Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I Like Obsidian

ddanieltan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 376 posts

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#151

Post by hiq »

A few weeks ago I started splitting knowledge between that which is worthy enough (for me) to remember via flashcards and spaced repetition, and that which I don't need to even write down anywhere. Meaning, in practice, that I don't feel the need to have a proper note-taking system. I just need proper flashcards, which I already have in Anki.

I just started this split so maybe I'll come back to it, realizing limitations I'm not aware of yet, but at least for now I feel way better not having a proper note-taking workflow.

Compared with Zettelkasten-based systems, this might make it harder to add connections between pieces of knowledge, but I never got around to actually using a Zettelkasten so I am not entirely sure what I'm missing. On the other hand, one's brain is IMHO the best way to connect pieces of knowledge together, and recalling the vertices frequently might be enough to recall the edges of this knowledge graph as well.

I haven't seen this (lack of) "approach" mentioned before so I'm curious if I'm alone with this realization and mistaken somehow.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#152

Post by awill »

behnamoh wrote: post #122
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…

I tried it a few times but had to stop because: 1. Obsidian imposes its own take on Markdown. For instance, why can't we disable "indent using the tab key"? It's so annoying to accidentally indent/quote text while pressing tab to do something like "accept autocomplete suggestion". Obsidian's response to users' complaints about this was not reassuring: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/option-to-disable-tab-to-indent/... 2.…

Agree. I generally dislike relying on a bunch of third party plugins. Over time they don't get updated and you're left with a mess.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#153

Post by behnamoh »

klum wrote: post #79
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…

Agreed on the power-user stuff and the courses. I use Obsidian in a simple way, but it's nice that the extensibility and the community is there. Unlike VS Code, Obsidian is (for me) an actual example of an Electron app that feels fast. The quick open/command palette features are more responsive than similar features in native Mac apps I've tried. As mentioned elsewhere, users frequently ask for Obsidian to be open so…

> Unlike VS Code, Obsidian is (for me) an actual example of an Electron app that feels fast. The quick open/command palette features are more responsive than similar features in native Mac apps I've tried.

Dude, VSCode is a freaking IDE, running all sorts of processes in the background (at least one terminal, language servers, type checkers, linters and formatters, possibly extensions, etc.) whereas Obsidian is just a text editor.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#154

Post by behnamoh »

awill wrote: post #152
behnamoh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it a few times but had to stop because: 1. Obsidian imposes its own take on Markdown. For instance, why can't we disable "indent using the tab key"? It's so annoying to accidentally indent/quote text while pressing tab to do something like "accept autocomplete suggestion". Obsidian's response to users' complaints about this was not reassuring: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/option-to-disable-tab-to-indent/... 2.…

Agree. I generally dislike relying on a bunch of third party plugins. Over time they don't get updated and you're left with a mess.

This, and also since they're not built by one team/dev, sometimes they don't play well with each other.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#155

Post by Tomte »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #149
hoherd wrote: post #69

I was unaware of this until a few weeks ago, so I'd like to raise awareness for anybody who it affects: Obsidian is not FOSS, and purchasing a license is required for any work that generates revenue at a for-profit company of 2 or more people. https://obsidian.md/license Obsidian looks awesome to me, and for a long time I've been thinking about adopting it, but this licensing issue caused me to back away and look for…

It's what caused me to pick it. Selling usage for commercial use is a smart move, and I want to ensure the original developers are incentivized to keep working on the product.

That didn‘t work so much for Dynalist.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#156

Post by nickloewen »

toss1 wrote: post #140
WJW wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely possible to just stick your files in dropbox or something like that and they sync just fine.

I found that trying to sync (Windows Obsidian app «=» Android Obsidian app) just via a cable would get the files over fine, but would not produce usable results, at least not without a lot more fiddling that I wanted to do. I was hoping that we could simply transfer the folder structure over and just have it work, but no such luck. Evidently it requires not only transfer, but some kind of transformation that they do…

What were the problems you encountered?

Obsidian creates a hidden directory in your “vault,” which contains plugin files, plus metadata about your settings, currently opened files, etc. If those settings don’t work equally well on both systems, that would be a hassle. Maybe try copying all the files from inside the directory (so that you don’t grab that hidden dir when you do) instead of grabbing the whole directory.

You might also want to look at the git-obsidian plugin. It takes a little setup, but seems to work well once it’s going.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#157

Post by hn_burner_2038 »

toss1 wrote: post #140
WJW wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely possible to just stick your files in dropbox or something like that and they sync just fine.

I found that trying to sync (Windows Obsidian app «=» Android Obsidian app) just via a cable would get the files over fine, but would not produce usable results, at least not without a lot more fiddling that I wanted to do. I was hoping that we could simply transfer the folder structure over and just have it work, but no such luck. Evidently it requires not only transfer, but some kind of transformation that they do…

I just backup and sync the files with google drive and everything works well, but I also don't have any plugins installed so I can't vouch for those.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#158

Post by Zambyte »

spinningarrow wrote: post #87
hoherd wrote: post #69

I was unaware of this until a few weeks ago, so I'd like to raise awareness for anybody who it affects: Obsidian is not FOSS, and purchasing a license is required for any work that generates revenue at a for-profit company of 2 or more people. https://obsidian.md/license Obsidian looks awesome to me, and for a long time I've been thinking about adopting it, but this licensing issue caused me to back away and look for…

While Obsidian may not be FOSS at all, my understanding is that in general needing to purchase a license is orthogonal to whether something is FOSS - correct?

If you cannot use the software however you wish (including for profit) then it is not Free Software. The developers can choose to not distribute the software to you unless you pay, and they can choose to provide support if you pay (which if you're making a profit from their software is a reasonable thing to pay for), but with Free Software the developers cannot decide how you use it once they have distributed it to you.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#159

Post by antiframe »

jimmytucson wrote: post #49
mdhb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re getting smashed for no particularly good reason in my opinion. I am in the camp if I like the idea of Obsidian but I have a bunch of other stuff I want to include and do stuff with like JSON-LD data for example. But the idea of writing raw HTML is in fact a huge pain in the ass as everyone was all too eager to point out here. We have had markdown to HTML converters and visual editing experiences for a long tim…

Yeah, clearly I touched a nerve :) But I still don't know what Obsidian gives you besides letting you write in Markdown instead of HTML. And that is basically a Markdown to HTML converter, as you pointed out.

You are dismissing what people are telling you. Several have pointed out that Markdown is easier to read and write when taking notes. For example, lists where each item has an additional ~14 keystrokes per item, links which have an additional ~20 keystrokes.

Your answer was that that doesn't matter. If that's your view, you are welcome to it, but that's why /other/ people choose Markdown over HTML for notes.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#160

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

keep320909 wrote: post #141

I prefer Logseq. It does not need plugins for basic things (PDF annotations). And is completely opensource with transparent development on Github. And I find its workflow much better. Obsidian is commercial closed source app with subscription. Free for personal use only, commercial license is $50/year. I am not going to build my PIM around proprietary tool with subscription!

Wait, really? I thought it was going to be like $300, $50 would be a steal for the ability to use the Templater plugin to generate all of my business reports from YAML.
Post reply on HN