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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

#321

Post by kepano »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #320

I've been using Obsidian and enjoying it quite a bit - thank you for making this, and for making it freely available! I figured that I've give this a spin but can't find it in my local install of Obsidian. I've got 'auto update' turned on (so I _think_ I'm up to date) and I can't find Canvas listed in the Core or Community plugins in the Settings panel within Obsidian. FWIW I'm using the "Commander" plugin to customi…

You can use the command palette "Create new canvas" or use the ribbon item (icon looks like a layout of 4 different rectangles)

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

#322

Post by kepano »

jaimex2 wrote: post #319

Is it strange that they made a whole bunch of thick clients for what should have been a browser based product? Least they made a Linux client, good on em. Edit. Read more, I get the clients now. Wow. Its so rare to see products think about not locking in.

Obsidian is designed to work offline using local files on your device, and us optimized for E2E encryption which so it would be more complicated to do as a web-based app.

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

#323

Post by zzzeek »

brap wrote: post #305

I really don’t get Obsidian and why HN seems so obsessed with it. Can anyone please enlighten me? Why do they call these notes “a second brain”? How is this “a new way of thinking”? What are you people even writing that requires this? It just seems silly, honestly. What am I missing?

if it's any consolation, I don't get it either. Heard about it a few months ago from someone at a kids birthday party, who said his life was completely transformed by it. He seemed to have the perspective that having a giant waterfall of amazing thoughts with nowhere to put them (until Obsidian!) was like normal for everyone. Whenever I asked him "well what are you writing" he was like, "everything! just download it and start writing!" OK.... Guess I'm just boring?

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

#324

Post by scirpaceus »

brap wrote: post #305

I really don’t get Obsidian and why HN seems so obsessed with it. Can anyone please enlighten me? Why do they call these notes “a second brain”? How is this “a new way of thinking”? What are you people even writing that requires this? It just seems silly, honestly. What am I missing?

Not trying to evangelize you, but you may not necessarily see the value in gathering random notable ideas somewhere until you put in the effort of documenting them and then see the network effect in action, i.e., new meta-ideas and patterns emerging from linking those ideas in a central location.

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

#325

Post by wraptile »

probablynish wrote: post #266

I just shifted from Logseq to Obsidian over the last couple of weeks. One of my reasons for doing so is that while Logseq does technically store your notes as local markdown files, there's so much added on top of that, that I can't really open my notes folder in Typora/[markdown editor of choice] and have a smooth experience reading my notes. The underlying format might be open, but there was still lock-in. Obsidian…

I feel like common markdown notes is a myth.

Once you start getting into your notes you quickly run into common markdowns limitations and it's super simple stuff like centering images or adding captions. Then you choose to either flavor your markdown or use HTML and it's no longer common markdown.

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

#327

Post by kilroy123 »

brap wrote: post #305

I really don’t get Obsidian and why HN seems so obsessed with it. Can anyone please enlighten me? Why do they call these notes “a second brain”? How is this “a new way of thinking”? What are you people even writing that requires this? It just seems silly, honestly. What am I missing?

Same. I've given it a spin a few times now, usually when it crops up here on HN. I guess I'm just not a huge note-taker.

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

#328

Post by digdugdirk »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #292
jnk345u8dfg9hjk wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In practice, I haven't seen it seriously used in this capacity. What do you mean? What is preventing you from using git to sync your notes?

Most apps aren't built to use it, especially on mobile. Think of the use case of your grocery list--you want one tap, open the list, type type type, and done. Anything else--having to tap save, sync, write a commit message, etc... anything, is a fail in my opinion. Git is great to use behind the scenes but I don't want to see it in the UI or slow down my workflow.

Why the need for another step? Just have it auto save/commit/merge/push in the background once you finish typing.

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

#329

Post by Dnguyen »

qumpis wrote: post #288

I've been doing mind mapping using excalidraw, but it lacked an easy way and visual way to link cards. This Canvas solution might simplify things a bit, though I wonder how much "freeform", unconstrained doodling I will be able to do using this. At the current point using simple excalidraw diagram might still be preferable.

Have you tried Free Plane(freeplane.org)? It's a great mind mapping tool.
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