Let me just highlight some text from the original feature request. I am doing this partially to respond to the last comment but also, and more importantly, to show how things have (or have not) progressed since I first wrote this post in November of 2021.
So the first question is whether there is any reason for Logseq to move in this direction, or if it should just perhaps make it easier to move your work into one of these longform writing apps? Maybe, but to answer that question it is helpful to first understand what the alternative would look like.
I then proceeded to break down the concept into four different features:
- Handle plain text files without any bullet points
- In-text citations, as well as footnotes/endnotes
- Document management that allows one to break up larger writing projects into smaller chunks (“sheets”) and to manipulate those chucks (split, merge, etc.).
- Output to standard formats such as PDF or ODT/DOCX.
Let’s look at these one by one and ask how they actually move away from how “Logseq was designed to function”?
Well, if we skip to #2, we see that Logseq already came with Zotero support built-in, and that many people who use Logseq as a “general-purpose notes app” would greatly benefit from improving this functionality - even if the goal is only to move your notes and writing to another app later on. (Especially if you want to move your notes to another app later on!) The team seems to agree and there is some kind of effort to do this, though it seems to be stalled right now. Note that the plan here is to have this as a plugin, so there is no need to radically rewrite Logseq for this.
There is also a good discussion about how to handle export to PDF and DOC here in the forms. One method is using an existing PDF export plugin with some custom CSS and Logseq’s built-in document mode, another is to use a separate script to filter Logseq Markdown for processing with PanDOC. There seem to be limitations with incorporating PanDOC directly into Logseq, but hopefully some of these tricks people are already using can be packaged into some form that will make them easier for people with less technical skills to use. I personally think working with Zettlr as an intermediary is a good option, but that also could be improved to make the process smoother.
Regarding number three, there are also some plugin developments that might help. I haven’t really explored these yet, but one is Full House Templates, and Sawhney is working on a folder plugin. Not sure if these, or something like these, could provide this kind of functionality (merging and splitting sheets), or if another plugin might be written to do this, or if it would actually involve some kind of core changes to logseq? It is a bit hard for me to say on this one.
Finally, that leaves number one. A number of people who don’t even care about longform writing have been asking for the ability to handle plain markdown files in logseq for other reasons. Document mode just isn’t enough. I still think this might be handled by a page-property flag. One could imagine this being something akin to how logseq handles PDF documents - as a separate kind of entity different from one’s outline. I don’t know. For this one I could see reasons why it might not be possible or desirable, but I haven’t really seen people who actually know how Logseq works make such an argument yet, so I remain hopeful.
In summary, it appears that some of the four features I requested can be handled by plugins (some of which are already in development), while others may require more work. However, the extent of the necessary work and its impact on Logseq’s core functionality is uncertain and should be fully considered. It is possible that creating a workflow to facilitate transferring notes to another app may be sufficient, or some minor adjustments could make this step less necessary. My intention in writing this post is to initiate a discussion on this matter, which I believe is crucial. I do not see any benefit in prematurely closing this conversation based on fears or assumptions that may turn out to be unwarranted.