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Why I Like Obsidian

ddanieltan.com

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Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#331

Post by david1302 »

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 can highly recommend to use Git, the Obsidian Git plugin on Desktop and Termux on Android for syncing. Works great! I have documented my setup here: https://github.com/davidkopp/termux-scripts/

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#332

Post by david1302 »

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…

I also tried Syncthing to sync my Obsidian vault between my desktop PC and my Android smartphone. However, I don't like having a file synced multiple times in the background while I'm editing it. Since I want my notes to be versioned with Git, I ended up finding a sync solution using Git that works just fine!

I have documented my setup with Git, the Obsidian Git plugin on Desktop and Termux on Android here: https://github.com/davidkopp/termux-scripts/

Nevertheless, I still use Syncthing to sync other files between my devices. Great tool!

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#333

Post by ezst »

eternityforest wrote: post #302
ezst wrote: post #299

Unpopular opinion: I dislike obsidian. I came to the realization that any reasonably large collection of notes requires structure, which goes by the definition of types (for people, places, organizations, ...). Obsidian is very rudimentary in this regard: it offers properties, folders and templates. Those are workable at first but fall apart soon enough: you can derive many instances of a type from a certain template…

Looks really cool, aside from the lack of Android support or a managed cloud option. My big issue with Obsidian is just performance. Android likes to kill the background process and you're waiting 10 seconds or more just to be able to write a 5 word shopping list entry. I eventually switched to Google Keep, with always listening assistant turned on.

> Looks really cool, aside from the lack of Android support or a managed cloud option.

For Android, you can use trilium as a PWA currently, I do that and it's not bad at all, but offline isn't supported yet. I would say that the UX through the PWA isn't worse than that of Obsidian. If offline on your phone is a requirement, you should be able to run trilium server there (haven't tried): https://github.com/Nriver/awesome-trilium#-android

There is managed hosting too, at a very fair price I'd say (compared to the alternatives): https://trilium.cc/

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#334

Post by eternityforest »

ezst wrote: post #333
eternityforest wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks really cool, aside from the lack of Android support or a managed cloud option. My big issue with Obsidian is just performance. Android likes to kill the background process and you're waiting 10 seconds or more just to be able to write a 5 word shopping list entry. I eventually switched to Google Keep, with always listening assistant turned on.

> Looks really cool, aside from the lack of Android support or a managed cloud option. For Android, you can use trilium as a PWA currently, I do that and it's not bad at all, but offline isn't supported yet. I would say that the UX through the PWA isn't worse than that of Obsidian. If offline on your phone is a requirement, you should be able to run trilium server there (haven't tried): https://github.com/Nriver/awes…

That is a really good price for sure!

Android Server+Hosted Cloud Server+PWA seems a bit hacky though. And it's hard to beat free when you're on a low budget.

Keep also has some fairly unmatched deep integrations with Assistant and Wear OS.

It looks really nice for people who already mostly take notes on the computer and don't use any Google spy features anyway.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#335

Post by PurpleRamen »

D13Fd wrote: post #326
PurpleRamen wrote: post #138

I like Obsidian, but I really dislike the annoying design-philosophy which restricts my usage. For example, it's not possible to open any random folder with it, you need to first register the folder as a vault, and then can open the vault. It also doesn't handle file links under Linux correctly. For whatever reason, any link pointing to a file inside the vault, disappears. Probably some flaw in their file system-abst…

Yeah it's just not meant to do that. That's how these apps have worked for over a decade. Obsidian is far from the first app to work this way. Notational Velocity, nvalt, Bear, Ulysses - they all worked that way IIRC. Having used these apps for a while, your comment sounds like “these fishing poles really suck as tent poles. Sure, I made them work by tying twigs to them, but they really don’t seem designed well for m…

> That's how these apps have worked for over a decade.

No, because Obsidian is not one of "these apps". It's not using a database, nor an organisational layer to abstract away the data. It's directly reflecting the filesystem and changes in it, and they are even advertising it with this.

There is no technical reason for those limitations and bugs at all.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#336

Post by echoangle »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #297
rchaud wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also noticed that Obsidian hides text automatically inside of or other HTML elements if they contain the property "markdown='1'", thereby blocking you from writing perfectly valid HTML inside of a Markdown file which was designed to be HTML-compatible.

Is the markdown=1 attribute part of the HTML spec? I can't find any indication that it is.

Attributes dont need to be in the spec, if I add an attribute mycustomattr="xyz" and it changes how the document is rendered, that probably violates the HTML spec.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#337

Post by D13Fd »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #335
D13Fd wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's just not meant to do that. That's how these apps have worked for over a decade. Obsidian is far from the first app to work this way. Notational Velocity, nvalt, Bear, Ulysses - they all worked that way IIRC. Having used these apps for a while, your comment sounds like “these fishing poles really suck as tent poles. Sure, I made them work by tying twigs to them, but they really don’t seem designed well for m…

> That's how these apps have worked for over a decade. No, because Obsidian is not one of "these apps". It's not using a database, nor an organisational layer to abstract away the data. It's directly reflecting the filesystem and changes in it, and they are even advertising it with this. There is no technical reason for those limitations and bugs at all.

> It's not using a database, nor an organisational layer to abstract away the data.

Neither do the other apps I mentioned. They use folders of text files (sometimes with a proprietary database option). They are not general purpose editors meant to just open whatever random file you want on the drive.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#338

Post by al_borland »

JoeJonathan wrote: post #225
kstrauser wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve written off Zettelkasten. It’s not for me. It seems to be optimized for turning notes into publications, but that’s not my own goal behind taking notes. For me, good ol’ wiki style interlinking is much more useful (and vastly easier). I use the “Map of Content” ideas to have a few quick indexes, like “Current work projects” or “orders from restaurants we like”, but that’s about the most formal organization I do.…

I do write for a living, and I found Zettelkasten too high friction to be worth using. Plus, as Cal Newport has argued, it solves the wrong problem. The whole pitch of ZK is that you can jump into your notes and quickly generate new ideas. But experienced writers and researchers rarely struggle to come up with ideas—rather, the real challenge is execution.

My guess is ZK is used primary as a very complex and tedious form of procrastination. Writing the book is hard, so instead, one can endlessly tweak and tune their notes and feel like progress is being made.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#339

Post by al_borland »

theshrike79 wrote: post #245
ssgodderidge wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree. The barrier to using Obsidian can seem intimidatingly high before jumping in. I tried and failed a few different systems before I just started using the daily notes as scratch pads. From there, I figured out more and more slowly over time. I’m now at a kind of system that works for me, but probably won’t work for anyone else. This is the way.

Obsidian has the sama problem as Bullet Journaling does. It's really simple and not complicated unless you want it to be, but then you watch a video about one Mega User who is really into the System and get demoralised by the amount of crap and whizbangs you see.

One thing I appreciate about Ryder Carroll‘s original explanation about bullet journals, was that it was pretty simple. It seems it was the Pinterest and other such social media folks who complicated it.

I use a semi-bullet journal method in my Obsidian notebook for work, but it’s even more basic than what Ryder Carroll outlined and I don’t care that much. Not caring is extremely helpful.

Re: Why I Like Obsidian

#340

Post by al_borland »

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…

This is good advice for anything that supports plugins. Web browsers, VS Code, whatever else. Plugins can be useful, but too many is almost always a problem.
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