14.1 Taking a note ¶

Super+Alt+i, over whatever you’re doing, opens a small box. Write the note; the first line is its title. Or press Super+F9 and speak: dictation types into the box. C-c C-c keeps it, C-c C-k drops it.

Super+Alt+Shift+i does the same with what you had selected quoted in the note.

Each note lands at once at the end of ~/Dropbox/notes/inbox.org, with when you wrote it and the window you were in (and, in Firefox or Nyxt, the page’s address). From a terminal or a script: inbox add "call the bank". In Emacs: C-c n c.

14.2 Sorting the inbox ¶

Super+Alt+Shift+s opens a terminal and asks the model Super+i uses (vikix ai use: one on this laptop, or Claude, and then your notes’ text goes to Anthropic, as it says first) where each note belongs: which file in the folder, and which top heading in it. It also guesses which notes are things to do. You see the list before anything moves:

   1  Check the Q3 numbers  → work.org   to-do
   2  Call the bank         → personal.org   to-do
   3  helllo                → stays in the inbox

• Enter moves them.
• A number (3) changes where that note goes.
• t and a number (t 2) makes it a to-do, or not.
• d and a number (d 3) deletes it; d 3 again keeps it.
• q stops, and nothing moves.

To-dos get TODO in front of their title. inbox sort --undo puts every file back as it was before the last sort, when nothing has changed them since.

To move one note by hand, open the inbox (C-c n o), put the cursor on the note and press C-c C-w: it asks for a file (work.org puts the note at its end) or a top heading in one (work.org/Projects), and the note goes there, out of the inbox. Type TODO before its title to make it a to-do. (Org’s own key, with its targets set to your notes files; your own org-refile-targets, if you’ve set them, are kept.)

The first sort makes four files to sort into: work.org, personal.org, projects.org (a heading for each project in ~/src) and someday.org. Rename them, add your own or remove them: the sort offers whatever .org files are in the folder, and their top headings.

To-dos into Todoist. Give Vikix your Todoist token once: vikix ai key set todoist (in Todoist: Settings, Integrations, Developer). After that, each sort asks whether to send its to-dos to Todoist too, and each note keeps the task’s link.

14.3 In Emacs ¶

Everything is under C-c n:

C-c n a

The agenda: this week, then every TODO in your notes, their journal and your Tracks (tracks/, the Budanth plugin’s)

C-c n t

Every TODO; t on one ticks it done

C-c n c

A note into the inbox

C-c n o

Open a notes file, the inbox first

C-c n j

Today’s journal page, journal/2026-10-03.org

C-c C-w

In a note: move it into another notes file, or under one of its top headings

C-c n f

Find a note by its title, or start a new one

C-c n i

A link to another note, where you are

C-c n l

What links to this note

C-c n g

The graph of your notes and their links, in the browser

The last five use org-roam (and the graph org-roam-ui), the add-ons for links between notes as Obsidian has them. emacs-void installs them with its other packages (a config of your own without them is asked the first time one is needed). Their index of your notes is kept on the laptop (~/.cache/vikix/org-roam.db), never in Dropbox, and is made again from the files whenever needed; the graph is served to this laptop only.

A notes file open in Emacs takes the changes the phones make to it, by itself, as long as you haven’t changed it in Emacs too. Notes open ready to edit, though emacs-void opens other files read-only (its my/editable-directories says which folders are exempt).

14.4 On the phones ¶

Each phone needs an Org app that syncs with Dropbox. Point it at the notes folder in your Dropbox; it reads and writes the same files Emacs does.

• Android: Orgzly Revived
• iPhone: beorg
• What each can do

14.5 Bringing an Obsidian vault ¶

vikix obsidian converts an Obsidian vault into Org notes in ~/Dropbox/notes/vault/, a folder at a time. The vault itself is only read: nothing in it changes, so Obsidian keeps working as before until you’re happy with the Org copies.

vikix obsidian                     # the vault's folders, how many notes, which are converted
vikix obsidian convert Books       # one folder (. for the notes at the vault's top)
vikix obsidian report Books        # what didn't convert cleanly, note by note (in Emacs)
vikix obsidian convert --all       # every folder not left out

• Links stay links. Each note gets an ID, and [[Another note]] becomes an org-roam link to it, so C-c n f, backlinks and the graph cover the vault. A link to a folder not converted yet works once that folder is.
• What comes along: the title, aliases and tags (from the file’s name and its front matter; other front matter becomes properties), headings, lists, tasks, tables, code, and the files a note shows or links (pictures, PDFs, sound), copied into vault/attachments/. Only those files, not every file in the vault.
• What the report lists: a link to a note that isn’t there or is in a folder left out (kept as text), two notes with the same name (the nearer one is taken, as Obsidian does), a note embedded in another (Org can’t embed: it becomes a link), a link into a heading (it goes to the note), Excalidraw drawings (left as their name), ==highlights== (made bold) and callouts (a quote).
• Left out: the folders named in ~/.config/vikix/obsidian (skip =: imported ones like Readwise and Google Keep, the attachments folder, templates). Take one off the list to convert it. The same file says where the vault is (vault =) and where the notes go (to =).
• Converting a folder again rewrites its notes, except any you’ve changed since, which the report names (--force rewrites those too).

It needs pandoc (vikix add cli-extras).

14.6 What travels, and what doesn’t ¶

• The whole folder travels, while the Dropbox program runs on the laptop (vikix add dropbox). Dropbox only carries changes while it’s running: a note taken with it stopped goes up when you start it. notes-sync (Super+m, Notes: sync with Dropbox) starts it if needed and waits until your notes are up; dropbox filestatus ~/Dropbox/notes says whether they are.
• The laptop’s own: vikix obsidian’s settings and reports (~/.local/state/vikix/obsidian/), org-roam’s index (~/.cache/vikix/org-roam.db), the graph, the copies each sort keeps for --undo (~/.local/state/vikix/inbox/sorts/), and the inbox plugin’s settings.
• Two changes to the same file before either was synced (the phone offline, say) can’t both win. Dropbox keeps the other one beside it as inbox (conflicted copy).org: open both, copy across what’s missing, then delete the copy. Orgzly asks whether to load the file again (Force Load) or keep the phone’s version (Force Save); beorg warns you and keeps the version it replaced.