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Why I Like Obsidian

ddanieltan.com

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Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#101

Post by chrisweekly »

mdhb wrote: post #81
chrisweekly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to overstate the flowstate Obsidian enables with live / wysiwyg editor view -- enjoy the clean look of rendered HTML while typing simple markdown and kbd shortcuts -- "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". There are many other reasons I love Obsidian, but most of all it's the core function -- the editor interface, atop my local, private markdown files.

Yes but this is the exact point. We could have that exact same workflow and user interface with HTML. I (presumably along with the person you’re replying to) don’t understand what value Markdown as the storage format is providing here exactly but I can think of many limitations it imposes.

simpler, lighter, less verbose, more portable, much more readable "in the raw",....

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#102

Post by BenFranklin100 »

dustincoates wrote: post #41

I like Obsidian, too, having recently switched over from 9 years of OneNote (the fact that there's a tool to import my OneNote notes helped a lot). The most important tip for getting started with Obsidian, in my mind, is to absolutely ignore all of the Obsidian "power users." I'm 99% convinced that no one actually uses zettelkasten seriously, but even if so, it's overkill for when you're just checking out the app. An…

As a heavy OneNote user, I was stymied by Obsidian for a long while as the mental models are different. OneNote is best thought of as an actual paper notebook, where pages can inserted, re-arranged to one’s liking, images pasted into the page, etc.. Obsidian is better thought of as a sophisticated overlay to the file system. It’s ultimately more powerful than OneNote, but does have some frustrating limitations for the OneNote/Notion/Scrivener user as not being able to manually sort notes. For now I’m using both but ultimately will switch to Obsidian as it develops (hopefully) further.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#103

Post by bbx »

I've tried to like Obsidian for a long time. It had never clicked with me, despite it's simple interface and seemingly great support.

But I recently finally found a great use case for it: saving code snippets. Specifically: code snippets found on Stack Overflow and ChatGPT.

You can simply select the answer (usually written in markdown), copy and paste it into Obsidian, and it retains all the formatting, and even applies language-specific color schemes.

Here is an example: https://i.imgur.com/GBFr431.png

It's absolutely brilliant.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#106

Post by rabbitofdeath »

llimllib wrote: post #56
TSiege wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share a link to the git plugin you're referring to?

I use this one, and I presume they do too: https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git

This is the one - it works great. I also use it in iOS, but I needed to use the Working Copy workaround to get the initial sync complete. https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-...

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#107

Post by rubymamis »

ghosty141 wrote: post #98
rubymamis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like my own note-taking app, Plume[1] that's built with Qt C++ and QML. You can integrate a Kanban board (with underlying Markdown text) right within your document[2]. It's still a work-in-progress, so this is why it's not featured yet on the website. But I'll finish implementing it very soon. Unlike Obsidian, Plume's editor is a block-editor. That gives it the flexibility of Notion (to put advanced blocks…

Will it be open source?

Plume is built on top of my open source note-taking app Notes[1]. Since Plume is based on Notes, I'll of course comply with the MPL license and release all existing files that were changed (and must stay MPL licensed).

But I recently discussed my reasoning to go close-source[2]. I've been working night and day (every day) converting 4 cups of coffee into code for the last 4.5 months to create Plume. I don't want to risk not being rewarded sufficiently for it. But, I'm 99% sure that I'll either open source the core block editor or the entire app in the future.

[1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584960

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#108

Post by FredPret »

Feathercrown wrote: post #100
FredPret wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a job where I needed tons of notes on hundreds of clients and dozens of subjects. Detailed technical notes with screenshots and code snippets and names and birthdays and to-do lists. I used OneNote. It worked brilliantly. Until my notebook file corrupted. Obsidian does the same job, but I miss the tabs. At least it’s all text files - no proprietary files to corrupt.

Obsidian has tabs, you can right click --> open in new tab

Yes but OneNote has tabs along the top and down the side.

Obsidian's tabs along the top show open documents, whereas with OneNote it's more a placeholder for more data.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#109

Post by proxycon »

hannofcart wrote: post #21

My notes system is: On desktop: Nvim with some markdown plugins plus Goyo On mobile: Obsidian Syncthing for sync (though previously I've Dropbox as well for the same) On desktop I find Obsidian's vim mode slightly uncanny valley-ish. Close enough to be able to emulate my vim flow. But not _quite_ right. On mobile, I've found Obsidian to be just top class. Though admittedly most of my real note taking happens on deskt…

hey, this is exactly same as my notes setup too!

For neovim markdown plugins my recommendations are SidOfc/mkdx and dbridges/vim-markdown-runner.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#110

Post by AJ007 »

arnejenssen wrote: post #94
brightball wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big win for Obsidian here is that everything is just saved as markdown, so you're not locked in even with their license.

What I am wondering about is that although the basic files are markdown, some of the plugins might be proprietary. So that the part of the contents in the markdown files in effect creates a lock-in?

I would suggest editing and reading the markdown files in other editors to make avoid getting "locked in."

You certainly could create your own lock-in by making some unique workflow that requires a combination of plug-ins to function. The plugins are all third party, some of them are just annotating the existing markdown files, some are just visual.

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