Matt's Roof Garden
Powered by đąRoam GardenOctober 31st, 2021
I wonder if perhaps the greatest pain isn't ambivalence but in being misunderstood. When another is so strong in their incorrect incorrect conviction it's infinitely frustrating to not be able to set the record straight. To know that the well of the world is being poisoned against you and the more you try and stop it the worse it will be
Intro to Roam November 2nd, 2021
Written up by ya cuz, Matt Vogel
Roam as a tool has a low floor and a high ceiling and becomes more useful the more content you add to it
There is no official on-boarding for roam, it's very much an "explore to find" paradigm. This can quickly lead to being overwhelmed and the idea that one must use every
Roaman Concepts
Before
Every note, essay, paper, etc are siloed. Even if they reference common information it is very difficult to create a connection between them. This is even true within a single document
In Roam Instead of a document being a unit of measure the "Block" (bullet) is the atomic unit.
Roam is an associative outliner
Blocks nested underneath are associated with the block above but not with the blocks at the same level
The Power of indentation
The importance of Expand/Collapse
Focus on a single block tree for clarity
Pages and Tags
Memory is associative in many different ways
If you write on the daily notes page indented under a page tag your writing will show up referenced to that page. Looking through references you can begin to see a "spine" of your notes
In Roam relationships cascade downwards
If you want a section of information
Try to Avoid tagging the same thing multiple times within one 'tree' unless you specifically want to associate a block
Attributes are slightly different. They associate a attribute (can be a page name) and associated values with the block directly above
Example
Giraffes
height:: 4.5m - 6m
colors::
Yellow
Brown
Peacocks
colors::
blue
orange
green
References (
Inline
Very useful information
A separate place where I want to reference that
You can also create an alias to that useful block *
Linked and Unlinked
Embeded
Embedding a block (accessed from the Slash Menu
Misc
Templates [[roam/templates]]
roam/ namespaces are special and are reserved for customizations to your graph
Versions
Word options/version
{{or: option 1 | option 2}}
{{or: Option 1|OPTION 2}}
Block Versions/Options
Interface
Sidebar
Slash Menu
Search
Block Search
Searching across the adjacent graph blocks using (( ))
Graph Search
Advanced Search
Queries
This can be clunky so there is an extension to make it dead simple
DO SCIENCE with Attribute Tables
{{attr-table:[[Lectures in Series]]}}
{{attr-table:height}}
{{attr-table:Lectures in Series}}
Filtering
Filtering is extremely powerful once you start to build up many pages. By seeing a quick overview of referenced pages you can quickly filter out unwanted or unneeded information. Works for both pages and zoomed in blocks!
Help Menu
Misc
Multibar
Page options (right click on page name)
Misc
The Roam team is small but they're dedicated to making this as accessible as they can. They have a scholarship program set up to decrease the months price, even to $0 if you ask, and they are very liberal with awarding it. Anyone can apply, there are no requirements beyond need. I applied when I was unemployed and they gave me a significant discount for a full year. If you're interested you can apply here
Roam is particularly helpful with creating a zettelkasten