Linux download of the week: Zim
Lifehacker has a Windows- and mac-centric download of the day, so I’m starting a less ambitious linux download of the week. You might say, “that’s stupid,” and it is, kind of. A more appropriate title might be “linux install of the week” because most linux distributions already pre-install most of the software you might need, and they have thousands of applications available in software repositories that you can install with just a few keystrokes. Anyway, this inaugural post goes to Zim desktop wiki. It’s a wiki, outliner, and TODO manager rolled into one.
I love simple tools that let you capture and organize information quickly and easily. When I first started using a desktop wiki (Instiki on Mac, then Newton on linux), I liked having the flexibility of a wiki with the speed of a local desktop app. Unfortunately, Newton development seems to have lagged and I haven’t bothered trying to fix it for Ubuntu again (I know there’s a workaround), so I’m giving Zim a try.
One interesting thing about Zim is that you don’t have to use wiki formatting syntax, so you can just create and edit pages in real time–no need to click an “edit” link. You can use key combinations to apply formatting rules as you type, or use the toolbar buttons. Some formatting rules, like headings and bullets, appear as you type (cool); others, like bold, require you to refresh the page with control-r.
Another nice feature of Zim is that it uses namespaces. You can therefore create different sections in your wiki. Namespaces are set off by a colon. For example, typing Blackboard:Scripts creates a Scripts page under the Blackboard page. Is it a wiki page or a directory? Both I guess (see screenshot).
When you want to share your wiki, you’ve got access to the plain text files (with wiki markup), or you can export to HTML.
Ubuntu users can install Zim with sudo apt-get install zim.
September 16th, 2007 - 7:30 am
Zim rules!