The more I use gnosis, the more I notice design faults inherited from the software I was previously using.

Using decks for themata (flashcards/questions)

Decks will be removed.

Similarly to Anki, decks provided a restriction, not a feature. A thema can only belong to one deck, many-to-one, while tags are many-to-many.

Themata in gnosis are already organized based on tags and you can customize the review algorithm per tag using gnosis-algorithm-custom-values.

Exports for “collections” will now be based on tags. I plan to add tag filters for exports, e.g +anatomy -clinical to export all themata tagged with anatomy, excluding clinical.

Separating gnosis from org-gnosis and org-gnosis-ui

org-gnosis will be merged into gnosis, using a single unified database.

The idea was to have a minimal note taking system with a separate ui package that uses the browser, recreating the workflow I had with org-roam but with support for linking themata to nodes for topic-specific reviews.

In hindsight, this separation was a design mistake:

  • Using org-gnosis without gnosis has no real benefits.
  • A separate org-gnosis-ui that recreates an obsidian-style graph in the browser provides no real benefit beyond “visualizing” the collection.
    • Using tabulated-list in emacs to display nodes, their backlinks/links and their linked themata provides actual workflow usage. You can start reviews for specific nodes from the dashboard, filter for contents and view relations, all within emacs.
  • Maintaining two separate databases for no real value.

Review by topic algorithm

Gnosis supports reviewing all themata linked to a specific node, which means themata are often reviewed before they are due. The interval calculation now uses elapsed time as the basis, but on success keeps the later of the computed/existing scheduled date. The thema’s score and review streak are still updated, so early reviews contribute to progression without distorting the schedule.

This ensures that early successful reviews cannot inflate or deflate intervals. On failure the computed interval is used directly since early failure is genuinely informative.

[New Feature] Exporting themata with their linked nodes

Gnosis exports will optionally include all the linked nodes for the exported themata. This means that current collections, like Unking, will provide ready-to-use collections where users can both review themata and browse the related material.