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

obsidian.md

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

#321

Post by pedrocx486 »

I was an user of their Windows app until recently, had to stop using when they added the license for business use. Sadly, the company I work for only allows in their computers software they bought with their money (I can request them to buy software for me, but it can't be software under 'pre-release', has to be an stable software.) because of the audits they get, so to avoid problems related with piracy they decided to block softwares with user-owned licenses.

And since I used to use both at work (mostly for personal notes) and on my personal time, I moved to completely to another solution. (My own thing, made in (get ready for it) Electron.)

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

#322

Post by Aeolun »

pedoh wrote: post #206
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 just installed it, and it looks pretty slick, congratulations on the launch! One piece of feedback, I couldn't discover in the app itself how to make references to other documents. I finally figured it out by looking at your web page and seeing the [[connections]] bit.

Had the same issue, found it on this HN post.

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

#323

Post by rabidrat »

ubercow13 wrote: post #307
emmanueloga_ wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow $4 bucks a month fits your mental model of "expensive", you must live a very frugal life :-)

If every piece of software I use day-to-day cost $4/mo, I'm not sure I would even use computers.

Do you create/release/maintain any free software? Or do you just feel entitled to have all the software that individual people do create for free?

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

#324

Post by ericax »

crooked-v wrote: post #319

Four bits of feedback: 1. How do I select the font to use? The variable-width default font feels entirely out of place for me with Markdown. 2. This could dearly use integration with Prettier ( https://prettier.io ) or a similar tool for those of us fussy with formatting details. 3. The lack of Multimarkdown syntax like cross-references ( http://fletcher.github.io/MultiMarkdown-5/cross-references.h... ) is painful fo…

Sorry for the confusion! Help docs are in Settings > Help.

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

#325

Post by jacobsenmd »

perchard wrote: post #84
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…

this is awesome! i see the 'zettelkasten link fixer' in the markdown format importer ("Fixes [[UID]] links to full [[UID File Name]].") - any plans/thoughts on just supporting [[UID]]? this seems less brittle to me in that you won't break all of your backlinks if you change the (non-ID) part of the filename.

+1 for this request, which would allow better interoperability with "The Archive" (from zettelkasten.de). I built my Zettelkasten links in "The Archive" using [[UID]]. Obsidian looks fantastic and I'd love to give it a try but my existing links do not work. As a side note, the other feature from "The Archive" I miss is the ability to create buttons for custom searches in the left sidebar.

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

#326

Post by Aeolun »

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.

I don’t follow. This app would work on top of your existing markdown files, and if they go out of business there is nothing preventing you from either keep using the app, or take your markdown files and take them elsewhere.

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

#327

Post by mfranzs »

bnlxbnlx wrote: post #259

I wonder how this could be connected to some flash card system. I've been using anki for some months now to help me rememer things better (apps on linux, iOS and OSX and syncing via ankiweb). My notes are not linked so far as I have been looking for a solution that allows me keep all my notes in plain markdown files while linking them. I'm syncing the md files across all my devices via a self-hosted rpi-nextcloud and…

Although it's not markdown based, we're building https://www.remnote.io/ for this purpose; it lets you take hierarchical, nonlinear, linked notes and internalize them with spaced repetition.

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

#328

Post by crooked-v »

ericax wrote: post #324
crooked-v wrote: post #319

Four bits of feedback: 1. How do I select the font to use? The variable-width default font feels entirely out of place for me with Markdown. 2. This could dearly use integration with Prettier ( https://prettier.io ) or a similar tool for those of us fussy with formatting details. 3. The lack of Multimarkdown syntax like cross-references ( http://fletcher.github.io/MultiMarkdown-5/cross-references.h... ) is painful fo…

Sorry for the confusion! Help docs are in Settings > Help.

It's kind of gross that the only way to use that is to have it pollute your file space, rather than just having a document to open.

Also, on Mac it should be under the actual Help menu, the same way that there should be an Obsidian -> Preferences... menu item (hotkey cmd+,) to open settings. Conventions are important!

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

#329

Post by libria »

codezero wrote: post #276
usr1106 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free Not really. The license says you are not allowed to take notes about work you get compensated for. So free only for 100% hobby projects. Working in a start-up I don't have big 100% hobby projects that would require a lot of note keeping. YMMV

I'd be more concerned if you had a hard time getting reimbursed for this kind of software at your job.

What's the concern for? A lot of great jobs still have penny-pinching managers. I've worked somewhere notoriously Frugal that was good and paid well but had no problem denying requests like this.
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