A Hierarchical Tool for Thought
In the summer of 2020, I launched Dendron - a note-taking tool that helps you manage information using flexible hierarchies.
You can refer to my earlier pieces to read about why hierarchies matter.
A question I'm often asked is what makes Dendron different from all the other tools which also have hierarchies.
These are mainstay note-taking tools like Evernote, One Note, Google Docs, etc
My response: all these tools have hierarchy - none of them support hierarchy.
The hierarchies in these tools are cumbersome things that tend to get in the way of thought rather than enhance it. They exist, take up space, and sometimes cause a great deal of pain - they are like the human appendix.
The hierarchies in Dendron are fluid and powerful. They let you find and work with knowledge like the mind works with thoughts. Like the human brain, these hierarchies are can synthesize vast amounts of information and help transmute it into useful outcomes.
Dendron supports hierarchies. Specifically, this means that the hierarchies in Dendron are fast, flexible and functional.
Fast
Fast hierarchies allow users to work with information instantly.
Traditionally hierarchies are not fast. Clumsy, slow, manual maybe - but not fast. Traditional hierarchies require you to manually navigate all its levels before you can even see your notes. They require that you construct empty edifices in their name before you can even use them.
Dendron is fast. Even with thousands of notes, accessing anything by hierarchy can be done in under a second. This is because Dendron uses lookup - a way of referencing your notes by their hierarchical path. This works even if you enter a partial path.
This path-based lookup is not just for finding your notes but also for creating them. Lookup will dynamically create hierarchies that don't exist. This is true even if the path is a new hierarchy that is many levels deep. And if you decide that this is not to be, Dendron will clean up the hierarchy when you delete the note.
