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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

#331

Post by ericax »

crooked-v wrote: post #328
ericax wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Totally agree! Still quite some work ahead of us (We're about 3 months from first line of code).

Ideally the help docs can be opened as its own vault and can be a nice testing ground for a new user to play around with the functionality.

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

#332

Post by Karunamon »

benrbray wrote: post #47

This looks great! Good timing too, since Roam has recently closed its doors to new signups. I've been looking for a new notetaking / PKM / Markdown app recently, but unfortunately all apps out there fall short in at least one of the following criteria: * bidirectional [[wiki links]] * support for both inline and display math * customizable themes / CSS * rich formatting beyond markdown (e.g. wrap content in tags with…

Have you looked at Trilium Notes?

It appears to match all of your requirements, and is scriptable. It's also strongly FOSS, in the AGPL sense. It also has the ability to self-host a sync server.

https://github.com/zadam/trilium

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

#333

Post by mbreese »

colinjoy wrote: post #262
ddrdrck_ wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial license is 50$ per year. Not even 5 bucks per month. I do not think this qualifies as "expensive", especially if you intend to use it for work related stuff

If you are going to use it as a knowledge base, you are probably looking at a few years of use. Currently the closest match to this software I have installed is Quiver. Let’s compare costs over a period of 5 years: Quiver: $9.99 Obsidian: $250.00 That may not be a lot of money to you personally, but it fits my mental model of “expensive” pretty well.

There is also Joplin (https://joplinapp.org/), which is open source and has multiple Apps available (including mobile). I don’t think it uses plain markdown files as the primary data store, but notes are written in it and they can be exported as Markdown files.

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

#334

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.

Also, I'm annoyed that this labels itself as supporting Markdown, but apparently can't actually handle actual proper Markdown links between files.

This is kind of a sticking point for me, because one app after another has gotten this wrong (see Ulysses' bizarro link editing, for example), and I'm just not going to use an app if it wants to make me convert all my files to a proprietary version of the syntax.

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

#335

Post by dudeinhawaii »

Great idea! I have to admit the UI reminded me of what I do presently -- VSCode + notes in a folder in Markdown. I'll take it for a test-drive and see how it compares to VSCode + git. If it speeds things up, I'll be a buyer!

Bear in mind that what it looks like you're competing directly against is an editor (VSCode) + versioning (Git) + sync (GoogleDrive/OneDrive). That's probably a harder sell to a techy individual since those are all free (or already subscribed to) but if you make the editing and management process better, seamless, hassle-free, I'd buy the editor (like pyCharm, goLand, Sublime or Linqpad).

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

#336

Post by ericax »

crooked-v wrote: post #334
ericax wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Also, I'm annoyed that this labels itself as supporting Markdown, but apparently can't actually handle actual proper Markdown links between files. This is kind of a sticking point for me, because one app after another has gotten this wrong (see Ulysses' bizarro link editing, for example), and I'm just not going to use an app if it wants to make me convert all my files to a proprietary version of the syntax.

Plain Markdown links should work just fine if you use relative paths to files within the vault folder selected.

Is it not working for you?

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

#337

Post by crooked-v »

ericax wrote: post #336
crooked-v wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I'm annoyed that this labels itself as supporting Markdown, but apparently can't actually handle actual proper Markdown links between files. This is kind of a sticking point for me, because one app after another has gotten this wrong (see Ulysses' bizarro link editing, for example), and I'm just not going to use an app if it wants to make me convert all my files to a proprietary version of the syntax.

Plain Markdown links should work just fine if you use relative paths to files within the vault folder selected. Is it not working for you?

It doesn't work at all. See screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/sG9v58Gr.png

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

#338

Post by ubercow13 »

rabidrat wrote: post #323
ubercow13 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't think that's relevant, I don't feel entitled to anything. My point was just that the $4's would add up. There are 2286 packages on my PC at the moment, which ones should I pay for? I can't even imagine earning that much money.

Moreover, are you suggesting that people should feel guilty for using free software?

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

#339

Post by ericax »

ericax wrote: post #336
crooked-v wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I'm annoyed that this labels itself as supporting Markdown, but apparently can't actually handle actual proper Markdown links between files. This is kind of a sticking point for me, because one app after another has gotten this wrong (see Ulysses' bizarro link editing, for example), and I'm just not going to use an app if it wants to make me convert all my files to a proprietary version of the syntax.

Plain Markdown links should work just fine if you use relative paths to files within the vault folder selected. Is it not working for you?

I can't reply to your post further down, but it seems like space characters aren't allowed by Markdown spec. Apparently you have to convert it to "%20" :(

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

#340

Post by joaogui1 »

logicprog wrote: post #309
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…

Downloaded this a few hours ago, and ported all my notes about my novel over to it, and I have to say: this is a really great piece of software. The interface is intelligent, ergonomic and fast, and it does a lot of things automatically which I really like. It cuts down on the boring book keeping. I was also able to move my plot outline into this, which was a godsend for me because previously it was in a word documen…

Settings -> Hotkeys
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