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Why I Like Obsidian

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Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#171

Post by poulpy123 »

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!

If you don't need the extensive extension library of obsidian and want an open source tool, I would advise for Joplin. Tthe philosophy of logseq is completely different of obsidian (and joplin), being centered on lists instead of documents

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#172

Post by poulpy123 »

mofosyne wrote: post #20

Anyone tried Dendron ( https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron )? It feels like it could almost become a competitor to Obsidian and plus is essentially a vscode plugin, so you get the benefit of using vscode as your code editor as well. Too bad the project has ended as there is no clear approach for the Dendron team to make it financially sustainable (with their cloud sync subscription, much like Obsidian Sync). But it'…

I used it for a while but I started to have issues of it becoming slow. I'm not 100% sure dendron was responsible of it but I switched to Joplin. The interesting things was is integration with VSCode that I use for coding

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#173

Post by KolenCh »

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…

I made the choice at the time I knew this, and preferred FOSS, but the alternatives just wasn’t as usable, so in the end I still chose this, partly because at least I still have complete control over the data (not true for some alternatives.

P.S. my comparison was done probably a few years ago and the landscape could have changed quite a bit. One solution I tried was a code extension that promised to do something similar. I thought it would be good as I use vscode all the time. Then I find out it is bad because exactly of that. Obsidian and the like is dedicated to notes taking so this single software is unambiguously for that task. In vscode there’s just too much other things going on as distraction.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#175

Post by safety1st »

bloopernova wrote: post #161
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 zettlekasten and found I just didn't use it enough to justify the effort involved. Instead I just have an org-mode folder that I dump documents in. I search across them with Deft in Emacs. Sure, the links between documents can be incredibly useful to some people, but I've found I'm more chaotic than that.

I have read a bit about Zettelkasten and watched a video explaining it, and to me it feels like a pretty random collection of mostly good ideas on organizing information.

Right up there with drinking coffee on exactly two specific days per week... https://zettelkasten.de/posts/practical-integration-deep-wor...

I think this stuff is esoteric and personal enough that we are under no obligation to follow it to the letter.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#176

Post by tamimio »

What I like about obsidian is how it’s a very good front-end for my notes, that’s it, just a front end, in case of anything or if obsidian tomorrow ceases to exist, all my notes are in my git and they are also backed up daily somewhere else, I don’t feel I’m locked to anything or any company. The addons too are very nice extra touch but it isn’t why I like obsidian.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#177

Post by Jakob »

KolenCh wrote: post #170
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…

One tip I’d have is to go easy on plugins. One can try to explores what are available, but when committing (to have it enabled and relying on it) be cautious about its implications on performance and startup time (there is a setting that can show you plugin load time at every startup.) And as you scales the number of plugins and files, test it on multiple platforms. P.S. I learn this the hard way that each time I ope…

iCloud removes files from local storage randomly and downloading them again is very slow and gets stuck often.

I think that is the main reason why obsidian hangs at the start on the iPhone.

I have not yet figured out, how to keep iCloud files reliably on local storage on iOS. It seems independent of free storage and file size and is driving me mad.

Very sad that Apple does not succeed in syncing files. The same issue was there with iTools, mobile me, and now iCloud.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#178

Post by tester457 »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #50
midasz wrote: post #16

I really like Obsidian but the long startup time (on mobile) has stopped me from using it as a daily driver.

Perhaps, perhaps, this is something for you to look at. I use Obsidian on the Desktop but I don't do much work/editing on the Mobile, so I just use iA Editor (you an choose any editor of your choice). As the files are that -- files, I just browse and open the file I want to edit. I get to the files with Obsidian on the Desktop and iA Editor on the mobile to edit/read it.

I tried out iA writer on android because Obsidian's loading times are bad but was disappointed to see you can't set a folder in iA writer android.

Editing files is even slower since you have to pick a file from the android file search.

It's a well designed app otherwise.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#179

Post by runiq »

firecall wrote: post #86
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…

And also no Synching with a subscription! When I already have access to the iCloud ecosystem, and Notes is excellent across iOS and macOS, I have never really seen much point in trying to use Obsidian. But then maybe I'm missing the point of Obsidian?

I'm syncing using Syncthing, across three devices which are only syncing intermittently (home laptop, smartphone, work computer), and it appears to work fine. I cannot recall ever having a sync conflict. But then again, I'm hardly using any plugins in Obsidian.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#180

Post by keep320909 »

orbital-decay wrote: post #162
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!

> I am not going to build my PIM around proprietary tool with subscription! If your concern is about the lack of a clear migration path, Obsidian vaults are just folders with markdown files, which can be used with absolutely anything, you can literally use them in Emacs or VSCode if you want. The most popular PDF annotation plugin is AGPL-3 licensed and its format is also transparent so you can migrate to something e…

> which can be used with absolutely anything

Not really, markdown has tons of tiny implementation details. And I can not use PDF annotation plugin in Emacs...

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