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Notion's mid-life crisis

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Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#31

Post by cityzen »

hackernewds wrote: post #24
epiccoleman wrote: post #11

I like Notion but I share the sense that it's not really targeted at my use case anymore. I think I could essentially move everything into Obsidian and lose almost nothing in the process. I just use it for taking notes and writing stuff down. I like how easy it is to drop an image, video, or document into a notion page, but I've only barely used features like databases which seem to be the big selling point, and none…

I'm very curious how and why to use Obsidian well. It's so confusing I've given up multiple times.

At its simplest, it is a UI to markdown files. When I was first looking into it, it seemed very tightly coupled with the zettelkasten method which I know nothing about. At first I thought that I was missing something but have since used it as just a markdown note app.

I will asked ChatGPT to output responses in a note form in markdown so I can copy/paste it in.

You can wrap code with: ‘’’elixir Code here ‘’’ To get syntax highlighting

Todo lists are as simple as -[ ] to do item

You can use iCloud/dropbox to sync.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#32

Post by lovethevoid »

epiccoleman wrote: post #11

I like Notion but I share the sense that it's not really targeted at my use case anymore. I think I could essentially move everything into Obsidian and lose almost nothing in the process. I just use it for taking notes and writing stuff down. I like how easy it is to drop an image, video, or document into a notion page, but I've only barely used features like databases which seem to be the big selling point, and none…

For basic notes, the ones that come with most devices imo are very good. Apple notes, Samsung notes, Onenote, all very good. So good I find it difficult to recommend anything else to people, like Notion still doesn’t even have proper pen/stylus support. Obsidian to me fits a good niche of being extensible with plugins but I get why some people can’t get into it.

Notion shines with database use, and was how I used to write my blogs and connecting the API directly to my site to auto update. I’m surprised you’re a paying customer and barely use the database stuff!

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#33

Post by dottjt »

epiccoleman wrote: post #11

I like Notion but I share the sense that it's not really targeted at my use case anymore. I think I could essentially move everything into Obsidian and lose almost nothing in the process. I just use it for taking notes and writing stuff down. I like how easy it is to drop an image, video, or document into a notion page, but I've only barely used features like databases which seem to be the big selling point, and none…

I think once I started using databases it made other note-taking tools seem primitive in comparison. It's hard to explain why, but it just allows you to organise and categorise hundreds of notes seamlessly.

I also really like how it treats everything as blocks, that's another thing that I can no longer live without.

If you're not interested in features like this, then yeah. Obsidian would be a good use-case.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#34

Post by charlie0 »

epiccoleman wrote: post #11

I like Notion but I share the sense that it's not really targeted at my use case anymore. I think I could essentially move everything into Obsidian and lose almost nothing in the process. I just use it for taking notes and writing stuff down. I like how easy it is to drop an image, video, or document into a notion page, but I've only barely used features like databases which seem to be the big selling point, and none…

So far, the only weakness I've found with Obsidian are the tables. Someone needs to build in a killer tables feature. Obsidian is an Electron app; it shouldn't be too hard to build a stripped down version of Google Sheets.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#35

Post by supriyo-biswas »

I don't think is as big of a deal the author is making out to be - such pages are usually written out of SEO considerations.

If there's a conversation within a company about getting dedicated CRM software and they're already a Notion user or strongly considering Notion for their wikis and documentation, getting the word out there that Notion can also function like a reasonable CRM replacement can help close that deal or prevent a conversation about how Notion might not meet their needs.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#36

Post by crooked-v »

charlie0 wrote: post #34
epiccoleman wrote: post #11

I like Notion but I share the sense that it's not really targeted at my use case anymore. I think I could essentially move everything into Obsidian and lose almost nothing in the process. I just use it for taking notes and writing stuff down. I like how easy it is to drop an image, video, or document into a notion page, but I've only barely used features like databases which seem to be the big selling point, and none…

So far, the only weakness I've found with Obsidian are the tables. Someone needs to build in a killer tables feature. Obsidian is an Electron app; it shouldn't be too hard to build a stripped down version of Google Sheets.

Check out the Advanced Tables plugin - https://github.com/tgrosinger/advanced-tables-obsidian

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#37

Post by skissane »

I use Notion because I have to, not because I like it.

Other teams still use Confluence. People said Notion is a lot better than Confluence. Well, I agree I'd rather use it over Confluence, but that's a very low bar for comparison.

For ages they didn't have a find-and-replace feature. I just checked, it looks like they've finally added it in the last few months, but this is the first I notice.

They claim you can export stuff as markdown, but if I export as markdown, edit and reimport, I lose half of the formatting – even basic formatting which is part of the markdown spec.

Their native format (which their API exposes) is a bunch of extremely complex JSON blobs. I thought about writing a tool to let me download stuff, edit it in a sane text editor, then reupload it, but when I saw the complexity I just gave up.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#39

Post by lovethevoid »

jprete wrote: post #28
lovethevoid wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re all glorified relational DB when you think about it lol Notion was one of THE new tastemakers. Every startup copying their designs, now there’s AI generators to make “notion style art”. To see their new pages and additions have such clunky copyrighting is disappointing and I hope just temporary, not a sign the tastemakers have left the company.

Copyrighting, or copy-writing?

Maybe I should hire a copy-writer!

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#40

Post by kiratp »

skissane wrote: post #37

I use Notion because I have to, not because I like it. Other teams still use Confluence. People said Notion is a lot better than Confluence. Well, I agree I'd rather use it over Confluence, but that's a very low bar for comparison. For ages they didn't have a find-and-replace feature. I just checked, it looks like they've finally added it in the last few months, but this is the first I notice. They claim you can expo…

Try sending the bob straight to an LLM and have it give you markdown. Bet it works.
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