0:01 Hello everyone, this is Eryi's Notes, a hardcore reviewer of note-taking software and productivity tools. This is the eighth episode of the comprehensive note-taking software review series, and it is the most unique one so far. For someone like me who is used to Notion and Obsidian there are indeed many different note-taking experiences. Watching until the end will surely give you a new understanding of knowledge management. This video and the ten-thousand-word article analysis on my public account took two months to complete. Your attention and support are my greatest motivation for deepening my note reviews. Subscribe to my Notion course, offering a comprehensive permanent, unlimited Q & A solution. Subscribe via WeChat code to support my independent reviews. Ever wonder why some think so profoundly? How can we establish a deep understanding of a complex concept? Science and life experiences tell us that the brain can interpret visual signals more quickly, such as the
0:49 fluctuations in the position data charts of a traffic light color map, as well as flowcharts composed of boxes, and arrows. They are far more intuitive and easier to understand than dry text. This is the foundation on which Heptabase builds its visual note-taking application using whiteboards and cards. Its core product goal is to make all complex topics more comprehensible. Whether this is indeed just a slogan, let 's continue to see… Developed by Zhan Yuhan from Taiwan, it is cross-platform, enabling cloud synchronization on mobile, computer and web. It can be used offline locally and also allows for bulk export of the entire note library. The cards on the whiteboard support markdown syntax. It supports bidirectional connections and allows tagging of cards. And use tags to build a simplified version of a Notion database. we can extract scattered thoughts from our minds and turn them into cards.
1:37 They can be freely placed, just like an electronic notepad. You can visualize the path of your thoughts connecting the cards. The direction indicated by the arrows represents the direction of thought, extending a single topic in one direction and continuously questioning to gain a deeper understanding. It can also be split into multiple themes to explore a broader understanding. When you find certain cycles within the complex connections, you can establish a more systematic framework for this system. But you might wonder, what is the difference between this type of map and a mind map? You may also be curious why I chose to subscribe and spend a lot of money instead of using the completely free whiteboard in Obsidian? let me help you fully understand this product with practical examples. In the upper left corner are the six major modules of Heptabase: diary, whiteboard, cards, tags, tasks, and
2:23 highlights. Let 's start with the diary module, where each day is a card titled with the date. you do n't have to worry about the classification of diary documents; you can quickly enter fragmented information of the day to prevent forgetting. For example, sudden inspirations, to-do items, or just the daily diary itself. With support for mobile cloud synchronization, your notes can be recorded anytime and accessed anytime. The text formats supported by cards are quite rich, including outline nodes, collapsible lists, function and code blocks. You can also embed audio, PDF files, or online videos, just like in Notion, by using slash commands to bring up the function menu. For example, using the 'template' command allows you to quickly insert a note template, and the 'to do' command lets you insert to-do items. All to-do items will be consolidated in the task module in the sidebar, while all cards will be stored in the
3:10 card library in the sidebar. Cards can be opened in a pop-up window and can be displayed in full screen by clicking. In the sidebar button at the top right, you can search for and open other cards, and drag any paragraph across cards. this card itself can be embedded and used in any number of whiteboards. One update synchronizes everywhere, just like the quick synchronization in Notion or the embedded blocks in Logic. You can also drag paragraphs from a card onto the whiteboard to create a new card and generate a hyperlink at the original location. The whiteboard is the core component of Heptabase. A whiteboard can be used to learn or manage a topic. If this topic can be divided into multiple subtopics, you can directly create any number of sub-whiteboards on the main whiteboard to achieve the goal of managing whiteboards with whiteboards. Double-clicking on the blank space with the left mouse button can create a new card; each card is a page of
3:58 notes. These notes can be freely dragged, arranged, aligned, and grouped. Of course, the most important feature is that you can intuitively establish bidirectional links between cards through connections. For example, if cards A, B, and C point to D, then in the info area of card D, you can see who is linked to it and on which whiteboards it exists. what recording needs can the whiteboard meet? Product managers can analyze functional frameworks, and project management can break down task processes. Medical students can label organ structures, historians can draw timelines. Book lovers can manage their collections and notes, travelers can create mailing strategies, and those who enjoy thinking can break down problems, or like me, use it to document the learning process. Plan the operational direction of the knowledge sphere or use it to record the principles of my own
4:43 summarized notes. Each card here can be quickly folded or unfolded, and can also be fully opened and browsed with one click in the sidebar. I will pin the links to all note examples in the comments section. Heptabase also supports online sharing of whiteboards. Other tools like Obsidian or Logic, which also use bidirectional notes. Because the perspective of the graph is too high, each node can only display the note title. And it can not display the content of the notes, and there are only connections between nodes without direction. Such a graph can only be described as chaotic, thus it can almost only provide entertainment value. In contrast, the whiteboard can provide a moderately elevated overview for multiple information nodes. Enlarging the card allows for focused writing, while shrinking the card shows which notes are related to the current note. Arrows can distinguish who is the subject, who is the process, and who is the conclusion.
5:29 I believe that using such a graph can truly convey effective information. Back to the main topic, in addition to text cards, images, videos, mind maps, and complete PDF files can also be directly embedded on the whiteboard. You can open the PDF in the sidebar for reading, and it supports underlining and annotating any paragraph of the article. You can also take screenshots of scanned PDF files by selecting them with a box, and then you can drag them onto the whiteboard to turn them into a card. Clicking can also return you to the original text location. this is how I use the whiteboard to read a book. Create a card as the starting point for each chapter. I will consciously summarize important concepts or conclusions, then write the card title as a sentence or phrase that can be directly quoted, with the card title serving as the argument, and the evidence coming from
6:16 the original text paragraphs in the PDF. As the understanding of the article deepens, multiple scattered cards can point to a higher-level conclusion or use bidirectional links within the cards to directly index sub-cards that can serve as evidence. The benefit of reading with the whiteboard is that you become particularly attentive, as the placement of the cards and the direction indicated by the arrows must be given certain meanings. The meaning comes from the summaries after careful reading and thoughtful consideration. Blank cards lacking evidence will prompt you to further dissect the book to find more relevant original text paragraphs. Isolated cards will make you think about how to integrate them into the existing thought framework. The connections between cards and their spatial distribution can intuitively reflect how many branching nodes are needed to move from one conclusion to another.
7:02 In this way, we confine the brain 's thought process to the whiteboard in a visual manner. In addition to being able to upload PDF files, you can also use the built-in plugin to save web articles into the card library. You can also establish a connection with the third-party app Readwise, which specializes in managing 'read later. Any webpage text marked with Readwise will be promptly synced to Haptabase, becoming a card that can be embedded into any whiteboard. By clicking on the card, you can also jump back to the original webpage, allowing your reading and marking to be traceable. as you accumulate more articles, themes of thought, and created whiteboards, there will always be some cards with unclear conclusions left in certain corners. Due to the challenging nature of structured management of the whiteboard, these cards are likely to be
7:50 which is when the tagging system can be utilized. We can consciously tag these cards with corresponding labels, such as questions, to-dos, inspirations, or etc. These tags will be aggregated in the tag tab of the sidebar. When you click on a tag, you will find that all cards with the same tag are listed in this table, and this table can further add various fields to more accurately describe the attributes or status of the cards. Does n't it feel a bit like Notion? It can also create different views. And add different filtering conditions to various fields. For example, under the topic tag, you can filter out the topics that have already been written.
8:36 Under the task tag, you can switch to the Kanban view and use status attributes like to-do, in progress, and completed to better manage these task cards. The Hepta base database is still quite basic, but its standout feature is that, unlike multi-dimensional tables like Feishu, each piece of data here can be opened as an independent note page, and tags can span across different whiteboards, aggregating cards of the same nature. In contrast, once a database is established in Notion, the data source becomes fixed. At this point, we have introduced several basic modules . If we deduce from the lifecycle of knowledge, a simple understanding could be this: the reduction and storage plugin is responsible for exploring diaries, the highlighting module is for quick collection, the whiteboard is used for visual assistance in thinking, and the card body can be used for in-depth creation. You can now share a complete whiteboard online.
9:24 the sharing feature for individual cards will also be launched. do you think this will be a note-taking tool that helps you establish a deep understanding of everything ? On a scale of five, please give your rating in the comments. The reason we find some people 's thinking very profound is that they excel at discovering unfamiliar yet reasonable connections within topics you are familiar with, or they can use concepts you know to aid understanding in unfamiliar topics. So using plugins to reduce articles or filling a whiteboard with cards does not mean you truly possess that knowledge. Deep understanding still needs to be built on two foundations: one is finding the connections between pieces of information, and the other is attributing and modeling the essence of the problems. If a card is referenced by multiple whiteboards, there will be a prompt at the top of the card.
10:10 If this card is linked to other cards, the info area at the bottom of the card can also quickly navigate you to the target location. By reading the context of the thoughts recorded on the whiteboard, you can perform comparative analysis. The differences in the application of the same information in different themes and contexts occur at this moment of deep thinking. Unidirectional arrows represent causal relationships, mind maps show hierarchical relationships, left-right arrangements can present the sequence of time, and bottom-to-top represents a pyramid structure. From top to bottom is the funnel model, and the cyclical cards can simply summarize a pattern. During the process of use, our brains remain active in searching for and discovering connections between as visual signals are easier to immerse in and understand than straightforward text. You can scan the QR code of my public account and reply with the number 008 to get this detailed analysis of
10:58 ten thousand words. In addition to more feature analyses, practical cases, and beginner suggestions, there are also discussions related to Logic Notion and. Comparisons on Canvas are also available in my Notion course, which offers a one-stop experience from beginner to advanced, always accessible. You can subscribe by scanning the WeChat QR code, which will support me in independently evaluating more excellent products. See you next time.
