Why omit the timestamp in 'ref' note filenames?

[flakyhermit]

I see it in everyone’s configurations. The standard ‘ref’ template is something like:

'(("r" "ref" plain (function org-roam-capture--get-point)
       "%?"
       :file-name "${slug}" ...

I understand that filenames aren’t supposed to matter in this system, and two references will never have the same name, but nevertheless what’s the harm in keeping a timestamp?

Considering that one of the important ideals here is to keep everything plain-text and platform-agnostic, I think having a timestamp is advantageous when you browse your knowledgebase from a non-Emacs ecosystem. I can easily remember the date when I created something and that’s useful for finding files. Why get rid of it?

(Why do I feel ridiculous for asking this?)

[rakoenig]

This is funny and strange. I looked at my capture template for ref and it looks like this:

("r" "ref" plain
#'org-roam--capture-get-point
"%?"
:file-name "%<%Y%m%d%H%M%S>-${slug}"
:head "#+title: ${title}\n#+roam_key: ${ref}"
:unnarrowed t)

Now the strange thing is:

• If I capture via org-roam-capturre then I will have a timestamp in the filename.
• If I capture via the JavaScript bookmarklet using org-protocol, then my notes don’t have any timestamp in the filename.

Again I’m surprised by this behaviour and at the moment I can’t explain why this happens.

[mshevchuk]

I can’t reproduce this:

This is the code of the bookmark in Firefox:

javascript:location.href = 'org-protocol://roam-ref?template=r&ref=' + encodeURIComponent(location.href) + '&title=' + encodeURIComponent(document.title)

Latest Org-roam/Org-mode/Doom on Emacs 27.1.

[rakoenig]

Strange. Just updated all packages that can be updated:

javascript:location.href =     'org-protocol://roam-ref?template=r&ref='     + encodeURIComponent(location.href)     + '&title='     + encodeURIComponent(document.title)     + '&body='     + encodeURIComponent(window.getSelection())

The only difference seems to be that I’m not using Doom.

[rakoenig]

Ok, now I see the difference. Its between org-roam-capture-templates and org-roam-capture-ref-templates!

[mshevchuk]

Right.