README

Limited export of the contents of a Dendron vault to a Logseq graph.

What does the script do?

The script copies .md files and the assets directory from a Dendron vault directory to an output directory. It makes the .md files Logseq ready by doing the following:

• renames files from Dendrons category.subcategory.note-title.md to Logseqs category___subcategory___note-title.md
• changes wikilinks from Dendron's [[catetegory.subcategory.note-title]] to Logseq's [[category/subcategory/note-title]], it also fixes aliases and removes anchors from the wikilinks:
  • [[alias|note-title]] -> [alias]([[note-title]])
  • [[alias|note-title#heading]] -> [alias]([[note-title]])
  • [[note-title#heading]] -> [[note-title]]
• changes embeds from Dendron's syntax to Logseq' syntax, note that anchors are removed:
  • ![[a.b.embedded-note]] -> {{embed [[a/b/embedded-note]]}}
  • ![[a.b.embedded-note]] -> {{embed [[a/b/embedded-note]]}}
  • ![[a.b.embedded-note#^blockref]] -> {{embed [[a/b/embedded-note]]}}
  • ![[a.b.embedded-note#start:#end]] -> {{embed [[a/b/embedded-note]]}}
• changes inline images from ![.*](/assets/.*) to ![.*](../assets/.*); you need to put the assets folder in the same directory as the pages/ directory
• yaml frontmatter -> code block: the yaml frontmatter is converted to a code block at the top of the page
  • Logseq reads yaml frontmatter and picks up the title, but titles must be unique, I had a lot of pages with the same name but in different hierarchies, so this was my solution
    • frontmatter can be excluded entirely using --remove-frontmatter
    • title: value can be used as an alias (first node - alias:: title) using --alias-title
    • title is only included in the frontmatter code block if aliases are not created
• infer outline level using headings: headings are used to infer outline level, the # characters are left and the heading and its children are indented according to the number of # used by the heading.
• convert paragraphs to bullets: every paragraph separated by one or more blank lines is made into a bullet; i.e. no "free" paragraphs exist in the output
• convert lines to bullets: every line is made into a bullet; i.e. no "free" paragraphs exist in the output

Added 2023-02-21

• multiline paragraphs and blockquotes are kept in the same outline bullet
• use title: as title:: property; will abort if duplicate titles are found
• converts indented code blocks (using tab or four spaces as prefix) to fenced code blocks
• added option for how to handle empty lines, --remove-empty-lines {none, all, trim}, default: trim
  • none: don't remove empty lines
  • all: remove all empty lines
  • trim: remove empty lines in the beginning of the body and after headings, keep a maximum of one empty line in the rest of the body
• handles fenced code blocks in lists
• handles blockquotes in lists

Bugfixes

• 2023-02-23: Fixed bug in regex resulting in aliases not being stripped from internal links.

Data loss

Although I have done some basic verification of the functionality, but there might be bugs etc. You need to verify that the results the script produces are what you want. I take NO responsibility for any loss of data.

I don't think I am missing anything in my export, but I might discover something at a future date, so I will not be deleting my Dendron vault any time soon. If for no other reason than to use it as the source for some other export to some other system.

Usage

usage: dendron2logseq.py [-h] [--remove-frontmatter]
                         [--alias-title | --use-title] [--four-space-indent] 
                         [--remove-empty-lines {none,all,trim}] [-y]
                         vault_path output_path

positional arguments:
  vault_path
  output_path

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --remove-frontmatter  Remove frontmatter. Frontmatter is kept as a code block 
                        by default
  --alias-title         Add existing title as an alias.
  --use-title           Use title from frontmatter as title:: property value. 
                        Requires that no duplicate titles exist.
  --four-space-indent   Indent using four spaces. Default: tab
  --remove-empty-lines {none,all,trim}
                        Remove empty lines. none: Don't remove any empty lines, 
                        all: Remove all empty lines, trim: Remove empty lines 
                        after headings and
                        in beginning, keep maximum of one empty line in rest of 
                        document. Default: trim
  -y, --yes             Answer yes to all prompts.

I recommend that you output to a temporary directory and copy the contents to your Logsec pages/ directory. E.g. if you want to convert the vault ~/Dendron/work/vault1 and output to ~/output you would run

$ ./dendron2logseq.py ~/Dendron/work/vault1 ~/output

The script will create ~/output if necessary. If there are files there they may be overwritten, but nothing is explicitly deleted. You will get a warning if there are files in ~/output.

The --four-space-indent is used to use four spaces to indent each level instead of \t which is the default for Logseq. You can change the global config for this in your ~/.logseq/config.edn:

{
  :export/bullet-indentation :four-spaces
}

Limitations of the script

My use of Dendron has been quite limited feature-wise, which I am sort of happy for now, as this made creating a script for my needs easier. If you have a different or more advanced setup you might find this script lacking. Here are the limitations I can think of:

• incorrect/unexpected markdown syntax may procduce unexpected results
• line based parsing of links and embeds: links/embeds that span over two or more lines will not be changed in any way
• any special characters are left untouched in the file name (Logseq urlencodes special characters)
• does not parse headings created with --- or === following a line of text
• does not handle ordered lists

Fixed

• if you have fenced code blocks in a nested list item the indentation level will be "reset" (the whole block, not the lines within the code block) Fixed: 2023-02-22
• parsing is done line by line, so if you use hard linebreaks in a paragraph, you will get one bullet point for each line Fixed 2023-02-22

Backstory

I created this script as Dendron is sadly no longer actively developed. I looked at three possible alternatives to Dendron; Logseq, Obsidian and Zettlr.

Zettlr looks like a good markdown editor with Pandoc and Zotero integration for academic research and publication, but that is not my main use-case. Obsidian is of course the big player here, and I don't really have any good reason for not choosing it (except perhaps that it is closed source).

Logseq got me interested because I have never really tried to use an outliner style PKM and I liked the keyboard navigation and the way Logseq does tasks.