@oantolin of course. Well, I shouldn’t say it like that, it’s “of course” for me. I started out with vanilla Emacs and org-mode and did that for a couple of years until Denote came out. I much prefer the philosophy behind it over org roam, which I don’t like (I never jumped on that whole Zettelkasten thing).
@jtr Are your denote files in org syntax, markdown or very plain text? What would you say made denote a better fit for you than org?
@oantolin In my mind, it doesn’t replace org, it’s just a natural way to write in org-mode (I write in org-mode). I understand you probably mean plain org files.
That’s a long answer I should probably post about… but in general, it just introduced (or reintroduced) plenty of things I was already doing but not consistently enough. When I write a note in Denote, I have the basic building blocks that remind me what I should include so I have a good technical document in front of me (that’s my usual usecase), completed with the right keywords, links, images, etc.
I had my own wiki org files before Denote, and it was messier, and finding things was harder. So it’s not really a replacement for “vanilla” org, more like an enhanced version. I hope this answers your question somehow at least.
@jtr Ah, I think I see. Please let me know if I understood correctly. You have requirements that push you towards keeping separate notes in separate files (so that each is a full technical document), and denote helps you then keep the structure of those files consistent and keep the files organized and easy to find?
@oantolin Yes, this is an important part of it. As I said, you made me consider a post about it, so here it is: taonaw.com/2026/01/2… hopefully it explains things a bit further… thanks for asking 😀