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Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

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Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#431

Post by FreezerburnV »

codezero wrote: post #286
ericax wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inline math is coming very soon! WYSIWYG unfortunately will take a while to get right, but we'll get there. Give Obsidian a try and let us know what you think! :)

You didn't ask for advice, so feel free not to take it - but you should consider using a pre-baked editing solution like Quill.js or something similar. Rich text serialization is its own problem and you shouldn't waste your development time on it :)

As someone who was experimenting with text editing in a browser recently: I could not find any open source (non-commercial expensive license) text editors that could actually handle workloads I cared about. (and which are not also specialized on code, such as Ace Editor) While Quill (and friends) definitely provide some very nice functionality, the moment I tried to do something like shove a full novel into one, not only did it take quite a while to actually load that text, but it took 500ms+ to insert single characters. There is a serious lack of an open source text editing library for Javascript that can handle any amount of characters without completely bogging down.

I was actually seriously impressed that I was able to take a huge amount of text and shove it into Obsidian and the UI stayed completely smooth the entire time. Props to the Obsidian devs for that!

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#432

Post by xpe »

Chris2048 wrote: post #423
xpe wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: were you expecting that my comment offer "an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job."? If so, why?

Because it seems like you are talking to a dev, not a manager. Assume the dev is already onboard with the idea of being compensated; the original comment was "I'd be more concerned if you had a hard time getting reimbursed" i.e from the POV of the employee.

I was asking ALittleLight.

Chris2048: are you the same person?

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#433

Post by nathan_long »

ericax wrote: post #119
Veen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite an odd choice. It makes sense to tier based on features, but tiers based on how or when people use an app is bizarre. Am I supposed to monitor myself so I don't read a note in Obsidian while I'm doing commercial writing work? (Also, their license page could do with some proofreading)

The idea is that if you're creating value with Obsidian, your employer should expense that, ideally it shouldn't impact you financially. If you're working for a non-profit for example, it's all free. > (Also, their license page could do with some proofreading) Interested to hear more! We did a few rounds of proofreading, did you find any typos?

This is really murky to me. As a professional, I keep notes as I learn things which may or may not relate to my current employment. The notes are my property and part of my knowledge base that I bring to any job. But I suppose I indirectly receive compensation for knowing things, so I need a commercial license?

Or what if I start taking notes on some random subject for fun, and eventually I write and sell a book based on them? All of a sudden I need to start paying a yearly fee?

It's not a prohibitive amount of money, but I'd be much happier with paying a one-time fee for the current version, then buying future versions if I choose to.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#434

Post by xpe »

Chris2048 wrote: post #423
xpe wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: were you expecting that my comment offer "an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job."? If so, why?

Because it seems like you are talking to a dev, not a manager. Assume the dev is already onboard with the idea of being compensated; the original comment was "I'd be more concerned if you had a hard time getting reimbursed" i.e from the POV of the employee.

I don’t understand.

Is it fair to say you (Chris2048) have some expectation around how the thread evolved based on your assumptions of what is relevant?

I see the best conversations here as trying to understand each other.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#435

Post by depr »

slightwinder wrote: post #422
rhezab wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting stuff! I currently use Andy Matuschak's [1] system, using his note-link-janitor script [2] to generate backlinks and Typora to edit. The only thing Obsidian adds is the graph view for me, but it seems that Obsidian generates backlinks using file name, not title. I prefer linking by title. Perhaps this can be an option? The editor also seems to be lacking a little... for instance I can't seem to render mat…

Linking by title is an anti-pattern. Titles change and titles are not unique. Link-rot should always be prevented. Best solution is to use a uuid and hide it from the user.

In Zettlr, new files are created based on a timestamp by default, e.g. 20200528171636.md. You can add YAML frontmatter like this:

---

title: Something

---

and the title will be reflected in the file navigator, instead of 20200528171636.md.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#436

Post by non-nil »

unqueued wrote: post #370
ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

This looks really cool! I can't wait to check it out. I've been using various personal wikis for years, and this hits most of what I am looking for. But, I'd like to offer some suggestions. - It would be cool if you would consider some tweaks for how the text is rendered. It can still be Markdown compatible, but for example allow linebreaks to be interpreted as linebreaks. Text used for reference often has different…

+1 for a git-annex integration! I'm hoping this may come to pass at least as a plug-in.

I'm pretty much ready to abandon org-mode for this, but the git/git-annex combo is harder to leave behind.

Would love to hear more about your setup!

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#437

Post by depr »

kixiQu wrote: post #358
voxelghost wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, my optical nerve retracted and disconnected from the retina, and is now sitting in some dark corner of some bar in the adrenal cortex drinking whisky in pure protest to your H1 styling.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ kids these days can't handle a little 𝕵𝖗𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖚𝖗

Looks pretty great to me. I have a great book called Fraktur Mon Amour. Unfortunately it is out of print but if you can still get it somewhere I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#438

Post by tanyatik »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #292
ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

Hi Eric(?) I downloaded Obsidian and it looks really nice. I use markdown already to make notes on my side project, but in my brain my thoughts are more diffuse as it's an MVP stage thing with so many ways to extend, so many things to think about. I think this would, at firs glance, help me alot. One small thing I'd recommend would be when you first open it, could it create a default folder like (on Windows for examp…

Erica: https://obsidian.md/about

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#439

Post by qznc »

kixiQu wrote: post #187
dvtrn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backlinks, thank you. That was the word I was trying to think of and describe exactly this, missed it by THAT much, heh-drinks more coffee . Cheers, I'll definitely be taking this for a spin

Psst, if you end up wanting to do backlinks in context by your notes in Tiddlywiki like Roam does, as shown here... https://i.imgur.com/n9ef25L.png I have how to do that here: https://lesser.occult.institute/an-opinionated-approach-to-t... :)

Do you know a single plugin to get the two columns layout of stroll?

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#440

Post by kixiQu »

voxelghost wrote: post #384
kixiQu wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ kids these days can't handle a little 𝕵𝖗𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖚𝖗

Kids? I'm probably old enough to vehemently request that you kindly get off my greensward. But let us not get bogged down with ageism, the real question is what kind of monster uses both cyan and magenta text-shadow diagonally offset against each other???? !!! .... ? :-)

Any commenter with a greensward is a friend of mine!

The answer is Google, sort of: https://developers.google.com/fonts/docs/getting_started#ena...

The anaglyph effect is what I tweaked. It's not too unreadable with simpler fonts--I 100% acknowledge readability takes a massive hit with both the fraktur and the anaglyph. Ultimately, though, my goal with that blog is mostly to have fun, so the expressive aspect is important to me. I may play around later with doing an animated effect (a la https://codepen.io/anatravas/pen/mOyNWR ) so the glitchy vibe remains strong but there are more readable keyframes. (Would a proper designer use animated text like this? Certainly not. Am I a proper designer? Certainly certainly not.)

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