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Use case: Reading workflow

Overview

Alexandria can work as a lightweight reading list: organize article notes in the desktop app, tag them for review, and track reading state with properties. The akb-fetcher CLI can help capture web articles, but the reading workflow itself happens in the app.

Set up a reading tag

Create a tag for the notes you want to read and the properties you want to track.

  1. In the desktop app, use the sidebar Add page button to create a page named Reading List.
  2. Open Manage Properties for that tag.
  3. In Tag Properties, add status as select and rating as number.

Use whatever status values fit your workflow, such as queued, reading, finished, or skipped. The values are stored in the note frontmatter as plain data.

Add articles to the list

For an article you already have, click Add page, give it a useful title, and paste your notes or the article text into the editor. In the note's tags bar under the title, type Reading List and choose the existing tag. Set status, rating, and any other properties inline in the property panel as you read.

Capture from the web (optional)

akb-fetcher is a CLI helper for turning a web article into a Markdown note:

akb-fetcher https://example.com/article --akb-path ~/alexandria

The fetcher creates a note from the article body and metadata. Each fetched note is tagged Fetched Articles automatically. That tag is created on first use with properties for description, original-url, author, keywords, and article-published-on.

After capture, open the fetched note in the app, add Reading List from the tags bar, and set your reading properties inline. See Fetcher for extraction details and workspace resolution rules.

Make a reading dashboard

Create a page for your dashboard in the app:

  1. Click Add page and create Reading dashboard.
  2. Add a Reading list heading.
  3. Under the heading, open the slash menu (/) and choose Link DB Table.
  4. Pick the Reading List tag.

The dashboard renders the notes tagged Reading List as a table with their tag properties. Link DB tables show the tag's notes; they do not currently have saved filters, sorting, grouping, or column hiding.

For a more visual reading shelf, open the Reading List tag page and use View settings to switch from the property table to the cover gallery.

Gallery view uses the first image in each note body as the cover. If you want covers for articles or books, add images to the notes with Insert Media from the slash menu or drag-and-drop them into the editor. Alexandria stores images and other files as media. See Media.

Not yet supported. Alexandria does not import highlights from Readwise, Kindle, or similar services today. It also does not provide a dedicated reader mode or automatic summary view. This workflow is built from fetched Markdown notes, tags, properties, gallery views, and Link DB tables.