Logseq Times 2023-04-01: Logseq 0.9, Whiteboards, Query Builder, workflows and new plugins

• Free Whiteboards
• Query Builder
• Vision and goals being prepared for sharing
• Logseq App Updates

You would think this is some kind of April fool's day prank - nope, just another week in the world of Logseq.

After spending a month on the road or in airports / planes, my realisation of an offline first Tool for Thought has been reaffirmed. No need to worry about having a connection / no connection, needing to download files first, and / or sync conflicts. I could open my laptop, read and write notes as I desired and be at peace.

With all this fooling around, let's see what Logseq had up its sleeve for us of late.

Logseq News

• Of course, the big announcement - Logseq Whiteboards being available to everyone for free. And of course, the new query builder (great video here by Bas talking us through it).

• A cool thing about the latest @logseq release is that the two new major features, whiteboard and query builder, also work on free, published graphs. What does this mean?
• From the Team "We recognize the importance of clear communication and are committed to improving the conceptual model to help users better understand Logseq's core concepts and features (check out design for occasional sneak peeks of WIP). Our team is also working on a vision document, which we'll share with the community soon for your review and input. This document will provide more transparency on our short-term and long-term plans for Logseq."
• Version 0.2.0 of https://github.com/logseq/rdf-export, a github action and CLI for exporting to RDF, was released! This release adds support for exporting down to the block level and config options to allow rdf exports to be fed to LLMs. See https://github.com/logseq/rdf-export/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#020 for more

Releases

Logseq 0.9.0 + 0.9.1 were released and included the following:

Features

• Added a simple Query Builder
• Updated the login UI for Logseq Sync
• Made Whiteboards publicly available to all users
• Refactored file system handling to fix filename issues on mobile platforms, requiring re-indexing of your working graph

Fixed issues / Enhancement

• Add config option to handle default block refs expanding behavior in
• fix logbook with-second-support? doesn't work
• Upgrade playwright to 1.31.0 in
• Add better error messages for duplicate key in config.edn in
• Update default config template to correct format
• Shrink on-click range of sidebar-item
• Fix: do not convert URL to macro while raw pasting
• Update Traditional Chinese and Korean translations
• Fix: hide empty settings description
• Fix: unwrap hierarchy and unlinked page blocks in
• Massive fixes to Whiteboards: pasting shape, autocomplete on portals , shape index and arrow binding, history handling
• Copy event handling
• Display page's original name in linked reference
• Multi-window crash when Logseq Sync enabled
• Select only the current block when opening its context menu
• Block edit undo handling
• Use system certs for Logseq Sync
• Incorrect position of absolute modal on some mobile platforms
• beforeunload hook of Plugin system
• Do not convert URL to macro while raw pasting
• Logbook's with-second-support? doesn't work
• Shrink on-click range of sidebar-item
• Audio and video player render after upload asset command
• Optimize active state of the auto-complete component for mouse interaction

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

Logseq In The Wild

Looking for a bot to debate points with you?

Now we just need to get Tobi to release his bot for all of us to enjoy :)

Thoughts from TfTHacker on Logseq looking at the strengths, how you can get started, features and lots of other goodies.

Logseq — A Powerful Tool for Thought

Logseq is a hidden gem in the Tools for Thought space. In this article, we explore what is Logseq, its strengths, and how you can get…

MediumTfTHacker

Definitely worth the read!

For full disclosure, the Logseq team will be publishing the client side code of the E2EE Logseq Sync.

"Code censoring is important for E2EE for sure. We will publish the client side code of File Sync"

https://discord.com/channels/725182569297215569/1013467386130747522/1090657830417203330

Using Logseq for content creation? Here is a workflow provided by Michael Johnson in Discord.

I have been slowly building this up while keeping it simple, for my video podcast series. I make a page for each episode and now I add properties to each page like this: (using a simple template to create new pages)

Then I have a "main" page for the series where I gather together all the episodes into a query, that shows up as a nice list that I can sort, like this:

When I have a new idea, I make a new page and put "idea" in the status property, then as it gets built up I change that to "draft" and finally "published" when it's out there, and I add the youtube link and description.

Key thing for me here was to build it up "organically" - at the beginning I was not using any of this! I simply manually maintained a list of links on the main page to each episode... then as I learned more about logseq I made my first "properties" and then made my first query.... it's not necesary to make all this stuff from the beginning. Start where you are and build up the system that works for you, that's my philosophical suggestion

Thank you so much Michael.

@ramses and @fortelabs had a chat about Logseq:

It is ok to use more than one app as Epiphanic Synchronicity comments:

I use Logseq for what’s going on in my life now and to dos, info, and current project-related notes, and Obsidian for permanent and long-term notes and for writing. I love them both, and although I know a lot of people only use one of them for everything, I now believe they operate in different corners of the PKM space and mostly don’t compete directly the way, say, Roam and Logseq do.

Bit of an update on the very much awaited folders in Logseq by https://twitter.com/aryansawhney17:

1. initial version will be an abstraction on namespaces in a way that js fundamentally the same as namespaces  just represented in a way akin to folder with dragging and dropping and stuff. Plus some neat ui tricks to hide stuff like long file names
2. Second phase is limited by the API but it is actually possible to create a 100% local web app that can asccomplish this. Could be an option as a sort of arrange items into folders button

More details here https://discord.com/channels/725182569297215569/1089097173150486558/1089113096200671322

Luhmann asks: Anyone have a workflow for kinship relations? I'm not doing a genealogical research project or anything, but I use Logseq as contact database and would like to better handle how people are related to each other. Right now I just add a block to a contact with something like this: children: [[contact name]], [[contact name]]  or  husband: [[contact name]]. This is good enough most of the time, but I was just curious if anyone has really put some thought into this?

0xdeee asks: Hey guys, I wanna know if a workflow that I'm trying to build is possible in logseq. I'm a developer and lets say I'm using journal page to write down useful info about things Im working on, for example I have a [[bug/bug1]] block and its sub block contains info and TODOS about this in journal page itself and lets assume I work on multiple bugs so there will be multiple parent blocks daily... is it possible to create a query that list all the TODO, DOING from all the journal page but categorise them based on the parent block name ? i.e the pages like [[bug/Bug 1]]

If you are after something like this, try {{query (and (task todo) [[bug]] )}}

A decent way to look at the structure of Logseq with the different indentation levels:

Source: https://tfthacker.substack.com/p/outliner-vs-longform

Episode of HowTo Logseq - Pomodoro Technique:

Why Logseq 🪵 lacks on development and release progress ?TLDR; why Logseq lacks on development progress what’s the future vision?

At least for me [the OP] the biggest pain points of Logseq are

• Slow development progress , less unreliable ( most of updates breaks something, Team pushes quick fix with minor release though)
• No proper updates or goals ETA shared about the release or planned features with community members

An interesting read here. Worth checking out the post, as well as the comments.

A little workflow put in place by @blogburri. At the end of each day i do a reflection, what's going well, what could be better, what support is needed. the first one, i add a block property to it so it shows up on my daily journal for the next two weeks. the second and third sections i make into tasks for the next day. trying to sort out motivation, having the little reminder of things that went well helps

A very good blog post on how you can set up @logseq for writing long-form content

How to Setup Logseq for Long-Form Writing | appsntips

Here is how you can set up Logseq for long-form writing. Remove distractions, add table of content, customize the theme, and export without dashes.

appsntipsEditor

All it needs is a couple of plugins, a couple of tweaked settings, a slightly revised these and you can accomplish long form writing. All of this is very well documented in the above blog post.

Logseq Feature Requests

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

• WhiteBoards Requests - Connectors must be flexible and elegant like obsidian canvas, and whiteboards must be exportable any image format (immediately…)
  Connectors can be created from edge of blocks, pages, webpages or shape frames (like obsidian canvas).
• Allow to use more Clojure functions in Advanced Queries (akin to Datomic; graph traversal) - allow all or at least all collection-related functions from clojure.core (or other namespaces) to be used in advanced queries, similar to Datomic
• Add gesture or button to invoke command palette in mobile app - The command palette is clearly present in the mobile iOS app, but there appears to be no way to access it from the touch screen. It can only be called up with command-p using a bluetooth hardware keyboard. Please add a gesture (like pull-down in Obsidian) and/or a button to invoke it. (The current ⌘ button in the toolbar adds a slash and only offers a few options after it, and even that doesn’t seem consistent or reliable.)
• UX improvements on Marketplace search - Expand search to additional fields: description, plugin id, keywords (from package.json), Make search by author works without @-prefix too (there is no need to disable @-prefix, as it restricts search when it needs: by clicking on author name), Allow spaces
• Show nodes of a Hierarchy in Unlinked References - If hierarchies are supported, it makes sense for all nodes to show up in Unlinked References, if the purpose of Unlinked References is to catch places where you, for whatever reason, didn’t explicitly link. For example, if in your daily journal you quickly wrote: “* made the best chocolate cake today” and forgot to link it, it would show up under “recipes/chocolate cake” as an unlinked reference. Another example might be [[humans/jane]], where in this page I would expect to see an Unlinked Reference to a block that says “went dancing in the streets with jane today.”
• Snap-to-grid and snap-to-objects in Whiteboards - It would be great to have a snap-to-grid option in whiteboards to allow for better alignment. Additionally (or alternatively) snapping to objects would also help a lot. (As seen in obsidian, miro, figjam etc)
• Add multiple selections (multi cursor) feature in Logseq - This is a very convenient setup that greatly reduces mechanical work and saves a lot of time. I’m talking about mass editing function via Alt key like in Obsidian, VS Code, Sublime Text. There are many scenarios where this can be of great help: To remove or add a sign in several blocks at once with a single click. To remove many extra spaces and line breaks with a single click. To bold or oblique the same term that is repeated several times on the same page.
• Option to change the default behaviour of the mouse wheel in whiteboards - is it possible to make the mouse wheel zoom in and out instead of scroll? (I know you can zoom by holding ctrl, but this is the opposite of what I am used to)
• Auto-assign tags/page references to blocks based on query results, “dynamic” pages - It would be neat to automatically assign tags (= page references) to blocks based on the results of a simple or advanced query. This is useful in situations, where the tag can be derived by looking at the block’s content, so the block does not need to be tagged manually. The name can be a link to an existing page OR a new “dynamic” page (there might be a better term).
  Dynamic page = create a name for query results and refer to them by using this name in the same way as normal page links.

Logseq Plugins

• logseq-plugin-kanban-board - Draggable, editable kanban views.
• logseq-reflect-theme - This is a theme inspired by Reflect App.

• logseq-plugin-ai-assistant - A powerful tool that enhances your Logseq experience by allowing you to interact with AI models like OpenAI's gpt-3.5-turbo. With this plugin, you can effortlessly generate or transform text using custom prompts, enabling you to achieve more efficient and creative workflows within Logseq.

• logseq-plugin-jump-to-block - Logseq plugin that mimics the Go to symbol functionality (known from Visual Studio Code). It lets you fuzzy search the 'table of contents' of the current page and scroll to the selected block. If the any parent blocks of the selected block are collapsed, they will be expanded.
• logseq-chatgpt-plugin - A tightly integrated ChatGPT plugin for Logseq.
• logseq-plugin-rakuten-books - Utilize Rakuten books API to import book data
• logseq-plugin-insert-above - plugin that lets you insert a new block above the current one via keyboard shortcut (default: shift-mod-enter).

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.