9 ms·

VSCode – Markdown Edition

157 points by kevinslin 4y ago

kretaceous 4y ago
I've tried all the tools in the market for personal knowledge management/journalling/todo/whatever. And I've finally found my comfort in a folder with a certain directory structure containing all markdown files. I use VSCode for this (as it's already my daily driver) and GitJournal in Android to manage sync via git. These features are a huge value addition to my workflow!
- jshen 4y ago
  Have you tried obsidian? It’s basically what you’re doing, but with some nice extra features.
  - lolive 4y ago
    Some additional third-party plugins make the Obsidian experience much more enjoyable. Be sure to test them.
    - maleldil 4y ago
      Can you mention some of them?
      - Rechtsstaat 4y ago
        Not parent but here's some, downloadable from the built-in plugin store: - Advanced Tables: for automatic formatting and table operations of markdown tables - Dynamic Table of Contents: allows you to include a codeblock that automatically renders a table of contents from headers of some level - Natural language dates: insert dates in your preferred format using language like 'next Friday' or 'first Monday of June' - Quick latex for Obsidian: autoformat and autocomplete common latex commands (e.g. 'a/b' becomes '\frac{b}{a}' - Tag Wrangler: rename, merge, toggle and search tags easily - Sliding Panes: changes notes to panes that can be stacked similar to the ui of Andy Matushchak's notes [0] (check it out, it's rather neat) [0] https://notes.andymatuschak.org https://notes.andymatuschak.org
        timrichard 4y ago
        Some others that I like in my setup... - Zoom: Work on part of a bullet list structure in isolation, with a breadcrumb line at the top to jump to a different parent level - Copy button for code blocks - Auto backup with Git - Outliner: Vertical indentation lines for bullet lists, and hotkeys to move list items about in the structure - Recent files: List of files, ordered by most recently opened - Vimrc support Not a plugin, but I tried to make a cheatsheet of the supported Prism language types that I'm likely to use. They can be specified in the code fences (```) so that the code and config blocks in my markdown notes look prettier : https://prismjs.com/#supported-languages https://prismjs.com/#supported-languages
        lolive 4y ago
        Here is the list of those I often use: - Convert to iframe (transform a pasted URL into a iframe) - Custom attachment location (so pasting a screenshot automatically stores it in a dedicated subfolder) - Core search assistant (to preview search results) - Reveal Active File (to find the current note in the LHS tree) - Mind map (show the outline of a note as a mind map) - Excalidraw (draw things in notes) - Outline (adds a Outline side panel) And I plan to investigate: - obsidian-annotator
  - mattrighetti 4y ago
    For anyone interested in Obsidian[0] [0]: https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/
  - kevinslin 4y ago
    For folks that already use vscode, the selling point is being able to continue to use vscode for everything, code and markdown. VSCode has an editor experience that is hard to beat (also, disclaimer: I'm the author of the article and founder of Dendron)
    - slightwinder 4y ago
      > VSCode has an editor experience that is hard to beat VS Code is a text-editor focused on coding. Obsidian is a markdown-editor focused on knowledge- and self-management. They are each hard to beat in their own specialty. For example, the WYSIWYG-Editor of obsidian is not something that VS Codes raw text-view can beat, especially if you combine it with add-ons for code-blocks.
      - qumpis 4y ago
        The WYSIWYG part of obsidian can be somewhat replicated in VSCode by this obscure and community-neglected plugin [1]. Live math preview was the reason why I got this plugin, which works very unreliably, but for other markdown functions it's okay. [0] https://github.com/tejasvi/markless https://github.com/tejasvi/markless
  - kretaceous 4y ago
    Yep. I'm not joking when I say that I've almost tried everything. Joplin, Logseq, Boostnote, Tiddlywiki, Notion, Foam, Workflowy, you name it. I found out that I end up doing a lot of editing + file organisation tricks native to my VSCode setup. So +1 to kevinslin's sibling comment.
    - sigg3 4y ago
      OrgMode?
  - bdefore 4y ago
    One missing component (last I heard) to the Obsidian story: there's no web app. With Dendron and others, you can use code-server to use VS Code in a browser. It's a better workflow for ChromeOS, iPad nomads, Wayland users.
    - evolve2k 4y ago
      Since your knowledge base in obsidian is simply a folder filled with markdown files, it’s quite quick and fairly painless to run say mkdocs or similar which serves up all the markdown as a nicely formatted website. ref: https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/ https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/
- chaoxu 4y ago
  git is line based, so good for code. But not for most markdown files, at least how I use it. I only start new line (actually, 2 new lines) when I reach a new paragraph, and I think this is normal for most people who ever write something in markdown. So now I get a huge 2000 character line with a few small edits, and I can hardly see where the changes are.
  - kevinslin 4y ago
    i think it depends on your writing style. i tend to do a lot of outlining with bullet points so it works pretty well. for longer paragraphs it can definitely be a pain
  - darkr 4y ago
    I’d recommend using line wrapping at some reasonable line length (e.g 80-120 chars)
    - Macha 4y ago
      Hard line wrapping is not a panacea in this regard, like when you have a words added/removed from a line and then you get a cascading series of changes for the rest of the paragraph as you rewrap it.
  - kretaceous 4y ago
    Hmm, interesting. I've not yet come across a situation where I'd need diffing or going back to a change or looking for one. I just use git for syncing. Nice heads-up to look out for.
  - robenkleene 4y ago
    `git diff --word-diff` solves this by showing changes inline. Example: https://blog.ipspace.net/2020/04/git-tip-word-diff.html https://blog.ipspace.net/2020/04/git-tip-word-diff.html
    - chaoxu 4y ago
      Oh this feature is great. Solves my problem completely. I wish github would also implement word-diff option. Edit: Github actually does some form of word-diff! See example here: https://github.com/chaoxu/chaoxu.github.io/commit/6d9ab6eefc6e8d0034aea779208bd10821d47ff1 https://github.com/chaoxu/chaoxu.github.io/commit/6d9ab6eefc... I also looked up how word-diff work with Chinese language. Found a useful stackoverflow link with other suggestions. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26135133/git-word-diff-on-non-english-text https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26135133/git-word-diff-o...
- seltzered_ 4y ago
  The thing I keep sitting with is what one wants for personal knowledge management vs. collective knowledge management. I've been using athens research ( https://www.athensresearch.org/ https://www.athensresearch.org/ ) so far after doing classnotes in roam thinking one there could be extensions in the future to make things 'feel' like navigating directories of markdown files if really needed. After reading more about dendron which states on https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron "It's a personal knowledge management solution (PKM) built specifically for developers and integrates natively with IDEs like VS Code and VSCodium." , the question is how these tools could serve a wider audience if they were packaged more as standalone app (using something like Eclipse Theia).
  - kevinslin 4y ago
    In terms of making it available to a wider audience - Dendron comes with a NextJS Template: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/4ushYTDoX0TYQ1FDtGQSg https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/4ushYTDoX0TYQ1FDtGQSg This makes it easy to publish your notes as a static site. The plan is to add optional server side capabilities here so that it becomes possible to read *and* write notes, at which point it becomes a web interface for note taking. It also helps with the distribution problem (Dendron is used by teams to publish documentation to non-technical folks so it helps that they can access it as a regular webpage)
  - EricAAJohnson 4y ago
    I wish Dendron would use a more conventional way for hierarchy. I don't like its choice of dots for that.
    - kevinslin 4y ago
      that's fair. the dot hierarchy has been a polarizing topic with folks falling on both sides of it. the reason we went with it is because: - it allows a file to be both a note and a parent of notes - it makes hierarchy an explicit part of note creation - it greatly simplified operations like refactoring (regex over filename, no need to create scaffolding with empty folders or removing folders if they no longer had children) - it makes it easy to work with using cli tools More discussion on this here: - https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e80b558/#why-hierarchies https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e... - https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e80b558.html#will-dendron-ever-support-folders https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e...
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Give noteplan a try
- bbkane 4y ago
  I do almost the same thing! I also edit with Typora or Vim as the mood strikes. I wrote about this at https://www.bbkane.com/blog/how-i-take-notes/#my-system https://www.bbkane.com/blog/how-i-take-notes/#my-system
- MarkSweep 4y ago
  I’ve settled on similar setup. One nice thing about is there many tools that can work on this type of note setup, so you are not locked into one tool. Working Copy works decently well on iOS. Gollum [1] on desktop operating systems provides a web interface to the notes. For some shameless self-promotion, I’ve been hacking on a clone of Gollum called Smeagol [2]. It is written in Rust so it is quite a bit faster to install and run on some of my low powered systems than installing Gollum. [1]: https://github.com/gollum/gollum https://github.com/gollum/gollum [2]: https://smeagol.dev/ https://smeagol.dev/
  - xenodium 4y ago
    For anyone looking for an org mode equivalent (also syncing via Working Copy on iOS), I built https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com
tkuraku 4y ago
My knowledge base is a git repository full of markdown files and vscode. I can easly goto a specific file or do text search across all files. Minimal effort and no lockin to s specific tools.
donutshop 4y ago
I personally use https://github.com/foambubble/foam https://github.com/foambubble/foam Works great and straight forward to setup.
- mahathu 4y ago
  Is there any reason to use Obsidian (i.e. another standalone app) instead of this?Looks great
  - radicalriddler 4y ago
    Sync across devices is an initial benefit to Obsidian that I can think of. Being able to write notes using your phone or tablet?
    - cdaven 4y ago
      You can e.g. sync with Syncthing and write notes (on Android) with QuickEdit. Or use Dropbox and some Markdown editor with Dropbox support?
  - catelm 4y ago
    Live View (a WYSIWYM Editor) - you type markdown, but see it rendered, comes to mind. Also some interesting extensions/add-ons centered around knowledge management are arising. Unfortunately, Obsidian itself is not open-source though; but worth checking out.
minimaxir 4y ago
Using VS Code + Markdown All in One (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=yzhang.markdown-all-in-one https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=yzhang.m...) has honestly been the most productive blogging tool I've used in a very long time, moreso than dedicated Markdown blogging tools like iA Writer. (granted half of that is due to "Paste link on selected text" which is an embarrassingly common workflow for me) Adding Prettier (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=esbenp.prettier-vscode https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=esbenp.p...) for its underdiscussed Markdown formatting keeps READMEs and blog posts clean as well.
- kretaceous 4y ago
  +1. Also, Copy Image to File. Very very handy for snipping and just pasting it in the Markdown document you're editing.
  - cyberge99 4y ago
    This is an incredibly difficult plugin to search for. Can you post a link to it or provide the author's name?
    - InvaderFizz 4y ago
      I was also curious. I found an extension called Markdown Paste[0], by searching for an extension to automatically base64 encode images into markdown in VSCode, which is not how this extension works at all. 0: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=telesoho.vscode-markdown-paste-image https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=telesoho...
    - cdaven 4y ago
      Not the same extension, but Dendron actually has one: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dendron.dendron-paste-image https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dendron....
      - 4y ago
rcarmo 4y ago
I've been trying Obsidian, Foam, Dendron, etc., and most of these Zettelkasten-like editing environments have issues with relative links (i.e., they don't let you specify a base folder) and/or completely ignore front matter, which makes them hard to use when you've got 8000-odd posts across a big directory tree. (taoofmac.com is like that, and is actually a pretty big wiki) I've been resisting hacking my own, but I suspect I will eventually have to :)
- kevinslin 4y ago
  I gave in to the temptation - hence Dendron What issues did you encounter with Dendron? Would appreciate feedback so we can make it better!
  - CJefferson 4y ago
    Not the original poster, but my main problem install Dendron as a vacode plugin was sometimes my Dendron directory wasn't "Dendron", and sometimed Dendron seemed to load and do things when in directoris of unrelated markdown. I never did figure out what was going wrong, but I moved to Obsidian mainly so I had a clear separate note keeping app.
  - rcarmo 4y ago
    Well, it blew up trying to index my site, and it apparently can’t parse ISO dates in front matter, as well as not picking up tags…
    - kevinslin 4y ago
      if you have a public repo or an example note, happy to take a look at it. we've done lots of work on our markdown import and it should address a lot more cases now
      - rcarmo 4y ago
        My test cases are at https://github.com/rcarmo/sushy/tree/master/pages https://github.com/rcarmo/sushy/tree/master/pages
bachmeier 4y ago
> drag and drop files into the editor to create a markdown link This is nice, but I'd really prefer being able to drag and drop and then have it uploaded to, say, OneDrive. Even better, be able to paste a URL and have it download the file and then upload it to OneDrive or Dropbox or whatever. > find all references to header|links|files|urls inside of markdown Sometimes this sort of thing is nice to have, but doesn't it add a lot of overhead when working with markdown files?
- kevinslin 4y ago
  what do you mean by overhead? do you mean performance or complexity?
lysecret 4y ago
I love writing in vs code and markdown (for my blog https://leloew.com/blog/20220227_5_lines_of_js_for_a_markdown_blog https://leloew.com/blog/20220227_5_lines_of_js_for_a_markdow...) they also have an unofficial grammarly plugin which works quite well.
- kevinslin 4y ago
  nice writeup! i'm currently working on shipping the publishing side of dendron in a docker (its a custom nextjs app) so that it can be easily tested locally as well as hosted remotely
cas8 4y ago
Hello fellow Murt :)
- kevinslin 4y ago
  heh, internet is a small place :) what year are you? is mcmurtry still in-tents?
encryptluks2 4y ago
Atom has an "official" Markdown-enhanced plug-in that is released by atom-community. It has pretty much everything you could want. I don't understand why VS Code doesn't just have a similar official plugin and instead relies on people to go install random plugins with warnings about how they may be malicious. Shouldn't they just include a powerful markdown editor and previewer by default?
qumpis 4y ago
While I get their point of not enforcing hard tree hierarchies, I hate that as a consequence there is no folder structure. The integrated note explorer is quite cumbersome to use IMO, so dealing with files externally would be more convenient

157 points by kevinslin 4y ago

I've tried all the tools in the market for personal knowledge management/journalling/todo/whatever. And I've finally found my comfort in a folder with a certain directory structure containing all markdown files. I use VSCode for this (as it's already my daily driver) and GitJournal in Android to manage sync via git. These features are a huge value addition to my workflow!

jshen 4y ago
Have you tried obsidian? It’s basically what you’re doing, but with some nice extra features.
- lolive 4y ago
  Some additional third-party plugins make the Obsidian experience much more enjoyable. Be sure to test them.
  - maleldil 4y ago
    Can you mention some of them?
    - Rechtsstaat 4y ago
      Not parent but here's some, downloadable from the built-in plugin store: - Advanced Tables: for automatic formatting and table operations of markdown tables - Dynamic Table of Contents: allows you to include a codeblock that automatically renders a table of contents from headers of some level - Natural language dates: insert dates in your preferred format using language like 'next Friday' or 'first Monday of June' - Quick latex for Obsidian: autoformat and autocomplete common latex commands (e.g. 'a/b' becomes '\frac{b}{a}' - Tag Wrangler: rename, merge, toggle and search tags easily - Sliding Panes: changes notes to panes that can be stacked similar to the ui of Andy Matushchak's notes [0] (check it out, it's rather neat) [0] https://notes.andymatuschak.org https://notes.andymatuschak.org
      - timrichard 4y ago
        Some others that I like in my setup... - Zoom: Work on part of a bullet list structure in isolation, with a breadcrumb line at the top to jump to a different parent level - Copy button for code blocks - Auto backup with Git - Outliner: Vertical indentation lines for bullet lists, and hotkeys to move list items about in the structure - Recent files: List of files, ordered by most recently opened - Vimrc support Not a plugin, but I tried to make a cheatsheet of the supported Prism language types that I'm likely to use. They can be specified in the code fences (```) so that the code and config blocks in my markdown notes look prettier : https://prismjs.com/#supported-languages https://prismjs.com/#supported-languages
        lolive 4y ago
        Here is the list of those I often use: - Convert to iframe (transform a pasted URL into a iframe) - Custom attachment location (so pasting a screenshot automatically stores it in a dedicated subfolder) - Core search assistant (to preview search results) - Reveal Active File (to find the current note in the LHS tree) - Mind map (show the outline of a note as a mind map) - Excalidraw (draw things in notes) - Outline (adds a Outline side panel) And I plan to investigate: - obsidian-annotator
- mattrighetti 4y ago
  For anyone interested in Obsidian[0] [0]: https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/
- kevinslin 4y ago
  For folks that already use vscode, the selling point is being able to continue to use vscode for everything, code and markdown. VSCode has an editor experience that is hard to beat (also, disclaimer: I'm the author of the article and founder of Dendron)
  - slightwinder 4y ago
    > VSCode has an editor experience that is hard to beat VS Code is a text-editor focused on coding. Obsidian is a markdown-editor focused on knowledge- and self-management. They are each hard to beat in their own specialty. For example, the WYSIWYG-Editor of obsidian is not something that VS Codes raw text-view can beat, especially if you combine it with add-ons for code-blocks.
    - qumpis 4y ago
      The WYSIWYG part of obsidian can be somewhat replicated in VSCode by this obscure and community-neglected plugin [1]. Live math preview was the reason why I got this plugin, which works very unreliably, but for other markdown functions it's okay. [0] https://github.com/tejasvi/markless https://github.com/tejasvi/markless
- kretaceous 4y ago
  Yep. I'm not joking when I say that I've almost tried everything. Joplin, Logseq, Boostnote, Tiddlywiki, Notion, Foam, Workflowy, you name it. I found out that I end up doing a lot of editing + file organisation tricks native to my VSCode setup. So +1 to kevinslin's sibling comment.
  - sigg3 4y ago
    OrgMode?
- bdefore 4y ago
  One missing component (last I heard) to the Obsidian story: there's no web app. With Dendron and others, you can use code-server to use VS Code in a browser. It's a better workflow for ChromeOS, iPad nomads, Wayland users.
  - evolve2k 4y ago
    Since your knowledge base in obsidian is simply a folder filled with markdown files, it’s quite quick and fairly painless to run say mkdocs or similar which serves up all the markdown as a nicely formatted website. ref: https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/ https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/
chaoxu 4y ago
git is line based, so good for code. But not for most markdown files, at least how I use it. I only start new line (actually, 2 new lines) when I reach a new paragraph, and I think this is normal for most people who ever write something in markdown. So now I get a huge 2000 character line with a few small edits, and I can hardly see where the changes are.
- kevinslin 4y ago
  i think it depends on your writing style. i tend to do a lot of outlining with bullet points so it works pretty well. for longer paragraphs it can definitely be a pain
- darkr 4y ago
  I’d recommend using line wrapping at some reasonable line length (e.g 80-120 chars)
  - Macha 4y ago
    Hard line wrapping is not a panacea in this regard, like when you have a words added/removed from a line and then you get a cascading series of changes for the rest of the paragraph as you rewrap it.
- kretaceous 4y ago
  Hmm, interesting. I've not yet come across a situation where I'd need diffing or going back to a change or looking for one. I just use git for syncing. Nice heads-up to look out for.
- robenkleene 4y ago
  `git diff --word-diff` solves this by showing changes inline. Example: https://blog.ipspace.net/2020/04/git-tip-word-diff.html https://blog.ipspace.net/2020/04/git-tip-word-diff.html
  - chaoxu 4y ago
    Oh this feature is great. Solves my problem completely. I wish github would also implement word-diff option. Edit: Github actually does some form of word-diff! See example here: https://github.com/chaoxu/chaoxu.github.io/commit/6d9ab6eefc6e8d0034aea779208bd10821d47ff1 https://github.com/chaoxu/chaoxu.github.io/commit/6d9ab6eefc... I also looked up how word-diff work with Chinese language. Found a useful stackoverflow link with other suggestions. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26135133/git-word-diff-on-non-english-text https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26135133/git-word-diff-o...
seltzered_ 4y ago
The thing I keep sitting with is what one wants for personal knowledge management vs. collective knowledge management. I've been using athens research ( https://www.athensresearch.org/ https://www.athensresearch.org/ ) so far after doing classnotes in roam thinking one there could be extensions in the future to make things 'feel' like navigating directories of markdown files if really needed. After reading more about dendron which states on https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron "It's a personal knowledge management solution (PKM) built specifically for developers and integrates natively with IDEs like VS Code and VSCodium." , the question is how these tools could serve a wider audience if they were packaged more as standalone app (using something like Eclipse Theia).
- kevinslin 4y ago
  In terms of making it available to a wider audience - Dendron comes with a NextJS Template: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/4ushYTDoX0TYQ1FDtGQSg https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/4ushYTDoX0TYQ1FDtGQSg This makes it easy to publish your notes as a static site. The plan is to add optional server side capabilities here so that it becomes possible to read *and* write notes, at which point it becomes a web interface for note taking. It also helps with the distribution problem (Dendron is used by teams to publish documentation to non-technical folks so it helps that they can access it as a regular webpage)
- EricAAJohnson 4y ago
  I wish Dendron would use a more conventional way for hierarchy. I don't like its choice of dots for that.
  - kevinslin 4y ago
    that's fair. the dot hierarchy has been a polarizing topic with folks falling on both sides of it. the reason we went with it is because: - it allows a file to be both a note and a parent of notes - it makes hierarchy an explicit part of note creation - it greatly simplified operations like refactoring (regex over filename, no need to create scaffolding with empty folders or removing folders if they no longer had children) - it makes it easy to work with using cli tools More discussion on this here: - https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e80b558/#why-hierarchies https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e... - https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e80b558.html#will-dendron-ever-support-folders https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/683740e3-70ce-4a47-a1f4-1f140e...
jbverschoor 4y ago
Give noteplan a try
bbkane 4y ago
I do almost the same thing! I also edit with Typora or Vim as the mood strikes. I wrote about this at https://www.bbkane.com/blog/how-i-take-notes/#my-system https://www.bbkane.com/blog/how-i-take-notes/#my-system
MarkSweep 4y ago
I’ve settled on similar setup. One nice thing about is there many tools that can work on this type of note setup, so you are not locked into one tool. Working Copy works decently well on iOS. Gollum [1] on desktop operating systems provides a web interface to the notes. For some shameless self-promotion, I’ve been hacking on a clone of Gollum called Smeagol [2]. It is written in Rust so it is quite a bit faster to install and run on some of my low powered systems than installing Gollum. [1]: https://github.com/gollum/gollum https://github.com/gollum/gollum [2]: https://smeagol.dev/ https://smeagol.dev/
- xenodium 4y ago
  For anyone looking for an org mode equivalent (also syncing via Working Copy on iOS), I built https://plainorg.com https://plainorg.com

tkuraku 4y ago

My knowledge base is a git repository full of markdown files and vscode. I can easly goto a specific file or do text search across all files. Minimal effort and no lockin to s specific tools.

donutshop 4y ago

I personally use https://github.com/foambubble/foam https://github.com/foambubble/foam Works great and straight forward to setup.

mahathu 4y ago
Is there any reason to use Obsidian (i.e. another standalone app) instead of this?Looks great
- radicalriddler 4y ago
  Sync across devices is an initial benefit to Obsidian that I can think of. Being able to write notes using your phone or tablet?
  - cdaven 4y ago
    You can e.g. sync with Syncthing and write notes (on Android) with QuickEdit. Or use Dropbox and some Markdown editor with Dropbox support?
- catelm 4y ago
  Live View (a WYSIWYM Editor) - you type markdown, but see it rendered, comes to mind. Also some interesting extensions/add-ons centered around knowledge management are arising. Unfortunately, Obsidian itself is not open-source though; but worth checking out.

minimaxir 4y ago

Using VS Code + Markdown All in One (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=yzhang.markdown-all-in-one https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=yzhang.m...) has honestly been the most productive blogging tool I've used in a very long time, moreso than dedicated Markdown blogging tools like iA Writer. (granted half of that is due to "Paste link on selected text" which is an embarrassingly common workflow for me) Adding Prettier (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=esbenp.prettier-vscode https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=esbenp.p...) for its underdiscussed Markdown formatting keeps READMEs and blog posts clean as well.

kretaceous 4y ago
+1. Also, Copy Image to File. Very very handy for snipping and just pasting it in the Markdown document you're editing.
- cyberge99 4y ago
  This is an incredibly difficult plugin to search for. Can you post a link to it or provide the author's name?
  - InvaderFizz 4y ago
    I was also curious. I found an extension called Markdown Paste[0], by searching for an extension to automatically base64 encode images into markdown in VSCode, which is not how this extension works at all. 0: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=telesoho.vscode-markdown-paste-image https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=telesoho...
  - cdaven 4y ago
    Not the same extension, but Dendron actually has one: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dendron.dendron-paste-image https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dendron....
    - 4y ago

rcarmo 4y ago

I've been trying Obsidian, Foam, Dendron, etc., and most of these Zettelkasten-like editing environments have issues with relative links (i.e., they don't let you specify a base folder) and/or completely ignore front matter, which makes them hard to use when you've got 8000-odd posts across a big directory tree. (taoofmac.com is like that, and is actually a pretty big wiki) I've been resisting hacking my own, but I suspect I will eventually have to :)

kevinslin 4y ago
I gave in to the temptation - hence Dendron What issues did you encounter with Dendron? Would appreciate feedback so we can make it better!
- CJefferson 4y ago
  Not the original poster, but my main problem install Dendron as a vacode plugin was sometimes my Dendron directory wasn't "Dendron", and sometimed Dendron seemed to load and do things when in directoris of unrelated markdown. I never did figure out what was going wrong, but I moved to Obsidian mainly so I had a clear separate note keeping app.
- rcarmo 4y ago
  Well, it blew up trying to index my site, and it apparently can’t parse ISO dates in front matter, as well as not picking up tags…
  - kevinslin 4y ago
    if you have a public repo or an example note, happy to take a look at it. we've done lots of work on our markdown import and it should address a lot more cases now
    - rcarmo 4y ago
      My test cases are at https://github.com/rcarmo/sushy/tree/master/pages https://github.com/rcarmo/sushy/tree/master/pages

bachmeier 4y ago

> drag and drop files into the editor to create a markdown link This is nice, but I'd really prefer being able to drag and drop and then have it uploaded to, say, OneDrive. Even better, be able to paste a URL and have it download the file and then upload it to OneDrive or Dropbox or whatever. > find all references to header|links|files|urls inside of markdown Sometimes this sort of thing is nice to have, but doesn't it add a lot of overhead when working with markdown files?

kevinslin 4y ago
what do you mean by overhead? do you mean performance or complexity?

lysecret 4y ago

I love writing in vs code and markdown (for my blog https://leloew.com/blog/20220227_5_lines_of_js_for_a_markdown_blog https://leloew.com/blog/20220227_5_lines_of_js_for_a_markdow...) they also have an unofficial grammarly plugin which works quite well.

kevinslin 4y ago
nice writeup! i'm currently working on shipping the publishing side of dendron in a docker (its a custom nextjs app) so that it can be easily tested locally as well as hosted remotely

cas8 4y ago

Hello fellow Murt :)

kevinslin 4y ago
heh, internet is a small place :) what year are you? is mcmurtry still in-tents?

encryptluks2 4y ago

Atom has an "official" Markdown-enhanced plug-in that is released by atom-community. It has pretty much everything you could want. I don't understand why VS Code doesn't just have a similar official plugin and instead relies on people to go install random plugins with warnings about how they may be malicious. Shouldn't they just include a powerful markdown editor and previewer by default?

qumpis 4y ago

While I get their point of not enforcing hard tree hierarchies, I hate that as a consequence there is no folder structure. The integrated note explorer is quite cumbersome to use IMO, so dealing with files externally would be more convenient