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Gingko app - an Evernote supplement?


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A forum member suggested that I start a thread on Gingko app

 

I threw out an idea here, using Gingkoapp as a "Living tree of knowledge" and how that might play out as a possible user-moderated Knowledge Base for Evernote. So chime in on that if you wish...

 

But rather, the topic of this thread (as a forum member suggested I create one) would be to highlight Gingko App as a supplement to one's Evernote workflows. 

 

The basic premise of Gingko is that it is a tree-based word processor (only one of its kind that exists). I'd describe it as the love child of Trello and WorkFlowy, with both the ability to do complex outlining (including adding images) as well as giving us cards within a column setup - if you choose to look at that perspective. Someone also mentioned a folder within a folder sort of setup... except that it is not bound by the notebook/ folder concept. It's more versatile than that.

 

Specifically, Gingko shines as a writing app, since, after all, it is a tree-based word processor. Additionally,  unlike the classical outliner, it does allow for image linking (including from your Dropbox), so you get to have your writing and your image cues all bundled in there.

 

You can take a look at this intro video, which runs you through the basic concept in under a minute and a half.

 

Just like many other apps out there, Gingko app allows one to pop Evernote note links into a card... and so your note housed in Evernote is just a click away (sounds like a cheesy ad, I know!). However, it's not so much that you can pop a note link into a Gingko card - it's more the dynamic of the app that lends itself to cross-platform information management. The information below in blue is simply an arbitrary example, at it's most basic, to demonstrate cross-platform workflows. So, you can actually save time and skip over it...

 

For example, since Evernote has many on-ramps (ways of getting your stuff into Evernote), it is a great sort of collection bucket (as GTD likes to call it) - whether web clippings, ideas, etc. Most people already have established workflows regarding information collection in Evernote. In turn, a large portion of our reference material in Evernote might not be of the format desired for exporting into other apps (such as Gingko). Therein lies the basic 2-way tagging system that can be set up in Evernote and any supplementary app:

 

If one is primarily doing the collecting in Evernote - and the creative writing and shuffling of ideas in Gingko - one would need a system in place to make sure that for any given project, every idea has some sort of a representation in Gingko, and the notes/ material that remain in a specific notebook context in Evernote, be tagged as having already been sorted. Basic ideas/ text structures may also be deleted from Evernote if one wishes.

 

More practically, any information represented in Gingko would have an #EN (Evernote tag) with an accompanying link... and any reference material in Evernote already transferred over/ represented would get a #Gingko tag. That way, whenever one wants to sort through a notebook in Evernote to deal with any outstanding ideas that have not as yet been transferred, one would search the notebook, excluding the already sorted notes as such:

 

notebook:"10 ideas every day" -"#Gingko" (by the way, you can use the actual Evernote tags themselves... or you can create your own tags with a pound sign, which can be added to the body or the title of the note - pretty much the way "Grumpy Monkey" does. 

 

Here the minus sign is crucial. This will exclude all material already sorted through and will leave unsorted material at the forefront, ready to be dealt with. 

 

That's the long-winded way of introducing you to a very polished, highly practical and beautifully aesthetic writing environment in Gingko - whether one is looking for basic inter-connectivity mechanisms across the two apps or not. 

 

Now here's your chance to discuss and point out anything related to how Gingko may in any way complement Evernote. Of course, you would need to at least get a glimpse/ tinker with the app. I know that Gazumped was sufficiently impressed to want to delve into it a bit more. That's got to count for something, right?

 

Here is the FAQ page (in the form of a Gingko tree): https://gingkoapp.com/faq

 

Here's a template I created for a task management system:  https://gingkoapp.co...741b2a8af00000e (A public tree/ document)

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Thanks for bringing this tool to our attention, Frank.

 

The thing that appeals to me about Gingko is that not only is it a way to organize your thoughts in a hierarchical, parent-child manner, but more importantly it allows you to display them that way.  While Evernote Tags allow you to quickly find Notes, they don't really help much in displaying them in a user-selected, arbitrary manner (like a TOC).

 

Just based on the Gingko video, it looks like it is very easy to add child and sibling sections (notes?), and then drag-n-drop to reorder as you see fit.

 

Now, if there was some way to integrate Gingko documents into Evernote Search, it would be very powerful.

 

When I have some time, I plan to explore/test Gingko.

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Hi JMichael,

The proof is in the pudding  ;)

No doubt... if one can be suitably impressed by simply watching a video... wait until you get your hands on the app. It makes all the more sense. It's like watching a quick tutorial on Evernote and having your interest piqued as opposed to pushing all the buttons and literally trying it on for size with your own information. 

 

You described the app rather well, actually. To that end, it makes little difference whether you call them child and sibling sections/ notes. Gingko calls them "cards". When you move a card by dragging and dropping, all the children cards move along with it.

 

The features that Gingko offers, such as highlighting any card you click on, all the way down the children cards, and lining the information in each column up as such, is absolutely phenomenal! It needs to be taken for a test drive to understand it... on a nicely developed tree.

 

The export options are fantastic. You can export a column, specify multiple columns, a parent and it's children cards, etc... and in multiple export formats. You can also export the entire tree. Then you can pop that into Evernote if you wish in a number of ways (for searching, as you mentioned).

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