinks).

Well worth reading through if you have any doubts about Namespaces.

Relative Paths for Assets

Michael asks: "About path to Zotero PDFs: I'm both working on Mac and Linux and the paths to the Zotero folder is different. Is there a way to have it work on all systems? I'm using the Logseq Sync and it seems that that path is being synced on both ends, so when I fix it on one side it breaks on the other."

Check this post out for more details on a possible solution.

Syncing Graphs Between Devices

Interested in syncing your graph between devices but without using Logseq Sync:

Logseq is a fantastic way to take notes, make outlines, brainstorm, or create a second brain. Its unique approach to making notes and connecting them makes it a must-have for students and anyone interested in personal knowledge management. But to be most useful, you must keep all your notes synced across devices. This post will show you how to sync logseq with all your devices using free software.

This post is great for those that want to use Syncthing which requires some setup and allows Syncthing to access your files (I have no idea about the security side of this). I am more in the camp of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), log in to Logseq Sync and let it do its magic.

Logseq Brand and Logo Revamp

As a reminder, be sure to participate in the Logseq Brand and Logo revamp project.

Logseq product designer, Jakob, posted:

We're planning a brand facelift too, including a new logo, and we need your help! Share your ideas, metaphors, and associations you have with Logseq as a brand.

To spark your creativity, consider thinking about these questions:

• What emotions or feelings do you associate with Logseq?
• How does Logseq stand out from other note-taking apps?
• Which visuals or symbols represent Logseq's core values?

We'll share an official Logo competition announcement soon, but for now, let's get the brainstorming ball rolling here in the ⁠design channel! Thank you, and we're excited to hear about your ideas!

Debating on Logseq and Obsidian?

If you are, check out this video:

Logseq Feature Requests

You can check out the full list of Feature Requests here.

• Universal capture hotkey - Lazy.so(still in private beta) is a knowledge management tool that primarily differentiates itself by making it very easy to “capture” thoughts. There’s a global hotkey that brings up a window for adding an item.Todoist also has a very nice “quick capture” global hotkey/shortcut.
• Page minimap for Logseq - For long pages and the journal, it would be great to have a minimap feature to help navigate within the page. This would ideally look a lot like the minimap in code editors / IDEs, i.e. a strip on the side of the main content pane that renders a small version of the page and allows clicking/dragging to scroll the page.
• Pause GIFs after a few loops - Today, embedding GIFs works using the image syntax: ![Alt text](path.gif). But the GIF keeps playing forever, which is a bit distracting when the page is open for long durations. Most messaging apps deal with this by stopping the gif after a fixed number of loops (let’s say, 5.)
  To resume the GIF, user can click on the image again, which makes it run for 5 loops once more.
• Remember last window position - I have been using Logseq with 2 graphs – one for personal and one for work. I use the app URL such as “logseq://graph/work” to quickly open a graph, however, every time I start the app, the window position is at the centre of the screen but not where it was in the previous run.
• Hidden Properties that are Visible in Editing Mode - This request is to solve the same problem as A property which appears as a tooltip but I think having a class of “visible in editing mode” properties would be a better solution because this way, you could have many types of such properties and put as many as you like in one block, compared to a “prompt” or “tooltip” that usually means only one per block.

Logseq Plugins

• open-page-in-logseq - Logseq plugin that creates a .url file for the current page. When opening the file, it will open the page in Logseq.
• logseq-wucai-official-plugin - This official plugin maintained by the 五彩 team enables you to easily and automatically export all your digital highlights to Logseq. Note: This plugin requires a subscription with 五彩 — a paid service that makes it easy to aggregate and review all your reading data in one place.
• Logseq Graph Analysis v0.10.1 just landed with a feature contributed by Mr Paralon. Change the colours of your graph nodes with queries! This greatly improves the ability to see patterns in your data. If anyone is looking for a plugin to contribute to, dark graph mode is highly requested and should be pretty straightforward to tweak the colour variables and CSS.

• Omnivore plugin v1.12.5 has been released. Includes the following changes. 1. Add a title block ###highlights for highlights and add note to the exposed variable in the highlight template. 2. Add function map lowerCase,  upperCase and upperCaseFirst to both article and highlight templates. 3. Show release notes. 4. Add state, wordsCount and readLength to the exposed variables in the article template and many more.
• Smart Search updated: - Block type results now have their path breadcrumb displayed.
• Redesigned  BuJo Theme:

Until Next Time

I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you have any comments or questions, please let me know.

Thanks again for reading.