#PKM

Hello, Tana!

(2023-08-07) Just got early access to Tana. My first impressions:

• Slick UI design
• Quick response
• In-context guide

Having played with Logseq, Tana's design philosophy is now very clear. I am on my way to try implementing my glossary/terminology management/lookup system.

Logseq's live query sucks. In comparison, from the way it looks, Tana's gonna rock in that department.

At a glance

• Unified design: everything is a node
• AirTable + Notion + Roam
• An outlining app rather than writing app like Obsidian
• Supertags
• Cloud
• $10/month or $100 a year
• Still in beta, not a full publicly available commercial product
• Norwegian

Pros

Enforces structured/semantic data

AI integration

• Get ready to have your mind blown: Santi Younger's video
  • Not free
  • This seems way tighter integration than Mem.ai

Cons

• Does not support long-form writing

  • Long-form writing in Tana
    • A hack: Santi Younger's video

• No web publishing of articles

Tana's web publishing works only through "workspace." Too much remains to be seen. I won't give up the current free and working Obsidian publishing solution for something this unknown.

#Glasp

Which Is The Best? Tana or Obsidian?

Metadata

• Title: Which Is The Best? Tana or Obsidian?
• Tags: #Tana, #Obsidian, #web-publishing
• URL: https://medium.com/talkingtech/which-is-the-best-tana-or-obsidian-4c15b1e1585d

Highlights & Notes

• Publish to web I’ve shared my digital garden online using Obsidian almost since the beginning. At first, I used Obsidian Publish and then started to experiment with different options, finally settling on the Digital Garden plugin. I deleted my WordPress website and replaced it with my digital garden. It’s easy to update, even on my iPhone, a cinch to add new content and lends itself to writing. Tana has an option to publish a workspace. I think this is to facilitate sharing templates at the moment rather than a full blown publication solution.

Stian Horklev

#people

Video: Intro of Tana straight from the horse's mouth: Stian Horklev

src: 回到Axton

• Notes
  • Notion, AirTable
  • Backlinks
  • Outliner
  • Nodes (hierarchical)
  • Semantic structure through Supertags
    • Define something however you like
  • Tana templates (a bunch of fields)
    • Like creating applets or databases for anything
    • Sharable
  • Long ways to go to improve UI
  • AI
    • AI field
      e.g. AI-suggested action items based on YOUR content
      e.g. AI giving you critique of a plan
    • System of commands ("Tana Commands")
  • Command nodes
    • Ask AI
    • API
      • Webhooks
        • Whatsapp
        • Telegram
      • Automation / handshakes with other apps
  • Ecosystem (long-term goal)
    • Integration
    • Plugins
    • API
  • Input API
    • e.g. let GPT do some magic/coding for you, given sample data, like airline itineraries
    • AI for app builders
      • LangChain
  • Onboarding is a challenge for new users not familiar with workflows
  • Likely freemium model
  • AI is expensive

Tana Paste

Markdown-like input text into Tana structures.

• Video by Stian

Ev Chapman

#people

Video: Ev's first week with Tana

• #videoNote
  • Block-based Outliner like Roam + database/structured data like Notion
  • Demo node: "idea for a long-form article"
    • Supertag
    • "Opening" a node = expand the bullet point
      • Reveals some fields like "status," "type." Are they built-in or user-defined?
    • Add a tag ("#spark idea")
      • Configure the tag (e.g. "#spark idea")
      • Here, "status" and "type" are shown as the first two fields, suggesting they are user-defined.
      • Define "default content"
        • e.g. "Brain dump" : a child node!
      • Define each field
        • type
    • Add another tag (e.g. "#YouTube video")
      • It gets its own default content: "YouTube script" node
        • Can have children nodes, further defining the "YouTube script" parent node
      • The fields of this tag can have the same name, e.g. "type"
        • Can identify/pick the same "type" field as used in "#spark idea"
  • Live searches
    • Construct a query (with auto-complete help), which can be named
      • Generates a list of nodes
      • Different views (e.g. table)
      • Can be filtered (through field values)
      • Her "Content Hub," mentioned by Note Aloud (Nicola Fisher) as inspiring, is an example of a named live search.
  • Foreshadows future introduction of Tana "workflows"

!600

In 8 minutes' short video, E did a wonderful job getting me sold on Tana's main feature: Notion-like semantic structure.

CortexFutura

#people

Video: Tana fundamentals 01: UI

• #videoNote
  • A node's bullet point with gray outer circle means it's collapsed.
    • Exactly like Logseq (or Workflowy)
  • Quick keyboard shortcuts to go up or down the indentation tree of nodes
  • Root node
    • Automatically contains
      • Calendar
      • Todo
      • Everything else (nodes)
  • Command prompt: CMD+K
    • Can sort nodes
  • TanaLab
    • Regex search
  • CMD+E for quick add to daily node

Video: Tana fundamentals 02: Everything is a node

• #videoNote
  • Two ways of referencing:
    • At the beginning of a node, use @ sign to create "backlink" or "reference node"; it is identified by dotted line outline of the bullet point.
    • It works like embedding in Obsidian
      • But can be edited directly.
    • Inline reference: use also the @ sign. Shows as a link (underline). Click on it to visit the node.
      • If the referenced node hasn't been created, you'll be prompted to create it, and it goes under the Library node (child of root).
      • SHIFT-click will embed it below the node.
  • MOVE TO command, 3 destinations
    - Home
    - Library
    - Today
  • Backlinks are shown at the end of a node, the "referenced in" section.
  • Views
    • as table
    • as list
    • as cards
    • as columns
    • as tabs

Video: Tana fundamentals 03: Data about nodes

• #videoNote
  • Think of a tag as a relationship.
    • e.g. "Washington: A Life" is a book. Give it a tag named "book". Here, the relationship is: "is a book."
  • Indent under a node with a tag (tab), then type ">" (greater than) to create a field under the tag.
    • e.g. "Author"
      • Any previously created field names will be shown as prompt (auto-complete) when creating a field in the future.
      • Notice how a tag can be created for the value of this "Author" field (the value is the name of the author).
        • This Author tag seems to serve a different function than the Author field.
          • Duh! The Author tag is a supertag, a template. The Author field is very insignificant.
            • Appreciate the subtlety!
  • CMD-K: configure a field
    • name
    • description
    • field type
      • Anything (freeform data)
      • Instance of an existing tag (shown as #instance)
        • This is great convenience. Will remind you to add a tag in the future for the same field name.
  • Can use mouse to select multiple consecutive nodes and apply bulk change
    • e.g. add a tag
  • Tags can contain spaces
    • e.g. "US President"
  • Can tag a linked new node.
    • @ to create the link
    • Use arrow key to select the link (shows a thin blue outline)
      • !200
    • CMD-K to add a tag to it.
      • The tag won't show on current page, but it is added to the linked node:
        • !100
        • #progress
• OLDER video notes
  • CTRL-I to add a description to any node
  • Fields
    • Field types
    • Default tags
  • Tags
  • @ to reference a node
    • Typed backlinks: powerful concept
  • Views
    • Table view
      • Add a new field to the view
        • e.g. "Topic"
          • Value "US Presidents" itself is also a node

Video: Tana fundamentals 04: Live Search

• #videoNote
  • #todo/watch

Santi Younger

#people
Video: Interviewing Riccardo Busetti

• Notes
  • Cloud/sync
    • Not necessarily bad if secure
    • Pro: accessible everywhere with Internet
  • Tana has made Notion/Roam/Logseq obsolete
  • Can Tana replace Obsidian?
    • Yes if it decides to expand the node for long-form writing
  • Lacking Heptabase visuals
    • Can be built too
  • SRS: go with Anki or Mochi
  • Craft for long-form writing
    • Sharable
    • Aesthetic
  • Notion is strong with sharing/creating website
    • Santi did this but moved to Webflow, more powerful, more options

Fred Jame

#people
#paste/b
src

這兩天花最多時間做的事是深入玩Tana和AI功能的整合。雖然還不是很完整，但Tana的資料使用彈性和AI整合深度大概贏Notion有5個馬身。

但如果這些功能用不到，只是單純的做筆記，兩者的差異就沒那麼大，甚至Notion還簡單一點（會說Notion「簡單一點」，就知道Tana有多強）。

但Tana的弱點在於：

1. 資料的展現方式（字體變化、排版等等）遠不如Notion

2. 缺乏與外部資料（行事曆、通訊錄、其他SaaS等）的連結整合

3. 資料很難變成共通格式（PDF之類）跟其他軟體共享、或用於列印

4. 用於收集資料（錄音、照相、辨識文字）的手機版Tana Capture工具很好用，錄到的聲音可以在網頁版上轉成正確度相當高的文字檔（中文也可以），但目前還沒有行動app，只能用在行動裝置上很難用的網頁版。