Logseq Times 2023-02-12: New Logseq update, folders within Logseq, Todo query building, other workflows and plugins

This week, I will keep the introduction brief and concise by only saying that my thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by the Turkey and Syria Earthquake.

Logseq News

• Jakob @DerScheinriese, has been treating us to a good few design change concepts in the Discord.

• Simplification changes have been implemented in Discord. With hopefully a reduced number of channels and clearer intentions of each channel, it should be easier to find your way and allow for more communication and conversation.
• Logseq want your opinion - vote on your favorite table theme! - We’re working hard to bring Logseq a fresh new look and feel, starting soon with a new table component. We’ve come up with some concepts, but we want to know what you all think! Check it and vote away.

Releases

The devs released 0.8.17 which is focused on bug fixes and minor enhancements that include:

Fixed issues

• Auto heading on markdown mode Documentation
• Search tippy component failing
• CodeMirror indenting shortcuts cause page routing
• Page properties not being visible in the query table
• Tables not widening in wide mode
• Incorrect undo/redo sequence of indent/outdent
• Fix date-picker opening conditions
• Stability of Logseq Sync, allow ignore checking certs, retrying upload
• Missing PDF caused by incomplete linked file path from zotero
• Remove plugin settings entry when plugin disabled
• Mobile: timestamp submenu of toolbar not shown

Enhancement

• Adds support for :query-page as an input Documentation
• Support dragging the PDF viewer head to move the window
• Support Media Fragment URIs with audio
• Add error notification if graph can't be opened
• Add css selectors to rendered macros
• Add validation to logseq/config.edn
• Add {date} template variable to quick-capture
• Add :default-page to quick-capture-options
• Add +/- syntax, (w)eek (m)onth (y)ear, and time support to query :inputs  Documentation
• Add native logging for desktop and android
• File and page commands work in more contexts and warn when they don't work
• Translations
• Whiteboards: add tweet shape Documentation

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

Silferiax wows us for yet another week with Queries for task management. They are gathering queries that will be useful for task management. Queries and findings will be added as and when available. A wonderful thing is that inline comments will be added to help us understand what is going on and to build and tweak queries

Here is an example to show tasks past a due date

#+BEGIN_QUERY
{:title [:h3 "🔥 Past scheduled"]
 :query [:find (pull ?b [*])
   :in $ ?day  ; ?day is the name for the first value in inputs further down.
   :where
     [?b :block/marker "TODO"]  ; Using TODO straight in the clause because I want marker to be a specific value.
     [?b :block/scheduled ?d]  ; the block ?b has attribute scheduled with value ?d
     [(< ?d ?day)]  ; the value ?d is smaller than the value ?day
 ]
 :inputs [:today]  ; use the Logseq dynamic variable :today as input for this query (gives today's date as yyyymmdd format)
 :table-view? false
}
#+END_QUERY

@TfTHacker reminds us how to use the PDF annotation feature in Logseq.

Wanting to see folders and files in Logseq? Well "Coming soon to a Logseq instance near you :)" by Sawhney (as a plugin)

Cannot wait to see this being made possible. Great work Aryan.

Announcing the Logseq Template Gallery plugin!  This plugin allows you to discover and share your Logseq templates with the rest of the community.  We can use this plugin to exchange ideas about each other's workflows and quickly put to use ideas from the community.

https://github.com/dangermccann/logseq-template-gallery Also available on the web: https://www.logseqtemplates.com/

The number of available templates is very small right now, but with the help of the community, we can build a robust library of valuable templates.

Keyboard shortcut to follow page reference - I would like to be able to navigate page references without clicking, but I can't find anything in keyboard shortcuts. Enter or arrow keys just take me into editing mode.

Clicking ctrl / cmd +  o saves the day

Sticking with keyboard shortcuts, looking to open today’s journal page in the sidebar quickly? You can use:

• Windows: Alt + Shift + j
• Mac: shift + command +j

Brilliant thread from a Logseq newcomer on their findings after a week with Logseq:

Looking to see which plugins may suit you/? TfTHacker posted a question on this here.

My favourites are;

• Awesome family (Links, Styler, UI)
• Journal Calendar
• Markmap
• GPT3 Open AI.

There are many more excellent ones, so check out this thread for inspiration.

It seems that this past week, there have been some Sync issues with concerned users posting messages such as:

• I've gotta say I'm developing a bit of a fear of opening the Logseq app at the moment due to the potential for disparities in syncing between my two laptops and phone. The chance of overwriting old notes is kind of turning me off from using the app at all. I like to make quick notes as I walk and talk, so I don't want to wait for the cloud icon to turn green, check if Logseq has randomly logged out and then have to manually log back in.
• Unfortunately, the same experience for me. It would be good with a statement from the core team that they acknowledge critical sync issues and that it is actively worked upon. Logseq is great! But the promise of sync and the under-delivery and reliability issues undermine trust.

I am sure the Devs are hard at work fixing the issues and the issues above have impacted a handful of users. There are messages saying it is working as expected and without issues. The only thing I could suggest is it hold tight. It is being developed and improved.

The above, brings me to the below:

Empty pages. "After some issues with namespaces and sync, I still have some empty pages (the title is there, but the content is gone). It is not a fun activity to dig them up from the backup folder. Will these data loss issues ever be gone? I know it is beta, but still…. do you have any idea how to prevent this? I am also not convinced how intact my database is. I put a lot of work into building my pkms. The app should be super trustworthy if you have so much data. Do you trust your database?

Final question, is it possible to search these empty pages? Can I somehow search blank pages? (I guess I am trying to overcome my trust issues - I love logseq, but we need therapy to save this marriage)."

What do you think? A user replies "I understand it's in beta but it seems to me it would be better if the team focused on ironing out these basic issues before building any extra features. Like go into feature freeze and do 100% focus on bugs" - do you agree?

In-app update log? Ramses confirms, "As Jakob said, we're working on something similar [to Obsidian's inbuilt update log] so not everyone has to be plugged into the Logseq community"

This would certainly be a great addition.

May be relevant to a few users: I came from Obsidian and have been exploring LogSeq for a few days. It is harder to figure out a new workflow as one is page based and the other is block-based. Obsidian gives me the possibility to use my vault from the command line and use bash scripts on the vault. cause everything is organised in folders. I still don't know how to switch from LogSeq to command line tools/scripts to read and move into the vault. Do you have suggestions? thank you! Anyway, the idea to start everything from Journal is better. And I'm trying to find a workflow, also if I could use Obsidian and LogSeq for different tasks.

Not quite Logseq specific, but interested in Where can I find public digital gardens? A few links were provided with some examples:

• GitHub - MaggieAppleton/digital-gardeners: Resources, links, projects, and ideas for gardeners tending their digital notes on the public interwebs 3
• GitHub - KasperZutterman/Second-Brain: A curated list of awesome Public Zettelkastens 🗄️ / Second Brains 🧠 / Digital Gardens 🌱 4
• GitHub - lyz-code/best-of-digital-gardens: Ranked list of awesome digital gardens / second brains 7

This week, another TFT / PKM app decided to pivot. Dendron, The tldr: "we spent the past two years building a better way for humans to manage knowledge. While we made great strides there, as a business, we were ultimately not able to find a product-market fit for a venture-backed business. After much soul-searching, we've made the decision to do a pivot and pursue other business problems. This means that Dendron, the extension, will no longer be actively developed. The good news is that Dendron is both local first and open source - this means that Dendron will continue to function. In fact, both myself and the team will continue to use Dendron (the entire reason I started Dendron was that I couldn't find a tool to manage all my notes - a fact that still remains true today)."

Shame to see it go.

Logseq Feature Requests

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

• More simple mode - I would like to use Logseq for my work (DevSecOps), sadly me and my colleagues do not feel good with the concept of blocks, or at least it is way too hard to text a simple text and add a numbered list then create a new block. Is it possible to create a new page with no block feature? Just a simple markdown page where we can separate phrases with no dotted list.
• Pasting an image link should ask for relative or absolute embedding - Sometimes, it’s good not to import images into the asset folder but link to their absolute location. The `/image/ function already allows this. However, when pasting an image link, LogSeq links to a copy of the image in the asset folder. Could pasting an image / media link ask how the image should be treated?
• Basic image processing options like cropping - Some basic image processing abilities like cropping an image. Resizing with fixed or variable proportions, rotation, etc.
• PDF : full screen button - When I open the pdf viewer, sometimes I want to read it without having the editor on the right. It would be cool to have a full-screen button to just have the pdf viewer centred.
• About the annotations in PDF file in logseq - I am currently using Logseq to read references and get involved in scientific research. I am comfortable with the PDF annotations linked to the PDF file. When I click it, I can get the locations of the annotations in the PDF file. However, I have some questions when I have two different computers with different operating systems. Specifically speaking, Windows and MacOS.
• Support CodeMirror vim keymap (or upgrade to CM6 and support vim plugin) - Attempting to use :editor/extra-codemirror-options {:keyMap "vim"} does not work in the same way :keyMap "emacs" does. It appears this is due to other keybindings having higher precedence. (The same appears to be true for some emacs keybindings).

Logseq Plugins (and Plugins)

• Logseq To Flomo Plugin - This is a simple plugin that sends block from logseq to flomo.
• hamsterbase official logseq extension - This plugin will help you sync hamsterbase highlights to logseq
• Monokai for Logseq - A dark theme for Logseq inspired by Monokai and Dracula.

• "Coming soon to a Logseq instance near you :) "Awesome Styler" presets quick switcher:

• Logseq Citation Manager - Batch of Updates. Support for searching for authors in search - Support for viewing the author of a citation while searching - Support for the new assets api - Customizable shortcuts! - Bunch of bug fixes! Breaking Change: You will need to reconfigure your citation database. For existing users, move your directory from .logseq/storages/logseq-citation-manager to assets/storages/logseq-citation-manager For new users, you should be able to add the files directly to the automatically created assets/storages/logseq-citation-manager folder
• Awesome UI  v1.6.x shipped with long-time asked functionality: optional wide search (button & popup)! PS: It's sad to hear, but some users like how it looks by default... so let's don't blame them for this and just provide an option
• Batch Ops now supports querying with Smart Search syntax. Since the marketplace configuration was changed, you need to uninstall and reinstall it from the marketplace.
• Smart Typing supports using regular expressions in user-defined rules now. You can do a lot more powerful replacements with it.

Until Next Time

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

Thanks again for reading.