Bookdown contest submission: Saghir's Notebook 'Wiki'

Saghir's Notebook 'Wiki': an alternative use of bookdown as a "wiki".

Demo website available at: https://saghirb.github.io/My-Notebook-Template/

Source available from https://github.com/saghirb/My-Notebook-Template

Book For One Person - Me (or you)

Objective:

To quickly access notes, personal information, coding tips, reference links, birthdays, addresses, telephone numbers, etc. in one place.

Why?

  • To have key personal information and notes at my finger tips.
  • All in one place.
  • Hosted locally (due to sensitive info) on my computers and smart phone.
  • Easy to maintain and update.

How?

Using the HTML version of R bookdown book as a personal wiki which can be copied (synced) across devices. Default bookdown HTML stlye is more than good enough.

Pros:

  • All my key information is one place :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:
  • Immediately available on my browser (default homepage).
  • No more random files with notes, address book, bits of paper, post-it notes, bookmarks, etc.
  • Copy and paste friendly.
  • As the only reader I can organise and re-organise it as I please.
  • Easy to maintain and update.
  • HTML version of book works great on all devices.
  • The built in bookdown search does the job of finding information quickly.
  • No server needed.

Cons:

  • Have to sync after each update.
  • First version took time to create.
1 Like

I have never imagined people would use bookdown for this purpose, but it is definitely a very interesting use case! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks @yihui.

Just to add that more or less every day that I log in on my PC, I add something new and search for info. Days when I don't use a PC, it is available on my phone. It is almost my personal assistant :wink: My attempts at maintaining a wiki usually died within a week. I strong recommend this alternative use case :+1:t4:

I updated GitHub repository README.md file with the following clarification:

Important note: I should have called this "My-Example-Notebook-Wiki" or something similar. It is not a template in the traditional sense and was only intended to mean "my example structure and content" (i.e. showcase). I will leave the repository name as it is to prevent having broken links elsewhere.