Hierarchies

Dendron has hierarchies. They are represented by . delimited filenames.

Below is the example of converting a normal hierarchy from a file system to a Dendron hierarchy.

.
└── project1/
    ├── project1/designs/
    │   └── project1/designs/promotion.png
    ├── project1/paperwork/
    │   └── project1/paperwork/legal.md
    └── project1/tasks/
        ├── project1/tasks/task1.md
        └── project1/tasks/task2.md

The same hiearchy in Dendron would look like the following:

.
├── project1.md
├── project1.designs.md
├── project1.designs.promotion.md
├── project1.paperwork.md
├── project1.paperwork.legal.md
├── project1.tasks.md
├── project1.tasks.task1.md
└── project1.tasks.task2.md

Why Hierarchies?

Dendron is built around hierarchies and the axiom that a canonical hierarichal representation of notes is one of the most effective ways of managing large numbers of notes. You can read more about the thoughts behind this here.

What’s with the .’s?

1. It allows each file to also be a folder. This means your notes can have data but also contain other notes.
2. It makes it much easier to perform certain refactoring operations
   • for example, say you had the following schema ```yml
   • id: a-parent children:
     • child-a
     • child-b
   • id: child-a
   • id: child-b ```
   • lets say you wanted to make child-b a child of child-a ```yml
   • id: a-parent children:
     • child-a
   • id: child-a children:
     • child-b
   • id: child-b ```
   • with the classical folder hierarchy, you would need to turn child-a into a folder and then create a custo file to hold the content from the original child-a

      .
      └── a-parent
       └── child-a
           ├── child-a-note
           └── child-b
     

   • with the . delimited hierarchy, this becomes a simple rename operation

      .
      ├── a-parent.child-a
      └── a-parent.child-a.child-b
     

3. It allows us to create stubs for parts of the hierarchy that don’t exist and not clutter our file system with empty folders
   • with the classical folder hierarchy

      .
      └── a-parent
       └── child-a
           └── grandchild-a
               └── great-grandchild-a.md
     

   • with the . delimited hierarchy

      .
      └── a-parent.child-a.grandchild-a.great-grandchild-a.md