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Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

I use org-wiki and did try out org roam for a quick test.

Isn’t the main problem with org roam or similar solutions that the file names are random?

I quite like having searchable names. I’m a bit worried that when the database is lost I have a problem recovering the metadata.

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In org-roam v2, file names are definitely not random.

For example, when calling org-roam-node-find to create a new note, say I type "This is My New Note". The file created is named "this_is_my_new_note.org".

Here's an article regarding workflow from the maintainer that I found quite helpful: https://jethrokuan.github.io/org-roam-guide/

I was also worried about filenames, the database, custom ids and all that. It all felt over-engineered for my modest purposes. In true Emacs spirit, the logical conclusion was that I had to implement my own Zettelkasten system:

https://github.com/tmalsburg/mwk.el

The database in org-roam is a cache for performance. It can be removed at any time and it will be rebuilt from the metadata contained in the files.

org-roam file names are configurable (see org-roam-template slug formation), by default are ctime timestamp followed by note title stripped of eventual special char/spaces. Beside that personally when I need more than just direct heading search&narrow and org-ql is overkill a simple counsel-rg (or consult, helm etc depending on your taste) works very well so I'm feeling exactly no need to access notes via filesystem.

Actually using org-attach and linking I essentially chased to use the classic filesystem + file manager for almost all my in-home activities, everything is accessed via org-roam-node-find and works beautifully well.

I don't think org-roam uses random filenames nowadays. When I add a new page to my org-roam instance, I choose the filename and a UUID is added to the page's header.

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