Zettelkasten Deploy

The modern Zettelkasten Method will often involve ways of deploying the notes taken as part of the method to make reviewing and refining notes more pleasant. This will typically involve some complex software suite made by proprietary developers. It could also include highly customizable FOSS software like detailed here. This usually will mean turning notes into something else; like webpages or other document formats.

The Build Phase Overview

This is where the notes get transformed. My method is to use nextjs.md to generate a statically generated site. This makes the notes pleasant to look at, but also easily browsed and searched. Crucial aspects of the Zettelkasten Method. Many other implementations of the build phase are possible of course.

The build phase can also involve a lot of different middleware to customize how the transformation occurs. This can be anything from: text expansion, styling, customizing links, generate metadata and so on.

Text Expansion Middleware

When notetaking or communicating it's common to employ text expansion. This can be nice to keep in the original documents to store the zettles. For the sake of keeping text line lengths as narrow as possible for some editors, including terminal based ones where you're often short on width. However, when reviewing the notes it can be really nice to expand them to their intended meaning instead.

Here is a method of implementing text expansion of notes using a middleware script. This will parse the notes during the build phase and look for shorthands to expand to their intended meaning.

Linting

Markdown Linting

It's important to maintain consistent style based on well thought through style guides when using software, even when writing down only markup. There are markdown linters that should be part of an editor's plugins and build phase middleware like markdownlint. This tool has great support for editors like VSCode and NeoVim.

Spelling & Grammar Checks

It would really help the readability of the documents if they were spelled well and used proper grammar. This can be augmented with spelling and grammar linters like vale or write-good.

Cheat Sheet Generation

Another useful method is to use or create software that generates cheat sheets for exams when note-taking for lectures. Something like mdtarhini's Cheat Sheet Maker is a great way to generate the results.

References

• Cheat-Sheet Maker by mdtarhini on Github
• Markdownlint: A nodejs style checker & lint tool for Markdown/CommonMark (by DavidAnson on Github)
• Vale: Your style, our editor (by errata-ai)
• Write Good: A linter for English Prose (by btford on Github)