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Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

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Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#191

Post by jpinnix »

neal_jones wrote: post #166
jpinnix wrote: post #13

For me the biggest benefit of Obsidian over several other PKM tools is that it uses local Markdown files rather than outlines/blocks. It still has bi-directional linking, and bubbles up unlinked resources like Roam. The pace and responsiveness of the developers is remarkable, and the community has been so friendly and helpful. No egos! [editing to add that I'm using iCloud for my vaults which allows for very fast syn…

Can you expand on the "...allows...the ability to edit on iOS"?

You can create Obsidian vaults wherever you would like. I created my vaults in iCloud Drive on my Mac. As these are just Markdown files, you can use any Markdown capable iOS app (that has access to the Files chooser which includes iCloud Drive) and make any edits or modifications to those files. It doesn't automatically make link suggestions while editing it in an iOS app, but once you are back on your Mac you can easily update those links or just use the suggested unlinked references tool in the side panel. Does that make sense?

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#192

Post by kixiQu »

alexmingoia wrote: post #116

For the people complaining it’s not open source: Why does that matter ? It’s not like your markdown disappears if they do. You would just have to write software or purchase another software with the same conventions.

It's a little overblown, sure--but I do think that for the super technical power users especially, people like to invest in getting their setup tweaked just right, including all the UX details. This then creates anxiety over the risk to all that time invested. I don't want to learn and rejigger a full set of power user keyboard shortcuts for an app that might disappear, goes the thinking. In addition, open source often means further tweaks are possible (though it sounds like they're trying to maintain extensibility so this may be less of a big deal).

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#193

Post by ericax »

jtbayly wrote: post #186
ericax wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're working on WYSIWYG but it's not an easy problem. Eventually we want editing to feel comfortable to everyone! :)

That's good news for me, but apparently a lot of people don't feel the need for it. I'm still confused why. In general, are people switching modes or doing side-by-side or what?

I think most people are used to seeing the source and can basically "imagine" what it looks like. So they really only switch for double checking before sending something out I would say.

Many people in our community said things about "staying in the editor" so I guess that's a common workflow.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#194

Post by kixiQu »

qppo wrote: post #39

I actually get a lot of value from cloud hosted solutions, I bounce between 2-3 machines daily and multiple OS installations several times a week, and would like for my notes taken on one machine to just be there when I write notes on another machine. Another thing I need to do often is type up design docs collaboratively, we use google docs for this currently but it sucks for our use cases. And finally, I read and w…

It sounds like you want either something backed by a cloud drive with local installs of the software, or something more like a traditional wiki server with a markdown plugin.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#195

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

loughnane wrote: post #36

I will never again build any kind of workflow for my knowledge on top of anything that isn’t open source. 5y is a long time and 10y is an eternity for these sorts of products but its just a fraction of my working life. My own personal setup is a bunch of markdown files and it’s great, so I like that approach, but I’m very cautious about investing time for something so important in a product i don’t control.

What actually happened? I have a really hard time imagining

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#196

Post by kixiQu »

kepano wrote: post #91

Obsidian is crazy good for how new it is. And the team is moving extremely fast. It seems like they really know what they want out of this product. I've tried dozens of knowledge management tools and settled on TiddlyWiki a couple years ago. It took a lot of customization to get anywhere close as useable as Obsidian is out of the box. Here's what I love about Obsidian: - Local files, syncs via iCloud/Dropbox/etc make…

Yup, I've got my Tiddlywiki in a place where the portability makes me not itch to try this (sort of the opposite of local-first; a raspberry pi in the sky holds my Markdown files) but this seems like it will be something like an IDE for markdown notes, which is very, very cool.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#198

Post by kmtrowbr »

I have wanted an app like this for so long -- I love it just hooking into a local folder of markdown files, and making editing and navigating those files better. Little touches like, prepending the date in, sort order format, e.g. 2020-05-27 at the beginning of new files, for things like that, it's like you're reading my brain.

Basically, in order to win me over, you're competing with JetBrains. JetBrains is so good, so wired into my brain, they have good Markdown support, they just miss the little touches such as the easy linking and backlinking.

But primarily when I get into my giant collection of notes, I need to be able to find things very quickly -- this means navigating via keyboard shortcuts and having very rich file management, as well as close integration with the OS.

Things this doesn't have: * Really good keyboard navigation in the file pane, using the arrow keys. For example if I navigate down to a folder, then I want to be able to press the right key to open the folder and navigate into the folder. This doesn't work, so I have to open the folder using the mouse. * It's great that you have the [[quick links]] -- but why not work really hard to make the regular inter-linking work? E.g. if I have [my link](./my-file.md), that should work too, but it doesn't. * Say I find a file, and I want to open it up in the finder. JetBrains has a right-click action to "Open in enclosing folder" and it pops up the Finder. Something like that acknowledges that a tool is a part of an ecosystem & provides an "escape hatch" to interact with the files in another way.

Overall this is the best attempt I have found. I will spend more time with it trying to organize my notes using your excellent inter-linking features.

Git repo of markdown files is the best way I have found to keep notes. A game changing tool to to make that even more awesome will come along one day -- you are on the path. Thank you for your work.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#200

Post by MiroF »

ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

I've been looking for something like this for... so long. It's like tiddlywiki but with first class & local markdown! Thank you!!!

Add a separate GUI for a workflow-y like list-editing (that saves as a markdown list format) and you've got a serious competitor to Roam as well as beating out more traditional competitors like Notion, Boostnote, etc.

e: ah, no inline LaTex.. I knew there was a catch!

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