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Introduction to Obsidian

bryanhogan.com

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Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#71

Post by austinthetaco »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #21
rockooooo wrote: post #16

I've tried obsidian so many times and want to love it but the sync situation - either the expensive official one, the approved options for mixed iOS/Windows clients (icloud) and third party tools like obsidain-livesync - were all way too issue-prone for me to ever trust it. I hope they figure this out

At $4 per month, I don’t consider it expensive at all to have this whole category of problem solved for me. Mobile app, desktop, laptop synced flawlessly and quickly.

A lot of people view that as pretty costly for what is incredibly small amounts of data in the scope of things. for half that cost you can get 100gb of storage through google and have it synchronize all my docs AND my pictures and videos and anything else I want, so by comparison $4 can seem like a lot for note synchronization.

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#72

Post by bryanhogan »

on_the_train wrote: post #3

I'm just so bummed that multiple vaults are pretty much unusable. I can't sync my sensitive work notes. But I want to sync general programming notes between work and other PCs. But multiple vaults hardly work. The just open in a new window. Other than that, I love so many things about the program. Just linking and graphs are weird and strangely overrated. Search and tags still rules over everything imo

The main problem I have with using different Vaults at the same time is that they all share the same taskbar icon. For syncing you can sync your files however you want.

I mostly use one Vault for my setup, then things like linking and search work the best: https://bryanhogan.com/blog/obsidian-vault

I wouldn't call it unsuable though? I have one separate vault for just journaling and that works well.

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#73

Post by kepano »

hadik wrote: post #65
philips wrote: post #53

I love Obsidian, have written a popular plugin, and my wife and I use it for TODO lists and various planning. However, every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list (which has fairly frequent edits and deletions across our laptops and phones). I have no idea how to fix it. This thread shows other users having the exact same issue as us: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-syn…

For me, Obsidian started to silently and (seemingly) randomly replace the whole content of a note with the content of another random note. This has been happening to other people as well for some time now [1]. What makes this issue really terrifying is its silent nature. I only noticed one of the notes having had its content replaced while casually exploring my library. It took me an hour to restore the original cont…

What sync method are you using?

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#74

Post by bryanhogan »

NicuCalcea wrote: post #12
kelvinjps10 wrote: post #5

for my obsidian is just my mobile markdown editor I just haven't been able find a better one, for desktop I use neovim and telekasten

It's the opposite for me, I use Obsidian on desktop but hate it on mobile, so I use Markor there.

I like Obsidian on mobile, so I'm not really using it, but I found the "Zettel Notes"[1] app to be a good markdown editor for Android also.

[1]: https://www.zettelnotes.com/

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#75

Post by bryanhogan »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #32

I've used Flatnotes for about a year or so and if all you want is to write notes in markdown and search them it doesn't get much simpler. It has tags and decent search, but other than that nothing. Easy to sync or backup though with a single folder of text files. https://github.com/Dullage/flatnotes

Just curious, since I think they have the same focus, have you also tested SilverBullet?

https://silverbullet.md/

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#76

Post by freehorse »

dbvn wrote: post #14

Daily Notes feature is a lifesaver. Just throw things in there throughout the day. Never lose anything

Dropping things in daily notes is my main use of obsidian too. I spent a lot of time exploring community plugins, organising my setup etc, everything but actually writing notes. When I reduced to the absolute basics, I just managed to write and retrieve notes consistently. In the end I need just: rendering, throwing in images easily, daily notes, and text search. The point is to minimise the effort/time to actually write a note. If I have to think about how to categorise my notes, what tags to put etc, I just end up not writing notes.

Moreover, with a basic setup, for the most part obsidian can be replaced by almost any text/markdown editor, so no lock in, nor security risks from using community plugins.

Apart from notetaking I also use obsidian to create slide presentations, which is probably one of the laziest ways to make presentations that look good enough.

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#78

Post by BSTRhino »

rockooooo wrote: post #16

I've tried obsidian so many times and want to love it but the sync situation - either the expensive official one, the approved options for mixed iOS/Windows clients (icloud) and third party tools like obsidain-livesync - were all way too issue-prone for me to ever trust it. I hope they figure this out

This might not work for everyone who reads this, but I put all my Obsidian files on my iCloud drive. Since they're just markdown, they sync up on all my (Apple) devices and I can see the notes on my Macbook, iPad and iPhone at any time. I'm already paying for iCloud storage anyway for other stuff so it's very cost effective for me. (Obviously this wouldn't work if you're not in the walled garden of Apple)

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#79

Post by kepano »

austinthetaco wrote: post #71
tylerrobinson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $4 per month, I don’t consider it expensive at all to have this whole category of problem solved for me. Mobile app, desktop, laptop synced flawlessly and quickly.

A lot of people view that as pretty costly for what is incredibly small amounts of data in the scope of things. for half that cost you can get 100gb of storage through google and have it synchronize all my docs AND my pictures and videos and anything else I want, so by comparison $4 can seem like a lot for note synchronization.

The main value proposition of Obsidian Sync isn't storage. Obsidian is primarily used with text files which are tiny. My 20 year old collection of notes is only about 1GB for 19,000 files and a few images/pdfs.

I'm biased but I'd say the benefits over Google Drive are: 1. end-to-end encryption, 2. seamless integration with the app (e.g. version history), 3. granular control over what settings and files are synced for each device, 4. shared vaults.

In addition Obsidian Sync helps keep Obsidian 100% user-supported. Obsidian is not subsidized by advertising or any investors. And you can actually contact the team if you need help. See also: https://stephango.com/vcware

Re: Introduction to Obsidian

#80

Post by fshafique »

echelon wrote: post #9

Three asks for Obsidian to make it my #1 tool (and I mean #1 tool): - First-class multi-vault support. It's difficult to keep personal / business / team separate. I want to keep shared notes for my team, but it's really hard. - First-class git support. The git plugin is dangerous and will overwrite changes from other devices. The mobile git plugin (which requires hacks to even use) is deadly bad with blowing away you…

I second your suggestion to have a decent Spreadsheet tool in Obsidian.
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