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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

#341

Post by voxelghost »

kixiQu wrote: post #187
dvtrn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backlinks, thank you. That was the word I was trying to think of and describe exactly this, missed it by THAT much, heh-drinks more coffee . Cheers, I'll definitely be taking this for a spin

Psst, if you end up wanting to do backlinks in context by your notes in Tiddlywiki like Roam does, as shown here... https://i.imgur.com/n9ef25L.png I have how to do that here: https://lesser.occult.institute/an-opinionated-approach-to-t... :)

Dang, my optical nerve retracted and disconnected from the retina, and is now sitting in some dark corner of some bar in the adrenal cortex drinking whisky in pure protest to your H1 styling.

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

#342

Post by Reelin »

GuiA wrote: post #314
Reelin wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're internet armchair lawyering then I'd point out that a carpenter building something is "exercising their trade or profession" but a carpenter reading a textbook or watching a how-to video is not. Analogously, a salaried software developer learning something and taking notes on their own time would be in the clear but a freelance developer tracking their projects or clients would be in violation. What's not cl…

What about a carpenter testing out new techniques in their garage and taking notes as they go - are they exercising their trade?

I'm pretty sure that doesn't qualify. To my mind that's training or study of a trade which is distinct from practicing (ie getting paid for) it.

Where it gets weird is cases where the delineation between practice and study is unclear. Researchers are professionally employed to study things. On the clock professional development is study, but it's paid for by your employer. Freelancers manage their own time making even the distinction between paid and unpaid work unclear in some cases - were you studying as part of a current contract, or to better prepare yourself to take on similar work in the future?

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

#343

Post by crooked-v »

ericax wrote: post #339
ericax wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" :(

For deeply nested posts, you have to click on the "X minutes ago" header to get the reply option to show up.

It looks like when I add the angle brackets that CommonMark allows to circumvent the spaces thing, some variations still don't work: https://i.imgur.com/nqiQnl3.png

For one more note, the obsidian.css thing for styling is deeply unintuitive, because you can't edit it from inside the app: if you make a note named "obsidian.css" at the root level, that gets ignored because it's actually obsidian.css.md, so you can only edit the styling with a separate app altogether to create/edit that file directly.

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

#344

Post by dcsan »

This looks really cool, but:

Is there a reason this doesn't work with plain markdown links? I have a local working kbase already as a bunch of markdown files. If I use the obsidian markdown importer I guess it will destroy any links in that KB for any viewer or rendered that does NOT support GFM style [[links]]. Perhaps related to how Obsidian uses backlinks?

Ideally I could use Obsidian for structuring links / overview of a Knowledge base, and plain page editors for actually editing individual content pages. As it is though it can't be a combined/overlay usage, it has to be a cold turkey switch.

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

#345

Post by dcsan »

jtbayly wrote: post #178

Can somebody help me understand something about Markdown and Obsidian? Why would I ever want an edit mode and a preview mode while taking notes? Don't I want to be able to both see my note and edit it at any time? I mean, I guess I could just ignore preview mode if the edit mode actually allowed me to see all of the content of my note, but it doesn't. Images are only visible in preview mode. So all the talk about tra…

It depends on the editor, but esp for markdown pure text, WYSIWYG is a thorny topic - see slack's recent problems with their IME. Typora has a nice feel and switches from editor to preview as you move to the next area in a document.

Obsidian is trying this a bit with their headings, but seemingly small features like this are very difficult to get to feel natural, esp for devs comfortable with ASCII.

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

#346

Post by Aeolun »

underdeserver wrote: post #81
itsspring wrote: post #50

I was about to spend $25 for a one-time/lifetime license, until I read your license. No commercial or professional use? I'm not paying $50/yr for that sorry. A yearly fee for this is unrealistic and is way more expensive than other products like Quiver or SimpleMind which offers a lifetime product

Agreed. Devs, please consider the Jetbrains model - make the current version (up to v1 while in beta) have a lifetime license for a one-time fee, even commercial, and keep subscribers updated. Since it's locally based, if I only need the basic features, I'm not sure what I'll be paying for with a subscription.

And make those licences able to be used for personal commercial projects. Then have a separate org license that can be transferred between users.

I want to switch companies without the hassle of requesting the application to be expensed every time.

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

#347

Post by dcsan »

agambrahma wrote: post #268

Probably worth mentioning that if you're looking for "all this and more", try out Tinderbox ( https://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/ ) too. - local storage - notes can be "namespaces" within documents - "zip links" that are the equivalent of the `[[...]]` style common to both Obsidian and Roam, showing Inbound, Outbound and "suggested" links, for each note - ad-hoc linking between notes on top of all this - switching be…

looks very polished. but depends on an XML fileformat. While basically text the appeal of something based on simple to edit .md files is strong...

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

#349

Post by Aeolun »

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?

For me, I just don’t look at the preview at all. Markdown is simple enough that I know how it will be rendered.

To be fair, I do enjoy the Typora model where my images get automatically included in the edit mode, but I don’t specifically need it.

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

#350

Post by ubercow13 »

prepend wrote: post #316
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

I disagree. $50 for note taking app only is expensive compared to something like Google Docs which does much more functionality and includes cloud storage. The product is applicable to anyone who needs a knowledge base so it’s $50/employee and that adds up quickly. While the developer is free to charge whatever they like, I don’t like the trend of these products priced based on people thinking $50 isn’t that much and…

Yeah. Photoshop is only $10/mo. Many IntelliJ IDEs are $12.50/mo and you get to keep them if you stop paying. Both of those are core revenue drivers for many of the employees who use them. $4/mo is quite expensive for a markdown editor IMO.
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