Zim is an application that allows us to manage desktop Wikis. What is a desktop Wiki? It is pretty much the same thing as the ones that we can find on the internet, which is a knowledge base about various subjects (think of Wikipedia, but many other exist for various subjects). The main difference between the two, is that the Wiki made with Zim is not necessarily meant to be made publicly available on the internet.
It may not seem obvious at first glance, but it can be adapted to various needs. Zim provides us with a basic text editor, where we can write information and use most text formatting features that would be available in a web page such as headings, links, lists, checkboxes, images, etc. This allows for structuring information effectively in a page, but Zim also includes the concept of “notebook”, which is a collection of pages that are all related to the main subject. So for example, if I were to read a technical book about computer programming, I could create a notebook called “Programming”, and inside it I would create one page for each concept or subject included in the book so that I can write useful information that I may need later.
Naturally, it is possible to create as many notebooks as we want/need, and open the appropriate one when the need comes. We are free to build our notebooks however we want, there is no predefined structure that we need to learn and follow. So if we prefer putting all the information in a single page, we can do so, but if we prefer categorizing everything in its own small page, using section titles, lists and images, it is also possible. This freedom makes Zim a versatile tool that we can adapt to our needs. I personally use it to keep track of the tasks I have to do on some of my projects and also as a notebook for taking notes when I learn new things. The editor also saves automatically every few seconds by default so you won’t lose hours of work when some random power outage happens.
For more information, visit the official website: https://zim-wiki.org/