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Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

obsidian.md

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Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#121

Post by jasode »

bambax wrote: post #71

I built a simple journal solution for myself two years ago. It sends an email every day and I can reply to it, and the response is stored in an SQLite database, in plain text. The db is on a remote server but copied to Dropbox every day (and in any case all the emails also exist in my sent folder). It is surprisingly effective at storing not just what I did with my day, but random thoughts and ideas, solutions to bug…

>the response is stored in an SQLite database,

I tried using a database for personal notes many years ago and the problem I discovered was that I can't do a quick Ctrl+F to find previous scraps of knowledge.

Instead, I use plain "notes.txt" and use the editor's text search functions (including regex functionality) to locate things.

These 2 ways of finding text have very different ergonomics:

- SQL: select * from notes where description like '%ubuntu config%';

- text editor: Ctrl+F "ubuntu config"

Yes, one can write a program to "dump" the SQL database to a text file for subsequent search by a text editor. The problem is that it creates a read-only file that you can't edit-in-place. And one can also write a custom wrapper program in whatever language as a GUI for the database but now we're way past your simply "reply to email" paradigm and expending a lot of effort in "yak shaving" instead of just taking notes.

Not saying your system is bad for you but I'm guessing that most people would find the friction of a SQL database too high for freeform notes.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#122

Post by e3bc54b2 »

Joeboy wrote: post #12

What I'd like is an easy way to keep my notes synced on my laptop and my android phone. I suppose I could install git on my phone and do it that way, but maybe there's a less faffy way I'm missing?

Syncthing is the easiest, cheapest, most reliable way I've found.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#123

Post by Macha »

rg111 wrote: post #58

I have switched to Obsidian and I use multiple vaults for multiple purposes. One is for work, one is for personal projects and notes. One for Books and Movies I watched or want to watch. And one for Zettelkasten[0]. Obsidian is extremely customizable and user-friendly. And to make things even better, which is a must for many people including me, it saves the files as .md in the local storage. You can even sync it amo…

The one thing I found weird when I looked into Zettelkasten is the focus on having relatively hard to read IDs as the primary part of the title. It could certainly help in the original use case of having to categorise and store physical paper notes, but it just feels obsolete in a world where you have digital notes, hyperlinking, and search.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#124

Post by novirium »

Joeboy wrote: post #12

What I'd like is an easy way to keep my notes synced on my laptop and my android phone. I suppose I could install git on my phone and do it that way, but maybe there's a less faffy way I'm missing?

Syncthing. Been using this combination for a few months now and seems to work fine between an Android phone and a few Windows + Linux machines.

I had previously been hosting TiddlyWiki from my phone, but offline editing + opportunistic syncing when on WiFi seems to fit a personal wiki better for me.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#125

Post by capableweb »

nerdponx wrote: post #108
nonamechicken wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Obsidian may be proprietary, as long as the files follow standard markdown syntax, it can be opened in any markdown editor. I am currently using both Obsidian & Typora on the same workspace folder(I like Typora better for editing since its WYSIWIG). Not being locked down to any specific software was the primary reason I moved away from OneNote.

Markdown, or CommonMark?

Obsidian has it's own flavor of Markdown there is bunch of stuff other Markdowns (including CommonMark) doesn't support.

> We strive for maximum capability without breaking any existing formats, therefore we use a slightly unorthodox combination of flavors of markdown. It is broadly CommonMark, with the addition of some functionality from GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), some latex support, and our chosen embed syntax

https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Format+your+notes

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#126

Post by whyoh »

krzyk wrote: post #81

I just downloaded deb and was a bit worried that it has 60MB, quick check on forums and it us unfortunately Electron :( Oh well, back to vim and cd.

And as is typical for Electron apps, it installs in some non-standard location (C:\Users...) on Windows, without even giving you the option to change it.

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#128

Post by dotancohen »

capableweb wrote: post #92
krzyk wrote: post #81

I just downloaded deb and was a bit worried that it has 60MB, quick check on forums and it us unfortunately Electron :( Oh well, back to vim and cd.

Always fun to see these original comments in a HN thread. If you write this on Twitter you can get hundreds of retweets, hurry before someone else writes the tweet! Jokes aside, Obsidian being a Electron application is not a issue. The app starts in under 3 seconds for me, barely uses any RAM and CPU usage remains stable and low. If you want to actually contribute anything to this thread, feel free to give feedback o…

  > The app starts in under 3 seconds for me
For me that would be a showstopper. 3 seconds to open my notes app? I would have already lost my train of thought.

:wq

Re: Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files

#130

Post by phreeza »

bambax wrote: post #105
exhaze wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but copied to Dropbox every day This seems unnecessarily complex - have you considered replacing this with rsync + cron job?

"Copied to Dropbox" is a copy cron to a folder that is shared on Dropbox. No API was harmed -- or used -- for any of this[0]. It's also in effect a poor man's backup, because the db is renamed with today's date so each copy doesn't overwrite any other. [0] Edit: not in fact true. The email part uses Mailgun's API (from when you could use routes with a basic account).

I think (though you can never be quite sure on HN) that this was a joke referring to initial reactions techies had to Dropbox.
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