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Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

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Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#111

Post by talkin »

sneak wrote: post #104
kepano wrote: post #34

Obsidian Canvas uses a new JSON-based file format that we have open-sourced under MIT license. You can see the spec here: https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-api/blob/master/canva... Just like all other files in Obsidian, canvas files are your own and local to your device. You're still linking to your own Markdown files which are just as future-proof as ever. We decided to create the .canvas format because there w…

This isn't what "open sourced" means. Photoshop is proprietary software with a well documented file format anyone can read and write. So is this software. "Open source" is not branding, it means something. It's okay to make and promote and sell proprietary commercial software. That's what you are doing, be proud and clear about it. Pretending your efforts have anything to do with free software is deceptive.

You’re focusing on a single word in a sentence which was just about the format.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#112

Post by kepano »

criddell wrote: post #91
kepano wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that VC basically killed Evernote. Obsidian is completely user-supported, no investors, we're explicitly avoiding the VC route. As far as features go, we're continuing down the path of a modular architecture. The core will continue to be as streamlined as possible. Canvas is like any other plugin, you can disable it. We think that flexibility is important, because not everyone thinks the same way. You should…

Did the core of Obsidian have to be changed at all to support Canvas? If so, then I don't think it is like any other plugin. If this were just another pluigin that you could download and use if you want, I really wouldn't care. It's the fact that it's considered part of the core product that gives me bad vibes. It feels like the project, even without VC money, is doing what almost every other successful project does…

We did make some API changes that would make it easier for a third party to create a plugin like Canvas. But there was nothing changed in the core solely to support Canvas.

There were two under-the-hood changes required to properly facilitate Canvas:

1. Redoing "embeds." We decided it was important for cards to work the same way our inline embeds work. So we rewrote the embed system to be properly extensible and useable by plugins. Canvas is leveraging the same system that powers ![[embeds]]

2. Untangling our editor. Previously, editors were a construct constrained to a markdown view in Obsidian. We've also done some refactoring so that a "editor" can be used anywhere, and doesn't need to be backed by a file. We see this a another big win for plugins that want to build their own editing experience

We want to keep pushing what third party plugins can do on top of Obsidian, so implementing a feature like Canvas forces us to find the limitations that exist in the API.

The question of whether Obsidian will ever be "done" is a tough one because operating systems and user expectations are a shifting landscape. Our intention is that the writing and thinking you do inside of Obsidian can be future-proof for decades, even if Obsidian itself is no longer relevant. That's why we're focused on portable formats like Markdown. However we cannot know how operating systems will change, and what will be required for Obsidian to continue working well on macOS 30 or Windows 20. Similarly, we can't close ourself off to new UI paradigms like Canvas that open up new thinking modalities our users are asking for. We hope that the modular and flexible architecture of the app allows it to remain very performant regardless of what plugins a user has turned on.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#113

Post by rcarr »

input_sh wrote: post #56
ptato wrote: post #45

That looks great. I had no idea this was coming. Now I wonder which other ideas the Obsidian team has.

FYI there's a public roadmap: https://trello.com/b/Psqfqp7I/obsidian-roadmap Tasks are usually not very descriptive, but you get a sense of what's to come.

I’m looking forward to seeing what their implementation of tasks looks like and how it stacks up next to org mode and its agenda. The user implemented task plugins aren’t up to job I don’t think. If it’s mega then I might switch to using it for task management but I am finding the combination of taskpaper and OmniFocus to be awesome at the minute

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#114

Post by sieabahlpark »

talkin wrote: post #111
sneak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't what "open sourced" means. Photoshop is proprietary software with a well documented file format anyone can read and write. So is this software. "Open source" is not branding, it means something. It's okay to make and promote and sell proprietary commercial software. That's what you are doing, be proud and clear about it. Pretending your efforts have anything to do with free software is deceptive.

You’re focusing on a single word in a sentence which was just about the format.

No post body was provided.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#115

Post by sieabahlpark »

rcarr wrote: post #108
dr_kiszonka wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could consider rewriting it in Flutter/Dart. My understanding is that Flutter is faster than Electron.

Dart/flutter sound good and I have heard good things. The downside is you’re rolling the dice on whether it will still exist in five years because it’s a Google project.

No post body was provided.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#116

Post by TYMorningCoffee »

para_parolu wrote: post #51
raybb wrote: post #18

One thing that's really missing for me from Obsidian is a view similar to that of Google Keep. Like sometimes I want to drop a small note "my stuff is in locker 2130" or "Look into Open Library WikiData linking percentage" and then easily be able to see it again in a few of all notes most recent. A thread on Reddit give me a small hope this update may do that but I don't think so. PS: I'm aware of the daily notes vie…

I had the exact same problem. I ended up writing a small ios app. It only contains one textarea and sync text between devices. It was rejected by appstore for simplicity. But works well for me.

Would adding a setting for the backend server sufficiently increase the complexity to get it published?

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#117

Post by danbruc »

slymon99 wrote: post #107
danbruc wrote: post #106

Marginally related rant. Why on earth is the macOS download a 153 MiB ZIP file that expands into 363 MiB of stuff? Why does every Electron app have to come with its own copy of Electron? I miss the times when Windows came on seven 1.44 MB floppies and you did not even need all of them because they mostly contain drivers for hardware you didn't have. Actually I don't miss the time, swapping floppies was annoying. But…

> But really, is the amount of space, bandwidth and clock cycles we carelessly waste really justified by the gain in productivity and achievable complexity? Yes. Space, bandwidth, CPU cycles are cheap, especially for this sort of application. Developers are expensive.

Sure, that is the standard response, but multiply the waste by the number of users, the costs that you externalize by making them pay for faster hardware and more storage and bandwidth.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#118

Post by criddell »

garganzol wrote: post #61
kepano wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at Obsidian URIs? It has a vault parameter: https://help.obsidian.md/Advanced+topics/Using+obsidian+URI

Thank you. But it does not solve the issue. The custom URI concept is too complex and alien in the Windows world. A Windows user would much better prefer to have a special anchor file in Obsidian vault folder that could be double-clicked and treated by the standard and observable means. This is why .txt files are so popular. A double-click and they work. The specialized tools may be 100 times better, but they often m…

This is a great opportunity for you! This is a problem you know lots of people have and since you are a technical user, you could probably solve this for yourself and others in the same situation. Write a small application and register a file extension for it (maybe .obsidian). When you double click on sql.obsidian (for example), your app would launch read that file then launch Obsidian via the obsidian:\\ protocol.

Your launcher app could also handle the creating of .obsidian files or (even better), write a plugin for obsidian to export a .obsidian file.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#119

Post by howmayiannoyyou »

kepano wrote: post #34

Obsidian Canvas uses a new JSON-based file format that we have open-sourced under MIT license. You can see the spec here: https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-api/blob/master/canva... Just like all other files in Obsidian, canvas files are your own and local to your device. You're still linking to your own Markdown files which are just as future-proof as ever. We decided to create the .canvas format because there w…

We're using whatboard.app for this at present. A bit different in approach, but a more more manageable and less infinite canvas. That said, this looks really cool and may be worth the desktop-app install.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

#120

Post by kid64 »

Obsidian Team, help me out here. What are some actual use cases for canvas? Specifically, how does this enhance the user's ability to record, synthesize, and recall their ideas? I am a huge Obsidian fan, I fully understand what canvas does and how it's used. But I don't get the point. I see the team devoting lots of energy to this feature, so I assume I'm missing something.
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