Directory Tree

The Directory Tree plugin automatically creates a Folgezettel Heterarchy reflecting the dirtectory tree of your notes. In effect, it does the following:

1. Create a “directory zettel” on the fly for each sub-directory containing zettels
2. Tag every zettel with hierarchical Tags (root/**) corresponding to its path
3. Create folgezettel links (see Linking) automatically reflecting the directory tree
4. Display the directory contents below the zettel note.

The intention is to allow the user to define the bulk of their Folgezettel Heterarchy using filesystem layout.

Working with Directory Zettels

Given a file ./Home/Projects/HouseWarming.md this plugin will create three zettels with Zettel IDs Home, Projects, and HouseWarming. In the Web interface, neuron will display the “contents” of a directory beneath the zettel content.

Directory names must be globally unique across the entire zettelkasten, inasmuch they directly reflect Zettel ID which must also be unique. This means that two directories or zettels with the same name but in different paths will not work: having both ./Home/Projects/HouseWarming and ./Work/Projects/FireZeMissiles will cause Neuron to attempt to generate two zettels with the ID Projects, which will cause an error. In order to resolve this error, and to keep the zettel IDs Atomic and autonomous, it would be better to rename both notes to ./Home/HomeProjects/ and ./Work/WorkProjects/.

Adding content to a Directory Zettel

The zettel content for directory zettels are by default empty, only showing a list of links to its contents. However, you may explicitly specify them by creating zettel files using the same Zettel ID; for the example above, you may create ./HomeProjects.md- and it will be “merged” to the auto-created directory zettel:

# Directory structure

└─Home/
  ├── HomeProjects/        # HomeProjects **directory** zettel
  │   └── HouseWarming.md
  └── HomeProjects.md      # Note whose content will be merged into the HomeProjects **directory** zettel

# Generated HTML notes

- Home.html
- HomeProjects.html
- HouseWarming.html

No addtional zettels are generated, but any content in the HomeProjects.md file will be shown in the generated HomeProjects.html file in the Web interface.

Directory Zettels are normal zettels

When Neuron is configured to use the Directory Tree plugin, it looks for all the markdown files in your repository, regardless of how many folders deep they are (but filtered out if the Ignoring files plugin is in use).

The directory structure you have on disk is used to automatically create a Folgezettel Heterarchy.

Once Neuron generates the Zettelkasten, the directory structure is discarded from memory and not used in the Web interface. All of the generated notes are made accessible at the ‘top’ level of the generated site–you don’t need to navigate down the on-disk directory structure in the Web interface.

This is one reason why it’s good practice to give your directories an Atomic and autonomous Zettel ID–once you’ve generated your zettelkasten, you no longer have the parent directories around to provide context, because the context is provided by the zettel’s location in the Folgezettel Heterarchy (as can be visually seen in Uplink Tree). The example from before, ./Home/Projects, would create a note for your home projects with the ID Projects–we can no longer tell that it is specifically home projects. (The other reason it is good to have unique IDs is to avoid ID clash, as covered above.)

Automatically created folgezettel heterarchies

Even though the on-disk directory structure is discarded, the information it carries is preserved by Neuron when it creates a Folgezettel Heterarchy between a Directory Zettel and its child notes/contents.

Putting the HomeProjects.md zettel inside the Home/ folder creates a parent-to-child folgezettel relationship from Home to HomeProjects, as if you had a Home.md note that included a folgezettel link to HomeProjects.md in its content.

This structure

└─Home/
  └── HomeProjects.md

creates a relationship equivalent to that created by these two notes, side by side, with a folgezettel link from the Home.md note to the HomeProjects.md note:

<!-- ./Home.md -->
---
date: 2020-12-31
---

# Home

I'm working on some [[HomeProjects]]# right now.

<!-- ./HomeProjects.md -->
---
date: 2020-12-31
---

# Home Projects

- fix the leaky faucet
- paint the bathroom

The Directory Tree plugin only triggers on folders inside the Neuron zettelksaten

The Folgezettel Heterarchy is created from the level 1 subfolders. The index zettel will display its contents, but they will be non-folgezettel.

Creating links and heterarchies outside the directory

Directory Zettles just being normal zettels also means that you can link and create any Folgezettel Heterarchy you like with the zettels created from directory trees. For example, we could create a new zettel called Projects.md at the ‘top’ of our Neuron zettelkasten, to gather together all of our more focused project zettels, as a sort of gateway:

# Directory structure

├── Projects.md
├── Work/
│   └── WorkProjects/
│      └── FireZeMissiles.md
└─ Home/
   ├── HomeProjects/
   │   └── HouseWarming.md
   └── HomeProjects.md

<!-- ./Projects.md -->
---
date: 2020-12-31
tags:
  - work
  - home
---

# All Projects

Right now, my [[WorkProjects]]# are taking most of
my focus and energy, and not leaving much time to focus
on my [[HomeProjects]]#.

Automatically created tags

In addition to creating automatic a Folgezettel Heterarchy for each directory, the plugin also Tags the notes with their on-disk path, up to, but not including their own ID. So the note at ./Home/HomeProjects/HouseWarming.md would get the hierarchical tag #root/Home/HomeProjects. These tags always start at the #root tag.

Given our work-and-home project:

├── Work/
│   └── WorkProjects/
│      └── FireZeMissiles.md
└─ Home/
   ├── HomeProjects/
   │   └── HouseWarming.md
   └── HomeProjects.md

notes would be generated with these hierarchical tags that match their folder path:

Disabling directory listing

To disable showing the branching zettels in a directory zettel, you can add the following to the YAML frontmatter (Zettel metadata):

---
dirtree:
  display: False
---

Examples

• Alien Psychology uses this plugin to organize episodes under seasons. View the commit that switched it from a tag-based organization to one using dirtree.