[HN Gopher] Potluck: Dynamic documents as personal software
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Potluck: Dynamic documents as personal software
Author : samlambert
Score : 70 points
Date : 2022-11-01 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inkandswitch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inkandswitch.com)
| leejoramo wrote:
| Glad to see references to Apple's Data Detectors, a great if
| underutilized tool built in to the system.
| dmitriid wrote:
| People saying "this can be done with X" and listing the various
| combinations of tools miss the most important thing: I, the user,
| couldn't care less about spending time to collect and configure
| these separate, and often conflicting, tools into a cohesive
| whole.
|
| I, the user, will always reach for something that gives me a
| cohesive whole out of the box.
|
| (Note: though I like the idea of Potluck, I'll stick to regular
| Notes.app for now)
| [deleted]
| housel wrote:
| I think it would be great to experiment with building this sort
| of thing for an e-ink tablet, adding an enhanced layer of
| interactivity to by-hand notetaking.
| gklitt wrote:
| Ink & Switch has been doing work for a while on applying these
| same ideas of gradual enrichment to ink and tablets. Recent
| talk describing that work:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifYuvgXZ108
| digdugdirk wrote:
| I've often pondered the idea of something similar to this. I'd
| love the idea of a note taking app as relational database.
|
| Most of my work tends to follow a few similar formats, which I
| would like to create as templates that pull in data based on
| queries for whatever project/product/task I'm currently working
| on. Editing the document in current view would then modify the
| database, while editing the templates would allow for a quick
| update of all files simultaneously (i.e.- generating a test plan
| for a physical product of type "X" would then apply to all
| products of type "X").
|
| It seems like a great way to take out the annoyance of the
| "little stuff" by providing a boilerplate way to get ideas off
| the ground.
|
| Any ideas if this already exists, or if I'm just talking crazy?
| rpdillon wrote:
| I often post about Tiddlywiki on HN, so this is a bit of a
| repeat, but I think Tiddlywiki comes really close. I wrote a
| bit about it earlier in the year because it occurred to me
| that, with filters, it really is a database for your notes. My
| writeup is not complete, but hopefully gives some idea of how
| Tiddlywiki could be used in this way.
|
| https://rpdillon.net/tiddlywiki-a-database-for-your-notes-20...
| karencarits wrote:
| Indeed, you can get your template up and running by just
| writing <$list filter="[product_type[X]]">
| <!-- Make the template in HTML --> <div
| class="example_value">{{!!a_field_value}}</div> <div
| class="description">{{!!text}}</div> </$list>
|
| and having the `{{!!fields}}` replaced by values from your
| "database"
| bigbossman wrote:
| Pretty much all of these features can be done in Obsidian with
| plugins like [Dataview](https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-
| dataview/) or [Meld Calc](https://github.com/meld-cp/obsidian-
| calc)
| MWil wrote:
| this seems to build directly on Bret Victor's reactive documents,
| from 2011
|
| http://worrydream.com/#!/ExplorableExplanations
| CrypticShift wrote:
| The universality of the word "app" as a digital "techne" makes
| this article too fuzzy. Using the exact author's descriptions,
| here are some more "defined" apps that are working toward his
| goal of "dynamic documents as personal software."
|
| - "Write formulas that compute" + "Interactive widgets" anywhere
| on the page : - For the simplest sheet-like
| computations -> https://reactivepad.com/ - For a wider
| gamut of DB/Sheet type formulas -> https://coda.io/ (on top of
| its no-code relational DBs)
|
| - "Users can create live searches that extract information from
| freeform text" into "Structured data views" :
| -> https://tana.inc/ magically turns every typed line of text
| into a row of a Semantic Graph DB. Then, no-code queries are
| editable in multiviews (like notion-style DB views for every
| block of text anywhere).
|
| These apps do not need extensive configuration or plugin
| integration to achieve these goals. They are not even "low-code".
| On the contrary, "Potluck" aims to be more "programmable" : more
| like a "programming portal as a doc.
| (https://maggieappleton.com/programming-portals)
| kkfx wrote:
| Nice, I do something on the same line with org-mode, however
| while org-mode/Emacs if far less "GUI-ish" it's an integrated
| environment who can be an entire desktop (EXWM) while no modern
| application can, and that's the biggest issue of ALL modern
| software the model of "OS + application" have proven to be a very
| bad idea for users, good only for business...
| AlanYx wrote:
| This is beautifully written, but they're essentially reinventing
| emacs with org-mode (either that, or various Smalltalk
| environments, especially the Glamourous Toolkit's Lepiter). They
| mention emacs once, but the way they characterize it doesn't do
| justice to the underlying paradigm.
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