23 ms·

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 you

by ericax 6y ago

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 brain should work similarly to your own brain and connections are crucial in thinking. Obsidian supports [[internal links]] between your notes out of the box, and provide a powerful graph view and backlink pane to help you understand your knowledge. We also noticed how personal note-taking and knowledge management is, so we built Obsidian to be very extensible from the start, and let you put together your own workflow with plugins like daily notes and page preview as building blocks. This leads to our three fundamental values of Obsidian: 1. Local-first, Markdown plain text based; 2. Link as first-citizen. 3. As extensible as possible. Obsidian is a powerful front-end for your knowledge, like an IDE for your notes. Learn more about Obsidian's features: https://obsidian.md/features https://obsidian.md/features Read the story of the project and the team: https://obsidian.md/about https://obsidian.md/about

kotutku 6y ago
Are you going to add some features for more structured data? I'm thinking about tables like in Notion where you can sort by any column. Working with Markdown tables is very clunky.
- ericax 6y ago
  The closest thing in Markdown is probably front-matters. You're right in that Obsidian is not great for structured data right now, and for that purpose Notion or Airtable is much better.
- O_H_E 6y ago
  That might be a good candid it feature for a plugin when the API is released. It was mentioned before in the discord.
  - cgranier 6y ago
    Not sure if this BoneAppleTea material or DamnYouAutoCorrect :-)
- rcarr 6y ago
  If you need to edit tables then you could just use TableFlip, gives you a spreadsheet style interface to edit tables, automatically updates your markdown file without the need to copy paste https://tableflipapp.com https://tableflipapp.com
abledon 6y ago
can you do a quick and dirty screenshare demo of how you use it and post that to youtube? e.g. setting up some notes after a fake brainstorming session or micro LSD dose etc..
- ericax 6y ago
  There are a few videos made by beta testers already, but it's a good idea to have some official ones. We've just been too busy shipping releases... Some videos that might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFYaWC_86W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFYaWC_86W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkJMHg-dGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkJMHg-dGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2ysYig8Wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2ysYig8Wo
lukeramsden 6y ago
Have you any good resources for getting started with this graph-type note-taking? Currently I just used notable.md in a NextCloud folder and it works pretty slickly.
- ericax 6y ago
  Not aware of many good resources since it's pretty new, but you can probably look into the Zettelkasten method. The gist is to make your notes atomic and link them together whenever possible. [[ links provides auto-complete, and the backlink plugin tells you what notes links to this note, and what notes mention it but don't explicit link it. The graph view is for discovery and navigation mostly. It lets you discover clusters, and identify "orphan" nodes that aren't connected anything. That might inspire you to think of connections and strength your knowledge network. Hope that makes sense!
- perchard 6y ago
  i found the following useful when i was getting started: https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B06WVYW33Y https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook... https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettelkasten-method-1 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettel...
deltron3030 6y ago
What do you think about CMS usecases like blogging? Where you'd write locally and maybe define some notes or a folder for static site generation, maybe triggering rebuilds from within Obsidian?
- ericax 6y ago
  We designed the "Publish" add-on service for that purpose (not yet available): https://obsidian.md/pricing https://obsidian.md/pricing We still want to give you the option to export internal links to standard [Markdown](link) links so that static site generators or sites like GitBooks can understand them out of the box.
  - deltron3030 6y ago
    Good to know, thx.
- wazanator 6y ago
  Why not just use Jekyll or Hugo at that point?
  - deltron3030 6y ago
    Idea was to use that feature with Jekyll or Hugo.
jhvkjhk 6y ago
Obsidian looks great! And I think it will be greater if I can write `[](another_markdown)` as internal links too, it will be easier to generate HTML files to host, using Hugo or something. If people save all markdown files in one folder then it's the same word count as [[another_markdown]].
- ericax 6y ago
  Yes we do support the standard format, navigation will work in Obsidian but unfortunately not link auto-completion.
- unqueued 6y ago
  I would just like to point out John Gruber disavowed the []() syntax on Twitter. He even said he would like to accept reverse brackets, since it's such a common problem. I have been using personal wikis for about a decade, and 99% of the time I make an internal link, I want the caption to be the same as the page name. I wish that the Markdown standard would just specify to render [[Page]] as [Page](Page).
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    To be fair, John Gruber has disavowed a lot of modern Markdown features and syntaces, so it's not exactly an authority statement anymore for today's Markdown. It's why CommonMark exists.
perchard 6y ago
this is awesome! i see the 'zettelkasten link fixer' in the markdown format importer ("Fixes [[UID]] links to full [[UID File Name]].") - any plans/thoughts on just supporting [[UID]]? this seems less brittle to me in that you won't break all of your backlinks if you change the (non-ID) part of the filename.
- ericax 6y ago
  Obsidian will auto-update all backlinks when you rename it. Essentially, we think wikilinks should identify the destination exactly and should not perform a search instead. Thankfully it's all just plain text at the end of the day, and it's not hard to do some text processing to convert both ways.
- jacobsenmd 6y ago
  +1 for this request, which would allow better interoperability with "The Archive" (from zettelkasten.de). I built my Zettelkasten links in "The Archive" using [[UID]]. Obsidian looks fantastic and I'd love to give it a try but my existing links do not work. As a side note, the other feature from "The Archive" I miss is the ability to create buttons for custom searches in the left sidebar.
dvtrn 6y ago
2. Link as first-citizen. sits up in chair, attention captured Where can I read more about this? My current personal wiki is powered by TiddlyWiki and while I don't necessarily love the performance, I do LOVE the link structure of TiddlyWiki (I can create a "table of contents" page a random tag, and then every page using that tag gets rendered on said page). I have similar plugins for VSCode to collect all of my todo comments all into one document, linking back to their respective files. Curious if Obsidian has a similar feature beyond the mind-map view shown on the features page?
- ymolodtsov 6y ago
  If I got you right, then you can just open the said tag in Obsidian and see all references to it as backlinks on the side panel.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    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
    - kixiQu 6y ago
      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 https://i.imgur.com/n9ef25L.png I have how to do that here: https://lesser.occult.institute/an-opinionated-approach-to-tiddlywiki https://lesser.occult.institute/an-opinionated-approach-to-t... :)
      - dvtrn 6y ago
        Done, cheers for that!
      - voxelghost 6y ago
        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.
allenleein 6y ago
Early user here. Obsidian is literally the best app in 2020 so far IMO. - Blazingly fast - Clean UI - Free - Sync with Dropbox, Github, iCloud... - Great community I have never looked back to Notion and Bear since I found it. Btw, the Obs team is moving so fast.
- jevogel 6y ago
  How does it compare to Roam?
  - kiaorarohit 6y ago
    1. Obsidian makes use of a local folder of Markdown text files, rather than syncing to a cloud database like Roam. 2. Each page in Roam is an outline (as in outliner), whereas each file in Obsidian is a Markdown file. 3. #tag is not the same as [[tag]] in Obsidian. 4. Rather than a built-in feature, "daily notes" is available as a plugin in Obsidian.
- galoisscobi 6y ago
  Curious if you use your markdown files on mobile and if so, what tools do you use? I’m still using bear because of their iPhone/iPad apps.
  - Reelin 6y ago
    Not GP but Markor is fantastic for anyone running Android (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.gsantner.markor/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.gsantner.markor/).
  - evpv 6y ago
    You should try NotePlan https://noteplan.co/ https://noteplan.co/ - pretty decent search, tags, markdown-like syntax and calendar on both mac and iPhone apps.
- usr1106 6y ago
  > Free Not really. The license says you are not allowed to take notes about work you get compensated for. So free only for 100% hobby projects. Working in a start-up I don't have big 100% hobby projects that would require a lot of note keeping. YMMV
wh-uws 6y ago
Ive been using Trello Card's markdown notes and the connecting cards feature to approximate obsidian's main features for years now. Really love it. Very interested in the graph and multiplexer features... A Trello integration would be nice.
douglaswlance 6y ago
> 3. As extensible as possible. The app would need to be open source for this to be possible. It's still possible to make money with an open-source product. When you're targeting a developer audience, it might even be more profitable to be open-source.
- woodrowbarlow 6y ago
  proprietary software can totally be extensible, that's what plugin APIs are for. foss is cool and all, but i don't buy the implication that it's some sort of civic duty for developers to release under a foss license.
  - douglaswlance 6y ago
    Is an open-source piece of software more extensible than closed-source? If so, then if the goal is to maximize extensibility, then open-source is required.
    - cecja 6y ago
      it's not as black and white as you want to paint it.
    - Reelin 6y ago
      Open source software is readily and legally user modifiable. It is often (but not always) readily extensible - it can actually be quite difficult to extend in some cases. (There's plenty of difficult to work with spaghetti on GitHub.) Source available proprietary software is readily inspectable, but often not legal to modify (at least not for free). It might still be extensible (ex plugins) though! Closed source proprietary software is difficult to inspect, difficult to modify, and generally illegal to modify (for most use cases, in most jurisdictions). As above, it could easily be extensible though.
    - woodrowbarlow 6y ago
      obviously the "as possible" is qualified. setting that aside, though, the best way to make software (open- or closed-source) extensible is via a plugin API. without it, the only way for end users to extend open-source software is to fork and maintain the fork forever, or attempt to merge upstream. so one might argue that the quality of the plugin API (and its documentation) is the primary measure of a software's "extensibility".
rhezab 6y ago
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 math. Hopefully some of my feedback will be useful to you. Overall really cool idea, but probably not going to use for now. Will keep tabs, and wish you the best of luck! [1] https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes [2] https://github.com/andymatuschak/note-link-janitor https://github.com/andymatuschak/note-link-janitor
- ansible 6y ago
  That's interesting. I'm imagining a version that runs as a daemon, watching the folder containing all the notes. It then looks for files that have been modified, and are not currently edited (.swp files for vim, for example), and runs an update. I think I'd prefer something running in the browser, though that is of course not ideal for several reasons...
- 627467 6y ago
  I discovered andy's notes in the past and has been trying to determined what he uses to publish those clean yet powerfull notes. The janitor is only one part. do you also publish your notes as HTML? How to you make use of the backlinks generated by janitor?
  - rhezab 6y ago
    I don't. I share my notes with some friends as a private GitHub repo. The backlinks I just use as click-throughs to help me navigate my own notes. I too admire his notes site. Making my own is too much effort for me right now, but it is something I really want...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
input_sh 6y ago
Why isn't the snap package signed? $ snap install obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap error: cannot find signatures with metadata for snap "obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap"
- ericax 6y ago
  Apologies for our lack of experience on Linux, we'll look into it!
  - input_sh 6y ago
    You'd need some snap store to be able to install it without using --dangerous flag. Snapcraft.io is Ubuntu's (and most popular one), though that might not work for you if you want the download to be available exclusively from your own website. But then again, if it's on Snapcraft, you don't need to worry about distributing updates to your users.
  - b215826 6y ago
    Might I suggest distributing your app as an AppImage? snaps require the snap package manager (snapd) to be installed on your system. AppImages, on the other hand, run out of the box after a chmod +x.
jmacd 6y ago
Wow, based on your history of submissions you've really been obsessing over this problem for quite a while. Kudos on continuing to improve your products/positioning.
MiroF 6y ago
I've been looking for something like this for... so long. It's like tiddlywiki but with first class & local markdown! Thank you!!! Add a separate GUI for a workflow-y like list-editing (that saves as a markdown list format) and you've got a serious competitor to Roam as well as beating out more traditional competitors like Notion, Boostnote, etc. e: ah, no inline LaTex.. I knew there was a catch!
- bachmeier 6y ago
  > Add a separate GUI for a workflow-y like list-editing (that saves as a markdown list format) and you've got a serious competitor to Roam as well as beating out more traditional competitors like Notion, Boostnote, etc. FYI, they're the ones behind Dynalist.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    Dynalist doesn't have the first class local markdown support like this!
  - Xavdidtheshadow 6y ago
    Can you clarify who "they" is? Are Dynalist and Obsidian made by the same folks?
    - Eugeleo 6y ago
      AFAIK yes.
- ericax 6y ago
  The catch shall be fixed soon! :)
- dunefox 6y ago
  > e: ah, no inline LaTex.. I knew there was a catch! Sadly, this makes it completely useless for me.
  - 6y ago
pedoh 6y ago
I just installed it, and it looks pretty slick, congratulations on the launch! One piece of feedback, I couldn't discover in the app itself how to make references to other documents. I finally figured it out by looking at your web page and seeing the [[connections]] bit.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Had the same issue, found it on this HN post.
quickthrower2 6y ago
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 example) Documents\Obsidian. And pre fill that as the folder (and I can change if I like). Then when I first use it there is less friction. The other thing is to UX test that first screen where you are made to choose between new document and reading docs. I felt that made me think too much, and it might be the wording. I'd sort of prefer something like: New User? Do you want to read help on getting started? Yes/No. However I might not be typical, so watch over some shoulders as people first use the app and ask them what they are thinking. Good luck!
- ericax 6y ago
  Thank you so much for the tips, they make a lot of sense! Our onboarding surely needs some re-thinking.
- tanyatik 6y ago
  Erica: https://obsidian.md/about https://obsidian.md/about
logicprog 6y ago
Downloaded this a few hours ago, and ported all my notes about my novel over to it, and I have to say: this is a really great piece of software. The interface is intelligent, ergonomic and fast, and it does a lot of things automatically which I really like. It cuts down on the boring book keeping. I was also able to move my plot outline into this, which was a godsend for me because previously it was in a word document, meaning I couldn't check things off. Now I have an interactive task list for it! And everything is all in one place! One small suggestion: I would really like some place where it lists all the key commands (for instance, are there key commands for making headings? what about the key command for Replace, which I couldn't find?). Also, it would be nice if tags weren't necessarily represented inside the document from a viewing perspective. Maybe as a bar along the bottom, which is then copied into the markdown document transparently? Thanks for making this!
- joaogui1 6y ago
  Settings -> Hotkeys
unqueued 6y ago
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 needs than what is being exported to HTML. - Git integration. I just use git for syncing my knowledge bases. It makes the most sense for my multiple devices, and it is very rare that I even have conflicts and can't automatically merge differences. I actually have a script that lets me use Dropbox or another syncing provider to sync my working tree, separate from the repo itself, so that my history isn't polluted with excessive automated commits, but it is still tracked relative to where it was checked out, and resolved automatically. That way you can have the strengths of git without the drawbacks. You may also want to check out git-annex/datalad. I combine it with my home grown Markdown wikis for embedding references to files in my wikis, keeping my git history just pure text. One of my goals is to bridge file management with text management. I'd be happy to share any of this if you're interested. I've had plenty of free time recently to further develop it.
- non-nil 6y ago
  +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!
gravyboat 6y ago
Obsidian seems very cool. One thing I noticed on install as someone with a Windows device is that the install location cannot be specified. It would be great if your team supported this as it's pretty standard for many Windows apps and aids in system organization. I was able to move Obsidian and the obsidian-installer and things seem okay but I have no idea if this will break the updater at a later point in time.
smhmd 6y ago
Could you add the releases on Arch Linux's AUR? Downloading a binary from a website is not something Linux users often do. I couldn't find Obsidian on the snap store[0] either. [0]: https://snapcraft.io/search?q=obsidian https://snapcraft.io/search?q=obsidian
igravious 6y ago
Unless you follow the semantic wiki model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_wiki) rather than the plain wiki model what the user is building is neither a knowledge base nor a second brain. Nearly all software in this area makes this mistake so it's not your fault. Links in human brains are typed (not untyped) and the regular wiki model (and web, and Obsidian) only support untyped links. If you are truly aiming to deliver software that allows users to create a personal knowledge base then please consider spending some time researching semantic web technology.
bananamerica 6y ago
How does it compare to Emacs Org Mode?
nindalf 6y ago
This looks incredible, I’m going to try it out today. One suggestion - would you consider adding videos/gifs of your product on the features page? I feel like that would demonstrate your product much better, especially the linking part.
app4soft 6y ago
> Obsidian is a powerful front-end for your knowledge, like an IDE for your notes. Could you describe Obsidian's pros'n'cons in comparison to VNote[0] + Viki[1]? [0] https://github.com/tamlok/vnote https://github.com/tamlok/vnote [1] https://github.com/tamlok/viki https://github.com/tamlok/viki
jscotto 6y ago
I know I'm a day late, but I wanted to pass on that I am in love with this product, so cool! I have used it nonstop since I downloaded it. Can't wait to see how this evolves
winxton 6y ago
Awesome work guys! Judging by such an active and enthusiastic community, I could see this having a very sizable market share of knowledge bases like roam / bear / notion in the future. So far I haven't found a good filesystem based note taking app that fit my needs. Quiver came the closest but has not been active in development recently, so I'm switching to this and I'm excited where it goes. You and Shida have some serious product & programming chops ~ UWaterloo represent!

by ericax 6y ago

kotutku 6y ago

Are you going to add some features for more structured data? I'm thinking about tables like in Notion where you can sort by any column. Working with Markdown tables is very clunky.

ericax 6y ago
The closest thing in Markdown is probably front-matters. You're right in that Obsidian is not great for structured data right now, and for that purpose Notion or Airtable is much better.
O_H_E 6y ago
That might be a good candid it feature for a plugin when the API is released. It was mentioned before in the discord.
- cgranier 6y ago
  Not sure if this BoneAppleTea material or DamnYouAutoCorrect :-)
rcarr 6y ago
If you need to edit tables then you could just use TableFlip, gives you a spreadsheet style interface to edit tables, automatically updates your markdown file without the need to copy paste https://tableflipapp.com https://tableflipapp.com

abledon 6y ago

can you do a quick and dirty screenshare demo of how you use it and post that to youtube? e.g. setting up some notes after a fake brainstorming session or micro LSD dose etc..

ericax 6y ago
There are a few videos made by beta testers already, but it's a good idea to have some official ones. We've just been too busy shipping releases... Some videos that might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFYaWC_86W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFYaWC_86W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkJMHg-dGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkJMHg-dGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2ysYig8Wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2ysYig8Wo

lukeramsden 6y ago

Have you any good resources for getting started with this graph-type note-taking? Currently I just used notable.md in a NextCloud folder and it works pretty slickly.

ericax 6y ago
Not aware of many good resources since it's pretty new, but you can probably look into the Zettelkasten method. The gist is to make your notes atomic and link them together whenever possible. [[ links provides auto-complete, and the backlink plugin tells you what notes links to this note, and what notes mention it but don't explicit link it. The graph view is for discovery and navigation mostly. It lets you discover clusters, and identify "orphan" nodes that aren't connected anything. That might inspire you to think of connections and strength your knowledge network. Hope that makes sense!
perchard 6y ago
i found the following useful when i was getting started: https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B06WVYW33Y https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook... https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettelkasten-method-1 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettel...

deltron3030 6y ago

What do you think about CMS usecases like blogging? Where you'd write locally and maybe define some notes or a folder for static site generation, maybe triggering rebuilds from within Obsidian?

ericax 6y ago
We designed the "Publish" add-on service for that purpose (not yet available): https://obsidian.md/pricing https://obsidian.md/pricing We still want to give you the option to export internal links to standard [Markdown](link) links so that static site generators or sites like GitBooks can understand them out of the box.
- deltron3030 6y ago
  Good to know, thx.
wazanator 6y ago
Why not just use Jekyll or Hugo at that point?
- deltron3030 6y ago
  Idea was to use that feature with Jekyll or Hugo.

jhvkjhk 6y ago

Obsidian looks great! And I think it will be greater if I can write `[](another_markdown)` as internal links too, it will be easier to generate HTML files to host, using Hugo or something. If people save all markdown files in one folder then it's the same word count as [[another_markdown]].

ericax 6y ago
Yes we do support the standard format, navigation will work in Obsidian but unfortunately not link auto-completion.
unqueued 6y ago
I would just like to point out John Gruber disavowed the []() syntax on Twitter. He even said he would like to accept reverse brackets, since it's such a common problem. I have been using personal wikis for about a decade, and 99% of the time I make an internal link, I want the caption to be the same as the page name. I wish that the Markdown standard would just specify to render [[Page]] as [Page](Page).
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  To be fair, John Gruber has disavowed a lot of modern Markdown features and syntaces, so it's not exactly an authority statement anymore for today's Markdown. It's why CommonMark exists.

perchard 6y ago

this is awesome! i see the 'zettelkasten link fixer' in the markdown format importer ("Fixes [[UID]] links to full [[UID File Name]].") - any plans/thoughts on just supporting [[UID]]? this seems less brittle to me in that you won't break all of your backlinks if you change the (non-ID) part of the filename.

ericax 6y ago
Obsidian will auto-update all backlinks when you rename it. Essentially, we think wikilinks should identify the destination exactly and should not perform a search instead. Thankfully it's all just plain text at the end of the day, and it's not hard to do some text processing to convert both ways.
jacobsenmd 6y ago
+1 for this request, which would allow better interoperability with "The Archive" (from zettelkasten.de). I built my Zettelkasten links in "The Archive" using [[UID]]. Obsidian looks fantastic and I'd love to give it a try but my existing links do not work. As a side note, the other feature from "The Archive" I miss is the ability to create buttons for custom searches in the left sidebar.

dvtrn 6y ago

2. Link as first-citizen. sits up in chair, attention captured Where can I read more about this? My current personal wiki is powered by TiddlyWiki and while I don't necessarily love the performance, I do LOVE the link structure of TiddlyWiki (I can create a "table of contents" page a random tag, and then every page using that tag gets rendered on said page). I have similar plugins for VSCode to collect all of my todo comments all into one document, linking back to their respective files. Curious if Obsidian has a similar feature beyond the mind-map view shown on the features page?

ymolodtsov 6y ago
If I got you right, then you can just open the said tag in Obsidian and see all references to it as backlinks on the side panel.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  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
  - kixiQu 6y ago
    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 https://i.imgur.com/n9ef25L.png I have how to do that here: https://lesser.occult.institute/an-opinionated-approach-to-tiddlywiki https://lesser.occult.institute/an-opinionated-approach-to-t... :)
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      Done, cheers for that!
    - voxelghost 6y ago
      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.

allenleein 6y ago

Early user here. Obsidian is literally the best app in 2020 so far IMO. - Blazingly fast - Clean UI - Free - Sync with Dropbox, Github, iCloud... - Great community I have never looked back to Notion and Bear since I found it. Btw, the Obs team is moving so fast.

jevogel 6y ago
How does it compare to Roam?
- kiaorarohit 6y ago
  1. Obsidian makes use of a local folder of Markdown text files, rather than syncing to a cloud database like Roam. 2. Each page in Roam is an outline (as in outliner), whereas each file in Obsidian is a Markdown file. 3. #tag is not the same as [[tag]] in Obsidian. 4. Rather than a built-in feature, "daily notes" is available as a plugin in Obsidian.
galoisscobi 6y ago
Curious if you use your markdown files on mobile and if so, what tools do you use? I’m still using bear because of their iPhone/iPad apps.
- Reelin 6y ago
  Not GP but Markor is fantastic for anyone running Android (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.gsantner.markor/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.gsantner.markor/).
- evpv 6y ago
  You should try NotePlan https://noteplan.co/ https://noteplan.co/ - pretty decent search, tags, markdown-like syntax and calendar on both mac and iPhone apps.
usr1106 6y ago
> Free Not really. The license says you are not allowed to take notes about work you get compensated for. So free only for 100% hobby projects. Working in a start-up I don't have big 100% hobby projects that would require a lot of note keeping. YMMV

wh-uws 6y ago

Ive been using Trello Card's markdown notes and the connecting cards feature to approximate obsidian's main features for years now. Really love it. Very interested in the graph and multiplexer features... A Trello integration would be nice.

douglaswlance 6y ago

> 3. As extensible as possible. The app would need to be open source for this to be possible. It's still possible to make money with an open-source product. When you're targeting a developer audience, it might even be more profitable to be open-source.

woodrowbarlow 6y ago
proprietary software can totally be extensible, that's what plugin APIs are for. foss is cool and all, but i don't buy the implication that it's some sort of civic duty for developers to release under a foss license.
- douglaswlance 6y ago
  Is an open-source piece of software more extensible than closed-source? If so, then if the goal is to maximize extensibility, then open-source is required.
  - cecja 6y ago
    it's not as black and white as you want to paint it.
  - Reelin 6y ago
    Open source software is readily and legally user modifiable. It is often (but not always) readily extensible - it can actually be quite difficult to extend in some cases. (There's plenty of difficult to work with spaghetti on GitHub.) Source available proprietary software is readily inspectable, but often not legal to modify (at least not for free). It might still be extensible (ex plugins) though! Closed source proprietary software is difficult to inspect, difficult to modify, and generally illegal to modify (for most use cases, in most jurisdictions). As above, it could easily be extensible though.
  - woodrowbarlow 6y ago
    obviously the "as possible" is qualified. setting that aside, though, the best way to make software (open- or closed-source) extensible is via a plugin API. without it, the only way for end users to extend open-source software is to fork and maintain the fork forever, or attempt to merge upstream. so one might argue that the quality of the plugin API (and its documentation) is the primary measure of a software's "extensibility".

rhezab 6y ago

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 math. Hopefully some of my feedback will be useful to you. Overall really cool idea, but probably not going to use for now. Will keep tabs, and wish you the best of luck! [1] https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes [2] https://github.com/andymatuschak/note-link-janitor https://github.com/andymatuschak/note-link-janitor

ansible 6y ago
That's interesting. I'm imagining a version that runs as a daemon, watching the folder containing all the notes. It then looks for files that have been modified, and are not currently edited (.swp files for vim, for example), and runs an update. I think I'd prefer something running in the browser, though that is of course not ideal for several reasons...
627467 6y ago
I discovered andy's notes in the past and has been trying to determined what he uses to publish those clean yet powerfull notes. The janitor is only one part. do you also publish your notes as HTML? How to you make use of the backlinks generated by janitor?
- rhezab 6y ago
  I don't. I share my notes with some friends as a private GitHub repo. The backlinks I just use as click-throughs to help me navigate my own notes. I too admire his notes site. Making my own is too much effort for me right now, but it is something I really want...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

input_sh 6y ago

Why isn't the snap package signed? $ snap install obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap error: cannot find signatures with metadata for snap "obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap"

ericax 6y ago
Apologies for our lack of experience on Linux, we'll look into it!
- input_sh 6y ago
  You'd need some snap store to be able to install it without using --dangerous flag. Snapcraft.io is Ubuntu's (and most popular one), though that might not work for you if you want the download to be available exclusively from your own website. But then again, if it's on Snapcraft, you don't need to worry about distributing updates to your users.
- b215826 6y ago
  Might I suggest distributing your app as an AppImage? snaps require the snap package manager (snapd) to be installed on your system. AppImages, on the other hand, run out of the box after a chmod +x.

jmacd 6y ago

Wow, based on your history of submissions you've really been obsessing over this problem for quite a while. Kudos on continuing to improve your products/positioning.

MiroF 6y ago

I've been looking for something like this for... so long. It's like tiddlywiki but with first class & local markdown! Thank you!!! Add a separate GUI for a workflow-y like list-editing (that saves as a markdown list format) and you've got a serious competitor to Roam as well as beating out more traditional competitors like Notion, Boostnote, etc. e: ah, no inline LaTex.. I knew there was a catch!

bachmeier 6y ago
> Add a separate GUI for a workflow-y like list-editing (that saves as a markdown list format) and you've got a serious competitor to Roam as well as beating out more traditional competitors like Notion, Boostnote, etc. FYI, they're the ones behind Dynalist.
- MiroF 6y ago
  Dynalist doesn't have the first class local markdown support like this!
- Xavdidtheshadow 6y ago
  Can you clarify who "they" is? Are Dynalist and Obsidian made by the same folks?
  - Eugeleo 6y ago
    AFAIK yes.
ericax 6y ago
The catch shall be fixed soon! :)
dunefox 6y ago
> e: ah, no inline LaTex.. I knew there was a catch! Sadly, this makes it completely useless for me.
- 6y ago

pedoh 6y ago

I just installed it, and it looks pretty slick, congratulations on the launch! One piece of feedback, I couldn't discover in the app itself how to make references to other documents. I finally figured it out by looking at your web page and seeing the [[connections]] bit.

Aeolun 6y ago
Had the same issue, found it on this HN post.

quickthrower2 6y ago

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 example) Documents\Obsidian. And pre fill that as the folder (and I can change if I like). Then when I first use it there is less friction. The other thing is to UX test that first screen where you are made to choose between new document and reading docs. I felt that made me think too much, and it might be the wording. I'd sort of prefer something like: New User? Do you want to read help on getting started? Yes/No. However I might not be typical, so watch over some shoulders as people first use the app and ask them what they are thinking. Good luck!

ericax 6y ago
Thank you so much for the tips, they make a lot of sense! Our onboarding surely needs some re-thinking.
tanyatik 6y ago
Erica: https://obsidian.md/about https://obsidian.md/about

logicprog 6y ago

Downloaded this a few hours ago, and ported all my notes about my novel over to it, and I have to say: this is a really great piece of software. The interface is intelligent, ergonomic and fast, and it does a lot of things automatically which I really like. It cuts down on the boring book keeping. I was also able to move my plot outline into this, which was a godsend for me because previously it was in a word document, meaning I couldn't check things off. Now I have an interactive task list for it! And everything is all in one place! One small suggestion: I would really like some place where it lists all the key commands (for instance, are there key commands for making headings? what about the key command for Replace, which I couldn't find?). Also, it would be nice if tags weren't necessarily represented inside the document from a viewing perspective. Maybe as a bar along the bottom, which is then copied into the markdown document transparently? Thanks for making this!

joaogui1 6y ago
Settings -> Hotkeys

unqueued 6y ago

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 needs than what is being exported to HTML. - Git integration. I just use git for syncing my knowledge bases. It makes the most sense for my multiple devices, and it is very rare that I even have conflicts and can't automatically merge differences. I actually have a script that lets me use Dropbox or another syncing provider to sync my working tree, separate from the repo itself, so that my history isn't polluted with excessive automated commits, but it is still tracked relative to where it was checked out, and resolved automatically. That way you can have the strengths of git without the drawbacks. You may also want to check out git-annex/datalad. I combine it with my home grown Markdown wikis for embedding references to files in my wikis, keeping my git history just pure text. One of my goals is to bridge file management with text management. I'd be happy to share any of this if you're interested. I've had plenty of free time recently to further develop it.

non-nil 6y ago
+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!

gravyboat 6y ago

Obsidian seems very cool. One thing I noticed on install as someone with a Windows device is that the install location cannot be specified. It would be great if your team supported this as it's pretty standard for many Windows apps and aids in system organization. I was able to move Obsidian and the obsidian-installer and things seem okay but I have no idea if this will break the updater at a later point in time.

smhmd 6y ago

Could you add the releases on Arch Linux's AUR? Downloading a binary from a website is not something Linux users often do. I couldn't find Obsidian on the snap store[0] either. [0]: https://snapcraft.io/search?q=obsidian https://snapcraft.io/search?q=obsidian

igravious 6y ago

Unless you follow the semantic wiki model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_wiki) rather than the plain wiki model what the user is building is neither a knowledge base nor a second brain. Nearly all software in this area makes this mistake so it's not your fault. Links in human brains are typed (not untyped) and the regular wiki model (and web, and Obsidian) only support untyped links. If you are truly aiming to deliver software that allows users to create a personal knowledge base then please consider spending some time researching semantic web technology.

bananamerica 6y ago

How does it compare to Emacs Org Mode?

nindalf 6y ago

This looks incredible, I’m going to try it out today. One suggestion - would you consider adding videos/gifs of your product on the features page? I feel like that would demonstrate your product much better, especially the linking part.

app4soft 6y ago

> Obsidian is a powerful front-end for your knowledge, like an IDE for your notes. Could you describe Obsidian's pros'n'cons in comparison to VNote[0] + Viki[1]? [0] https://github.com/tamlok/vnote https://github.com/tamlok/vnote [1] https://github.com/tamlok/viki https://github.com/tamlok/viki

jscotto 6y ago

I know I'm a day late, but I wanted to pass on that I am in love with this product, so cool! I have used it nonstop since I downloaded it. Can't wait to see how this evolves

winxton 6y ago

Awesome work guys! Judging by such an active and enthusiastic community, I could see this having a very sizable market share of knowledge bases like roam / bear / notion in the future. So far I haven't found a good filesystem based note taking app that fit my needs. Quiver came the closest but has not been active in development recently, so I'm switching to this and I'm excited where it goes. You and Shida have some serious product & programming chops ~ UWaterloo represent!