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Can I Use Evernote as a Wiki


jjordan

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I am constantly trying to ensure that my data can be reused and connected so I may build future thoughts.

  • I use TheBrain Software as a file content management system
  • I use Evernote for all of my data capture and notes
  • I use Mac Journal & Scivner for my articles

Recently, I have been investigating developing a wiki that would be used, sometimes privately, and other times publicly. I was wondering if I could do this in Evernote? Has anyone tried this or have a thought on how to do this?

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I am constantly trying to ensure that my data can be reused and connected so I may build future thoughts.

  • I use TheBrain Software as a file content management system
  • I use Evernote for all of my data capture and notes
  • I use Mac Journal & Scivner for my articles

Recently, I have been investigating developing a wiki that would be used, sometimes privately, and other times publicly. I was wondering if I could do this in Evernote? Has anyone tried this or have a thought on how to do this?

i find evernote to be a great environment for connecting thoughts, so if that is your goal, then you are all set! thanks dan for the kind words! indeed, index notes work great for me. evernote has the ability to share notes and notebooks, so it sounds like it would definitely fulfill your requirements for sharing.

evernote is not a wiki, though, in the sense of something like wikipedia, where multiple users are generating content. you can do that with the shared notebooks (i haven't, but i understand it is possible), but this will only be with a select group of users (i think everyone in the group has to have a premium account).

it is also not a wiki in the private sense of a personal wiki (like one you can build with voodoopad or some other similar program). these are very powerful, and highly recommended for their easy linking of information and ability to do things such as generate links automatically to content that already exists. unfortunately, if you want to do something like use your wiki on more than one type of platform (maybe create it on the mac and use it at work on windows) then you will be out of luck with most products. this is where evernote really shines.

anyhow, please take a look at the link dan posted. here is how i use it for research.

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernoteresearch.html

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  • 3 months later...
  • 10 months later...

I have been trying to get Evernote to have wiki-like abilities, after finding Voodoopad lacking in some important areas. While I am not personally as interested in the opening sharing aspect of wikis, I love how they create an inter-linked web of my notes organically. Primarily, wikis allow you to create new pages that don't exist within a current note and link to them from the current note. Essentially you can create a tree of index notes organically. I loved this function of Voodoopad, so I tried to re-create it in Evernote. I discuss my strategies here: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/38682-wikify-evernote-via-applescript/#entry209409. I use Applescript to turn WikiWords in an Evernote note into new notes with those WikiWord titles and then create links to them within the current note. It is a beta script, and doesn't have all the functionality I want yet, but it does wikify your Evernote

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Update: I have trouble-shooted my scripts and combined them to give Mac users a one-stop shop way to turn Evernote into a Wiki. Check out my other posts for more specific info, as well as the preamble to the script. But essentially this Applescript will allow you to generate links to pre-existing notes that have the "Wiki" tag and to generate new notes if you type WikiWords or [[term]] into your note. It uses the Evernote Mac client, TextMate, and the Markdown2Evernote command for TextMate. Other than that, its all script. I've been using it for a week or so now, debugging along the way, and it works well for me. I've attached the most recent script below as a .txt file. Simply open, copy and paste into the Applescript Editor. 

 

 

Wikify Combined v.3.txt

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  • 2 months later...

For those who prefer to write in Markdown, but want the HTML to reside in Evernote, the Markdown2Evernote service by Brett Terpstra and Martin Kopischke is great. I've also updated it to add wiki functionality. If your interested, my most recent blog post discusses my update, has a download of my version, and links to Martin's most up-to-date version as well: http://bit.ly/17eSfGg 

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I have thought about this recently too. Here's my comparison and thinking.

Wiki

1. Designed for editing by multiple users concurrently - think teams

2. History of changes

3. Structured and hierarchical

4. Latest versions like Confluence include Social features such as Activity Streams

Evernote

1. Personal notebooks and notes

2. Selective sharing & co-editing by others

3. Tagging

4. History for Premium users

You can allow others to edit even if they don't have a Premuim account, you have to have one and their changes are applied to your account usage. Two things that make Evernote difficult to replace a wiki, one, no social features like activity streams or discussions associated to a note (hope they don't get distracted by this and add it). Second, merging is manual when two or changes occur especially when someone is performs offline editing and syncs.

What I do like and is also available in most good wiki's is search capabilities. Both wiki's and EN do this extremely well and if you use Tags on your notes, it's easier than having to think about wiki structure, hierarchy, linking, and indexing.

I have used EN to share lots of notes (mostly from clippings via iPad or pfd's from external sources) with a number of people. In addition, have also co-edited a note all with personal premium edition. The Business edition makes it even easier; so, if you look at that version, now you might have a closer match.

Also, if your company is super security sensitive and/or data is confidential, an on-premise wiki may be better.

What you can't beat EN for is all the device support and all the various methods to add content - I love it.

Just started using Postach.io with Evernote for blogging too, really simple and all blog posts stay in EN.

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  • 6 months later...

so glad to see this thread here.  I've thrown my life into wikispaces and didn't give up when tiddlyspace came along just to see how far the wiki paradigm could go!

 

interestingly enough, I never dived into Evernote thinking it might be "rendered" as wiki until I saw Postach.io share what was possible - that a notebook could be rendered as a blog.  bingo- case in point!

 

@Derek H - could you post a new link to your project?   they seem to have replaced your page with the DevCup winners and i firmly believe your idea has merit up there with Postach.io! :)

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I realize this thread is a bit old, but add one more for being interested in this topic. Apps like Mohiomap are great for visualization, but the ideal solution would be to have a more wiki-like way of linking between my notes.

 

 

Exactly! Postach.io + Moh.io with a bit of impress.js thrown in.

 

My dream is to be able to publish (multiple) notebooks that automagically reference related notes, as seen in the Desktop client, where notes are presented as cards (like impress.js) but hyperlinked like in Moh.io... seems within reach. It's a more pinterest card-like presentation of Moh.io. 

 

Want/need!

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Hey there,

 

I m really glad to found this thread. 

 

Wisdom management is a huge topic for me. I ve been carrying around 3000 Bookmarks, thinking about transforming them into a kind of personal wiki.

 

I was happy to read what hackademic had been posting here. I had been trying nvalt, markdown, simplenote ... but i love visualsation, and folder struktur, -> with tags and on several devices usable would be great.

So that brought me to the idea of a local personal wiki, which would be cool to be reached at a browser bar search. But I guess evernote desktop is perfect to, if this script from hackademic works for me.

 

I just wanna encourage u guys, there is a huge demand for effective managed knowledge. I really dont wanna start every time over and search at google for the same stuff.

 

So cheers from Berlin

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