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Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

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Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#11

Post by captn3m0 »

awestley wrote: post #2

Many apps lack a good means of triggering "reminders" on iOS and MacOs. Apple seems to keep the secret sauce to themselves. 3rd party apps just miss the mark IMO. However, the reminders app itself leave a lot to be desired. So something like this that ties a great app into what the native apps reminders is a great idea. Thank you for sharing!

I run my own CardSAV/CalDAV server but as long as you have a DAV server (Fastmail gives one for eg), Reminders will happily sync against it.

I use it to sync my reminders/contacts/calendars across Thunderbird/Linux and iOS.

I can edit/update/delete items programmatically with ease without any Apple secret sauce.

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#12

Post by awestley »

greggsy wrote: post #7
awestley wrote: post #2

Many apps lack a good means of triggering "reminders" on iOS and MacOs. Apple seems to keep the secret sauce to themselves. 3rd party apps just miss the mark IMO. However, the reminders app itself leave a lot to be desired. So something like this that ties a great app into what the native apps reminders is a great idea. Thank you for sharing!

Shortcuts app has just enough support to manage reminders, but automation triggers are fairly limited.

I haven't had great luck with shortcut reminders. I always feel like there are cases it didn't trigger, then I don't trust it.

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#13

Post by blowski »

wgerard wrote: post #6
blowski wrote: post #4

I love Obsidian - its approach, the ecosystem, and the implementation. But... I can't help but feel it will become the latest application to either pivot to something unpalatable (probably after being acquired) or become abandonware, leaving me to move to Yet Another Tool. And so it prevents me from really investing in any of it - I just use a no-frills text editor.

For me, the nice part about Obsidian is that they're just markdown files. So even if something happens to Obsidian, the notes still exist and are still easily transferrable to something else.

Yeah, having a non-proprietary data format is a huge plus. I wish the Obsidian code itself was open source.

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#14

Post by awestley »

captn3m0 wrote: post #11
awestley wrote: post #2

Many apps lack a good means of triggering "reminders" on iOS and MacOs. Apple seems to keep the secret sauce to themselves. 3rd party apps just miss the mark IMO. However, the reminders app itself leave a lot to be desired. So something like this that ties a great app into what the native apps reminders is a great idea. Thank you for sharing!

I run my own CardSAV/CalDAV server but as long as you have a DAV server (Fastmail gives one for eg), Reminders will happily sync against it. I use it to sync my reminders/contacts/calendars across Thunderbird/Linux and iOS. I can edit/update/delete items programmatically with ease without any Apple secret sauce.

That sound like a fun project to try out. I may try that out. Thanks.

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#15

Post by p1nkpineapple »

blowski wrote: post #4

I love Obsidian - its approach, the ecosystem, and the implementation. But... I can't help but feel it will become the latest application to either pivot to something unpalatable (probably after being acquired) or become abandonware, leaving me to move to Yet Another Tool. And so it prevents me from really investing in any of it - I just use a no-frills text editor.

FWIW, their CEO seems quite set on long-term growth instead of a quick sell, as evidenced by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39336308

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#16

Post by greggsy »

wgerard wrote: post #6
blowski wrote: post #4

I love Obsidian - its approach, the ecosystem, and the implementation. But... I can't help but feel it will become the latest application to either pivot to something unpalatable (probably after being acquired) or become abandonware, leaving me to move to Yet Another Tool. And so it prevents me from really investing in any of it - I just use a no-frills text editor.

For me, the nice part about Obsidian is that they're just markdown files. So even if something happens to Obsidian, the notes still exist and are still easily transferrable to something else.

Markdown isn’t immune to deprecation in the Obsidian ecosystem - I have files with random junk in the headers leftover from failed attempts to integrate some data management plugin or regime.

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#17

Post by rubymamis »

blowski wrote: post #13
wgerard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the nice part about Obsidian is that they're just markdown files. So even if something happens to Obsidian, the notes still exist and are still easily transferrable to something else.

Yeah, having a non-proprietary data format is a huge plus. I wish the Obsidian code itself was open source.

It’s hard to make a living with open source (saying from experience).

Re: Show HN: macOS Reminder Sync for Obsidian Tasks

#20

Post by rahilb »

gizmo wrote: post #8

How does this sync the other way? If you delete or complete a reminder or change the description do you get duplicates or do your changes get clobbered? What about conflicts? Does it matter if you make the changes in obsidian or reminders? I guess I'm asking how fragile this is in practice.

- Deleting a Task in Obsidian that has been synced to Reminders deletes the Reminder

- Deleting a Reminder that has been synced to Obisidian deletes the Task from Obsidian (if enabled in the settings menu)

- Completing a synced task in Obsidian will complete the Reminder (on the next sync)

- Completing a synced Reminder will complete the Task in Obsidian (immediately if the app is running)

- Creating a Reminder in the synced list creates a task in a note called "Reminder Sync Inbox.md"

- Editing a Task in Obsidian and syncing deletes the previously associated Reminder and creates a new one (effectively updating the text in Reminders.app)

The only known limitation (so far) is:

- Editing a synced Reminder description in Reminders.app does not update the text of the Task in Obsidian: This is hard to solve as the original Task may contain embedded links (which are stripped to just the link text for the Reminder description). Syncing those edits back to Markdown is a difficult problem that I haven't bothered focused on yet as I feel it may not be solvable.

In case of a conflict, the state in Obsidian always wins :)

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