Obsidian Bases • Hacker News Board

Re: Obsidian Bases

#31

Post by kepano » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

wjrb wrote: post #4

Wow, I remember when this feature was planned/announced. It's great to see first class support for the Dataview-type workflows. I hope the API has support to allow extensions---I see that it is on the Roadmap[0]. I'm particularly interested to see how this integrates with Canvas and other note types. [0]: https://obsidian.md/roadmap/

You can embed a base in a canvas, and you can list canvases in a base.

Re: Obsidian Bases

#32

Post by LordDragonfang » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:24 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #17

I found one previous thread. Others? Obsidian Bases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44058972 - May 2025 (13 comments)

(May 2025 was from when the donor-only beta was announced, the current thread is the official release many changes later)

Re: Obsidian Bases

#33

Post by andyferris » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:27 PM UTC

So where does the data "live"? I was looking at the syntax, it defines predicates for filters and views and so on, but I don't see the "rows". There is this `file.name` and `file.ext` thing - but where do you set them? What type of file does it point to? CSV? JSON? Something else? The docs seem incomplete.

Re: Obsidian Bases

#34

Post by raviisoccupied » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:28 PM UTC

I’m an Obsidian user. I pay for Obsidian sync, and I love the philosophy behind their product. However, and I feel stupid for saying this, but I just find it confusing to use. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around plugins, and understanding how it wants me to use it.

For now, I’m just sticking to using it for daily notes, but I feel there’s so much I’m missing.

Re: Obsidian Bases

#35

Post by e1gen-v » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:29 PM UTC

Slightly off topic but why is everyone switching to these really wide fonts?

Re: Obsidian Bases

#36

Post by cyberpunk » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:29 PM UTC

viccis wrote: post #13

datadrivenangel wrote: post #3

So obsidian is now notion is now airtable. Interesting to see how well this scales.

I haven't really looked into what Airtable does, and I shouldn't be surprised at how much AI nonsense I had to dig through on their website to get any real info, but I still was.

It's a shit internet spreadsheet for managers who think they can use it to "no code" code some feature or other that some poor sucker has to painfully migrate off of sometime down the road.

Re: Obsidian Bases

#37

Post by bachmeier » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

dottjt wrote: post #24

As much as I like the idea of Obsidian, I just can't get over all the additional functionality that Notion provides due to the integrated nature of it. In particular, I love how you select text/blocks in Notion and how every line is a "block". I really wish other editors did that as well. In fact, it's probably the main reason why I haven't moved away from Notion.

IMO they're for completely different customers. Obsidian constrains itself to working on local text files that you can sync yourself. Notion is just another complex website where you turn over all your data and they sell you AI services.

Re: Obsidian Bases

#38

Post by shminge » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

dottjt wrote: post #24

As much as I like the idea of Obsidian, I just can't get over all the additional functionality that Notion provides due to the integrated nature of it. In particular, I love how you select text/blocks in Notion and how every line is a "block". I really wish other editors did that as well. In fact, it's probably the main reason why I haven't moved away from Notion.

That seems such a minor gain to me. Are you not concerned about notion a) being online only and b) not letting you be in control of your data?

I'm a strong proponent of File over App: who knows how long Obsidian or notion will exist - at least I know I can work with my Obsidian notes as long as text editors exist

Re: Obsidian Bases

#39

Post by bachmeier » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:34 PM UTC

I'll be checking this out. I've used Dataview in the past, and while it has some great functionality, it's a bit too clumsy for my taste and it has a learning curve. Hopefully this resolves some of those issues.

Re: Obsidian Bases

#40

Post by kepano » Mon, Aug 18, 2025, 10:34 PM UTC

andyferris wrote: post #33

So where does the data "live"? I was looking at the syntax, it defines predicates for filters and views and so on, but I don't see the "rows". There is this `file.name` and `file.ext` thing - but where do you set them? What type of file does it point to? CSV? JSON? Something else? The docs seem incomplete.

The rows are individual Markdown files and the columns are YAML frontmatter properties in those files.

There are some special properties prefixed by `file.` which are implicit to the file itself, e.g.`file.name` refers to the file name, and `file.ext` is the extension.

The base views are defined as YAML in .base files or can be embedded in code blocks within a Markdown file. You can also export the rendered views to a Markdown table or CSV.