vizk
, short for VIsualise ZettelKasten, is a component of settle
written
in HTML and Javascript through which you may interact with your Zettelkasten in
your web browser of choice.
Under the hood, it uses d3.js for the simulation and the
rendering and, aside from having to import this single depepdency, the
visualiser is ran completely offline. If you don't have an internet connection
when you first run vizk
, then nothing will show up because d3.js
couldn't
have been imported.
You may highlight nodes and their connection by hovering with your mouse on them, you may drag nodes, and you may play around with a few parameters (namely, node size, link thickness, link distance, link attraction force, repulsion force, and the force of attraction to the center) through sliders.
You may turn query results into a visualisation by using the --graph "vizk"
option:
$ settle query --graph "vizk"
That prints the visualiser's code. But in order to do something useful, you'd ideally save it as a file and open it with your preferred browser (e.g. Firefox):
$ settle query --graph "vizk" >vizk.html
$ firefox vizk.html
Note that the graph data is hardcoded in the HTML file, so to visualise any change to your Zettelkasten you must re-run the command and re-open the file in your browser.
The following screenshots were took using Firefox 117.0, using a Zettelkasten of a bit more than 500 notes (including "ghosts", which are files that have been referenced but don't yet exist).
And here's an example highlighting a node and its links: