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Obsidian 1.0 – Personal knowledge base app

• ihndan 4y ago
  Also can try this All-In-One but still lightweight app: https://mdsilo.com/ https://mdsilo.com/
• lowbloodsugar 4y ago
  I need to put [ and ] in text. Please don’t make the text inside them blue unless it’s actually a link. Also I really want the file name to be independent of the heading, like it used to be. Also it is great and I gave you my money.
• AB1908 4y ago
  Hi Erica and congrats to you and the whole team! Super excited for a 1.0 release. I hope this means we get some official API docs soon. ;) In terms of your journey, what do you think the main challenges were? I'm sure a big one is adoption and another performance but curious to hear what the team's thoughts are. For me personally, the community has been absolutely stellar. Lots of folks always willing to help out. Just a year and a half ago, I found dataview and after avoiding frontend for nearly a decade, I've finally begun my journey with React. The entire experience was kickstarted by my finding Obsidian and trying to contribute to plugins that I loved. A special thanks to everyone from the community: shabegom, joethei, koala, blacksmithgu, pseudometa, Eleanor, Fevol, aquaman, metruzan, and many many others whose name I'm blanking on right now but I promise I'm grateful!
• nikivi 4y ago
  1.0 broke making the cursor not blinking in Vim mode. Is it possible to fix it back? Specifically this CSS snippet stopped working: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-stop-the-blinking-cursor-in-vim-mode/9431/10 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/how-to-stop-the-blinking-cursor-...
• eimrine 4y ago
  May I ask some video materials which show creating of Obsidian tree with really rich using of its abilities?
• ducktective 4y ago
  Congrats on launch !
• hs86 4y ago
  Obsidian is my favorite app, and my only missing feature is to enable better PDF support, similar to Logseq. Logseq allows me to embed the PDFs inside the app and annotate them with all the bells and whistles enabled by markdown. Area highlights, math notation, all these things are not possible with classical PDF readers, and I think Obsidian would fit well here.
  • solarkraft 4y ago
    What do you prefer Obsidian over Logseq for?
    • hs86 4y ago
      As an outliner, Logseq is too opinionated about how I am supposed to use it. Obsidian is less strict and allows me to follow whatever principle I want to which extent I want. I can mix a bit of Zettelkasten here, some daily notes there, and some 'old-fashioned' folder structures for projects to my heart's content.
    • NoMoreBro 4y ago
      (not op) Logseq is open source and really great in the way it connects notes and highlights pdfs, but the sync part is too “asynchronous”. It works well if you use a single device, but as long as you add something else you have to manually reindex and refresh a lot. Obsidian is less opinionated on the txt file format and folders too, so I consider it more future-proof.
      • number6 4y ago
        The sync part I solved with syncthing. I started with logseq and now obsidian doesn't work for me anymore. Tried to switch but I am into this small self containing bits now. Plus journal with timestamps
        • submeta 4y ago
          Can you elaborate on the syncing part? Last I tried Logseq, syncing across devices via iCloud was very unreliable. So I gave up. Although I would have loved to replace Roam with Logseq back then. Now I stick to Emacs + orgmode and Obsidian for plain markdown files.
• zachlatta 4y ago
  This is so exciting, congrats! Obsidian has completely changed my notes workflow over the past year. It's so lightweight, and has just the right amount of structure for me. Thank you for building it! The new interface looks fantastic. Does this include an update to the iOS app?
  • joethei 4y ago
    Yes, the update got released on every platform
• alexmorse 4y ago
  I've been using this for a few months and it's great. The wiki-like connections, vim mode, and several different ways to look at how things relate make it my go to for notes
• rcarmo 4y ago
  Good news. I wonder if it can deal with deeply nested folders and get metadata from standard Markdown frontmatter already? (I have a fair amount of content already in plain Markdown, as you can see here: https://taoofmac.com/static/graph https://taoofmac.com/static/graph)
  • rcarmo 4y ago
    Did a quick test. Still seems to not support storing images alongside Markdown files (at least it breaks in mine), nor support having a default file (index.md) per folder and have the folder path be the actual page path.
    • chriskrycho 4y ago
      Not sure what approach you're stumbling with re: images, but they definitely support them, but you can literally just drop an image onto the editor and it'll embed it, including locating it where you've specified that attachments should go. The default file per folder is not built-in, but there is a handy community plugin[1] which does it. [1]: https://github.com/xpgo/obsidian-folder-note-plugin https://github.com/xpgo/obsidian-folder-note-plugin
      • rcarmo 4y ago
        Right. That's the problem, it insists on storing images in a single folder, which doesn't scale or make it easy to manage complex notes as a single unit (it's the reason why my notes are folders and not single files).
        • chriskrycho 4y ago
          No, you can put them anywhere, it just defaults to putting them in a single folder for ease of convenience. There's even a setting, "Default location for new attachments," which allows you to choose: - Vault folder - A specified folder in your vault - In the same folder as the current file - In subfolder under the current folder But again, that's just the default location; you can put it anywhere and reference it wherever it is using relative paths.
• adamfeldman 4y ago
  Among other awesome plugins, there's obsidian-wielder [1] for using Clojure (via sci). [1]: https://github.com/victorb/obsidian-wielder https://github.com/victorb/obsidian-wielder
• nmaleki 4y ago
  Congrats on hitting 1.0! Props to the team for adding digraph support to published vaults early on. Anyone can check out my public Obsidian vault here: https://notes.recursion.is https://notes.recursion.is And I made an introduction video for it here: https://youtu.be/tTFK-V3hdAw https://youtu.be/tTFK-V3hdAw
  • oheyadam 4y ago
    This is one of the best uses of Obsidian I've ever seen. Thanks for sharing
  • tester457 4y ago
• thadt 4y ago
  Have been using Obsidian for organizing and running a tabletop RPG session for a while and and it is fantastic. I have whole folders of monsters, encounters, player backstory, world notes, and state blocks. Being able to drop them inline for ‘today’s session’ and then viewing it all together has been monumentally useful. It’s also been good enough to replace Sublime + directory for my day to day development note taking. Its fast and just gets out of the way for writing and organizing - which is exactly what I want in a note taking app.
• charles_f 4y ago
  Congrats!! Honestly the beta version was already stable and feature rich enough to consider it it a v1 :) If one of the key features is a new UI, can I advise to put a couple screenshots in the announcement? Will this be retrocompatible with plugins on v.15?
  • input_sh 4y ago
    As someone using insider build and a bunch of 3rd party plugins, they're fine, but themes are a bit of a bumpier ride due to UI changes. They've marked them all as legacy and are removing the legacy label as theme developers are updating them.
• mirzap 4y ago
  This update looks amazing. Kudos to the entire team! I love Obsidian, using it for couple of months now.
• School-Cotton 4y ago
  First I’m hearing of Obsidian, sounds cool. Can anyone comment on how it compares to org-mode?
  • xz18r 4y ago
    Current org-mode user here, former Obsidian user. Although much more extensible than apps like Joplin, Notion or - god forbid - Evernote, Obsidian comes nowhere near the freedom you have in Org-mode. You can customize Obsidian to fit your workflow to some extent, but not by a whole lot. Then again: for most people that is enough. Most want to drive a car, not build it. There is afaik no such thing as an org-agenda in Obsidian, which is a deal breaker for me. Also to do list handling is shoddy at best (it would probably be a perfect app if that got integrated, e.g. via a todo.txt format with a calendar) but alas. If I weren't an org-mode user, Obsidian would probably be my pick. It is very nice in everything it does, but it just doesn't have that "edge" of creating a setup that is ugly, complicated an unrecognizable from its default. It may be ugly, but at least it's _your_ ugly.
    • sharps1 4y ago
      Not an org-mode user. Would this be a set-up that creates an agenda that works (by using 2 extensions)? https://medium.com/geekculture/how-i-track-my-tasks-in-obsidian-47fd7ad80364 https://medium.com/geekculture/how-i-track-my-tasks-in-obsid... Dataview is such a great extension.
      • AlanYx 4y ago
        That definitely gives you the basics. But it's worth noting that core org comes with a lot more functionality, e.g., calendaring, scheduling tasks (this is distinct from deadlines), blocking and ordered tasks, priorities, repeating tasks, timekeeping and time reporting. Some of this could be cobbled together in Obsidian by combining various plugins and some query code.
      • riekus 4y ago
        this is great, thanks!
• hericium 4y ago
  So, without clicking, what does this app do? What is it?
  • wohfab 4y ago
    (Advanced) note taking, often used in the Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) & "Second Brain" community.
  • nfd 4y ago
    In brief, an extensible, syncable tool for making lightweight personal Markdown wikis. Emphasis on being very smooth and stylish. Emphasizes giving you a lot of tools that can suit a lot of writing/note taking workflows. If I were to need to start writing a book this week, this is probably where I'd organize the research and composition.
  • njsubedi 4y ago
    It’s a note-taking application like Evernote but open source. Has native apps. You can sync using a self-hosted sever easily. Works great on mobile too. Update: Oops. I always thought it was Open Source. I started using it after learning about it a HN thread some time ago. Downloaded and started using and it worked so good I didn’t have to look back about it.
    • nickspacek 4y ago
      > You can sync using a self-hosted server easily Do you mean using a third-party sync application (Syncthing for example)? All I could find is a feature request: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/self-hosted-sync-server/20975/13 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/self-hosted-sync-server/20975/13
    • joethei 4y ago
      Common misconception, but Obsidian itself is not open source
    • KitchenParticle 4y ago
      It's NOT open source
• nchase 4y ago
  I recently started using Reflect[^1] and I rather like it, especially after trying the task management feature, which is now in beta. My usage of Reflect has made me very curious about other apps that do similar things (e.g. Obsidian) Has anyone here tried Obsidian _and_ Reflect? [^1]: https://reflect.app/ https://reflect.app/
• itsmemattchung 4y ago
  Love love love obsidian. The tool is aesthetically pleasing, built-in vim mode surprisingly well (a few minor glitches with the cursor blinking) — but above all else, the plug-in community takes the cake. Finally, a note taking application with a decent API that's allowed me to extract metadata and publish metrics into CloudWatch, allowing me to track key metrics and graphically[0] review historical trends of my "second brain." Previous note taking applications I've tried in the past (e.g. Zettlr, Bear) lacked the vibrant developer community that Obsidian has cultivated. Hats off to the founder and the Obsidian team! [0] - https://digitalorganizationdad.substack.com/p/stop-zettelkasten-literature-notes https://digitalorganizationdad.substack.com/p/stop-zettelkas...
  • parrot987 4y ago
    TIL that obsidian has vim mode... I love it even more now.
    • mystickphoenix 4y ago
      even better, it asks you to type a specific vim command before enabling it. Great "here there be dragons, are you a dragonslayer?" UX choice, and fun easter egg too ;)
      • hoosieree 4y ago
        That's brilliant and super fun.
  • emptyparadise 4y ago
    Wow, CloudWatch for note metadata metrics. Notebook organization systems are serious business!
    • ParetoOptimal 4y ago
      > Notebook organization systems are serious business! If that's what it takes to make someones system effective so be it. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well and all that. What's a better alternative in your opinion?
• toopok4k3 4y ago
  I have no idea what Obsidian is and their frontpage does nothing to tell me what it is. All I can see is that it's been updated, but WTF is it? edit: ahh, it wasn't the frontpage...
  • weberer 4y ago
    Markdown editor that lets you add links to other files. You basically have a "project" consisting of a folder with various .md files.
    • nkrebs13 4y ago
      There are plugins and extensibility that can be added as well. https://github.com/search?q=obsidian https://github.com/search?q=obsidian
    • toopok4k3 4y ago
      How does it compare to wikis, eh? Isn't that what they do.
      • weberer 4y ago
        That requires setting up a server, which filters out 99% of the population.
      • DMell 4y ago
        I’d start with the plugins. It allows for easy integration into my current workflow.
      • capableweb 4y ago
        It's basically a wiki but running locally that you can sync with a remote, and based around normal (well, almost "normal") markdown files.
      • Vrondi 4y ago
        It's trying to be a wiki without a server. Or at least, that's how it started. It's a note taking app that uses markdown and plain text files. Gives some nice organizational views.
• mirages 4y ago
  Is it me or am I the only one who took a good 3 mins to figure what this app is for ? Sorry I don't want to sound disrespectul but I didn't found an quick and easy parsable description. If I would show this my parents, I wouldn't be sure if they could guess. :/ "Obsidian is a powerful and extensible knowledge base" ?????
  • shinryuu 4y ago
    Think a journal / notes application on steroids.
  • simlevesque 4y ago
    What part of that sentence don't you understand ? It seems straightforward to me.
    • QuackingTheQ 4y ago
      knowledge base is buzzwordy. it's a very elaborate (and good!) note taking app.
      • TuringTest 4y ago
        This recent breed of note-taking tools (Obsidian, Notion, logseq, Roam Research) are aimed at enabling a style of personal knowledge base known as networked thinking, which attempts to facilitate the emergent creation of new knowledge by connecting related ideas in your notes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Vester#Networked_Thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Vester#Networked_Thin...
        • realfeel78 4y ago
          Of those, Roam and Logseq definitely are, but Obsidian and Notion are much more open-ended in how they can be used, although I think the Obsidian community online does tend to overindex for that kind of usage.
      • simlevesque 4y ago
• nklmilojevic 4y ago
  I appreciate what Obsidian is and how it works, and congrats on 1.0! On the personal side, I dislike aesthetics and wouldn't ever use it 'cause of Electron, tho. I'm spoiled by native note-taking apps like Bear and Noteplan on macOS which have much nicer UX and UI, especially on mobile.
  • chriskrycho 4y ago
    Has Noteplan's performance improved over the past couple years? I really liked its model, but last time I tried it (early 2020) it got pretty slow as soon as you had a non-trivial amount of data/notes in it. Ironically, given the sentiment (which I share!) about Electron, Obsidian trounces Noteplan for performance.
    • nklmilojevic 4y ago
      I stopped using Noteplan as developer doubled the subscription price over the night. Performance was perfect for me, though.
  • omnimus 4y ago
    The aesthetics of all three of these apps seem almost the same?
    • chriskrycho 4y ago
      Bear's aesthetics are definitely a bit nicer. I have switched to Obsidian for extensibility and its use of local files… but Bear has a level of polish that is hard to put into words and which screenshots alone don't quite capture. It just straight-up feels better. (It also has the problem of getting updates very slowly and is really committed to keeping everything in its internal DB, which makes it much less useful to me.)
  • kirso 4y ago
    You can try minimal theme, it makes it a look a bit more native.
• ArcMex 4y ago
  >It means we're proud enough to drop the word "beta". Huge milestone. Congratulations! I will be trying out the flatpak on my Linux build and keeping an eye out for your progress. Well done!
• brightball 4y ago
  Congratulations on the 1.0. Just installed it and everything works great. Obsidian has been a core part of how I go about my day to day ever since I installed it a few months ago. Using it in conjunction with my Dropbox account has been a smooth operation too. I tell everybody about it at this point. Keep up the good work.
• tfsh 4y ago
  Congratulations on the launch! I downloaded Obsidian for the first time last night and spent all morning customising it, so the timing for me couldn't be better. Quick note, on the website the download button for MacOS is delegating to "https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases/download/v0.15.9/Obsidian-0.15.9-universal.dmg https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases/dow..." despite the button saying "Version 1.0.0", I believe it should be "https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases/download/v1.0.0/Obsidian-1.0.0-universal.dmg https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/releases/dow..." instead?
  • weka 4y ago
    Shame -- I cannot seem to download it.
  • joethei 4y ago
    It's a caching problem. You should be directed to the correct version in the next few minutes.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• hiidrew 4y ago
  Love obsidian, thank you for building! My only dream is blocked by Apple. Would to have the ability to switch the default notes client in iOS, similar to how you can with browsers and email.
• nu11ptr 4y ago
  Looks nice and based on my initial quick tests seems rather lean, and yet it is cross platform. Can I ask what the tech stack looks like? development language(s)? Cross platform UI library?
  • voat 4y ago
    It's an electron app
    • nu11ptr 4y ago
      Interesting - it runs rather nice for an electron app IMO. Also, the memory utilization isn't terrible (so far that I have noticed).
• matthewaveryusa 4y ago
  If I use obsidian to take personal work notes, do I need a commercial license? Right now I use a giant append-only markdown file but I'm curious about the linking.
  • Macha 4y ago
    This is my use case and after reading the terms, I came to the conclusion that the answer is yes. It's an honor system setup though.
  • elefantastisch 4y ago
    My understanding is yes, and honestly, this was my biggest sticking point with Obsidian. I'm happy to pay for software. I pay for Dynalist pro (same team for anyone who didn't know), but the separate commercial license on top of paying for sync just felt like a lot. Especially with commercial use being defined so broadly. Fourteen days to trial just isn't enough to see whether it would be worth the cost to use for my own personal use at work. The Dynalist freemium model where I could use a smaller feature set for a longer time and then decide it was worth upgrading was just much easier. Erica, would you consider a discount on add-on services for commercial subscribers? A 25% discount would put the price a bit closer to Dynalist pro and make it feel like I was actually getting something for the commercial subscription other than just permission to use it for work. Or maybe a discount for existing Dynalist pro subscribers? I really love the work you all are doing, here and on Dynalist, just a bit hung up on the cost here.
    • Aeolun 4y ago
      $50/year is not exactly onerous is it? I kind of agree that having to pay it on top of the sync fees feels off, but you could just as well sync with onedrive.
• pgt 4y ago
  I moved from Google Docs to Obsidian in a process of de-Googling my life. With Obsidian, my notes are only stored on my machine and my storage syncing service. Files are just text, so my notes can outlive Obsidian itself.
• sdf4j 4y ago
  Congratulations for the achievement! Been using obsidian for over a year as my daily driver. Found the graph view quite gimmicky for my workflow but the rest of the features are super polished.
• xwowsersx 4y ago
  I love Obsidian so much. It's the only note-taking/knowledge base type app that I've stuck with. It's so flexible, performant and nice looking. Everything I care to document or commit to long-term memory goes in my Obsidian vault and I push it all up to a private git repo.
• wbharding 4y ago
  Between Obsidian, Roam, Amplenote, and Reflect it has certainly been a golden age for note taking over the last few years. It's hard to remember that it was only 5 years ago that second generation note apps like Evernote, Notion and Bear were the only viable options unless you wanted a 1st gen app like OneNote or Workflowy. What might be most interesting about the new set of fast moving note apps is that all seem to be built by teams of 3 or less people. Obsidian seems to have ascended to the top of the heap with a team of three and no apparent VC funding. Anyone that roots for small companies and passionate programmers should appreciate Obsidian proving that the best tools don't have to be built by the biggest teams. More the opposite.
  • Vrondi 4y ago
    I'm still waiting on one of these upstarts to implement the most essential features of the "first gen" apps, like inking/handwriting.
    • AB1908 4y ago
      There's an excalidraw plugin that helps with this to a degree.
      • monkmartinez 4y ago
        This plugin misses mark big time. I tried it and tried it again. Trying to love it... just couldn't compare with OneNote.
        • whimsicalism 4y ago
          Likewise. I love Obsidian, I love my Apple Pencil - and the Excalidraw plugin just does not get me there, unfortunately. Goodnotes, Apple notes, and OneNote still leagues better for Apple Pencil support.
        • bostonvaulter2 4y ago
          I absolutely love this plugin. But I'm probably using quite differently from you since I barely use the pencil/draw tool at all.
• gibdu 4y ago
  I've been using Obsidian since last year, and it soon became my primary tool for taking notes, keeping up with projects, proposals, etc...To keep business and personal life separate, I utilize two separate vaults, which is really simple. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to create their so-called second brain.
• chrisweekly 4y ago
  Huge fan; Obsidian is at the center of my personal system for PKM / TFT (note-taking, todos, journaling, devnotes, bookmarks, sketches... ). It's like an OS for .md files. It's so powerful and extensible, via eg WYSIWYG editor, Excalidraw integ, Readwise Reader integ, home for my Remarkable2 notes and drawings, etc. Amazing community too.
  • Vrondi 4y ago
    I'd very interested to hear more about your workflow, because lack of inking/handwriting recognition in apps like Obsidian is what keeps me on OneNote (and from going fully Linux). Can you edit any of these ink based formats later in Obsidian, or are you limited to only viewing static images of things you've drawn/handwritten elsewhere in the past? EDIT Searching around the web indicates that you can only draw on top of images of the writing later, not edit it. Alas.
    • chrisweekly 4y ago
      That's not exactly my workflow but I think something like it wld be doable. I export pdfs (and rarely, svgs) from my Remarkable 2 e-ink tablet. SVGs can be converted to Excalidraw data. The Remarkable 2 also supports OCR but I don't make use of that.
      • Vrondi 4y ago
        Thanks for the reply. I've been eyeing the eink devices with pens for my next ereader, but I've worried about interoperability.
    • AlanYx 4y ago
      Do you need to be able to edit ink on your computer? If editing ink on-device is all you need, e-ink tablets that use PDF as their native file format (like the DPT-RP1 or Quaderno) fit well into an Obsidian workflow. You can sync/roundtrip the files back and forth to your device for editing.
  • aliasxneo 4y ago
• SignalM 4y ago
  Obsidian has been an amazing tool. I keep all my notes in it and love the WYSIWYG editing and plugins - keep it up!
• tailspin2019 4y ago
  For anyone thinking that this "home page" is light on explanation, the actual home page is likely better for those who are new to this (excellent) product: https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md
• Vrondi 4y ago
  If Obsidian ever added some good inking/handwriting recognition stuff, it would be a contender for the best note taking app out there.
  • QuarterReptile 4y ago
    Couldn't you just use your preferred inking app, then export as image? I ask this as someone who much prefers atomization with good interoperability to bloated everything applications (and who has a phone and laptop with active stylus.)
  • kepano 4y ago
    Can you explain more about what you would want to see? There is the Excalidraw plugin that allows you to write handwritten notes inside of Obsidian. It should also be possible to add handwriting recognition as a plugin. If you're on macOS/iOS a lot of this is now at the OS level, and has gotten really quite good.
• permo-w 4y ago
  what separates this from sublime?
  • atentaten 4y ago
    Obsidian is a note taking and knowledge management tool whereas sublime is a text editor.
    • permo-w 4y ago
      so far all things I've read obsidian can do are doable in sublime
• beardedman 4y ago
  Love Obsidian! Congrats. The new UI looks awesome!
• emptyparadise 4y ago
  I love Obsidian's editor - it hides markup when you're not editing but shows you when your cursor is over some text. The fact that you can just drag an image into a note is great and something terminal note apps will never be able to do. And then there's [[hypertext]]. Love it!
  • bogdanoff_2 4y ago
    Is there a way to disable the hiding of markdown? I don't like when text moves around
    • brimwats 4y ago
      yes, use Source mode
      • bogdanoff_2 4y ago
        Thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for.
• veidr 4y ago
  Congratulations, and also: holy fucking shit!! no app has changed my day-to-day life to this degree in many, many years. I use Obsidian every morning on my roof deck for my journal (automated with the plugin, of course) and then at my desk all day long for my daily WTF blah blah info-capturing tool. Sure I wish it had more features (persist collapsed/expanded state, even in a best-effort, might-not-last-forever kind of way! build in git support because apple makes it too hard for plugin guys to do on mobile!) but the fact that it is all just "standard" markdown and image files washes away all almost my complaints. I use the paid Sync plugin, too (even though it's standard files and folders; could totally do it myself! could totally just use SyncThing! etc!) so that it is on all my machines and virtual machines. Perfect for sysadmin logs of things you touch only annually, e.g. Dad's iMac. To HN readers who haven't tried it: it's the millennials' VisiCalc, basically, except for words.
  • koenvdb 4y ago
    What other plugins do you use besides the Sync plugin?
    • veidr 4y ago
      Only the Calendar one.
  • brimwats 4y ago
    there's a plugin for folding persistence.. it has a silly name like pants or ironing or something but it works welll
    • capedape 4y ago
      I think you’re looking for what some pants have - Creases https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-creases https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-creases
  • robbiet480 4y ago
    What plugin do you use for automatic journaling?
• ghotli 4y ago
  I use Obsidian for a very simple use case compared to everything it can do. Synced markdown across all platforms, simple lists in named files, share those files to other software to perform actions against those lists. For this use case it is the absolute best of the bunch. I've used a lot of these sorts of complex second brain things and I've settled on a very minimal approach wherein Obsidian was the clear 'best in show' for what I needed.
• urlwolf 4y ago
  For anyone wanting to try something similar but with a better graph view, check Tangent: http://tangentnotes.com/ http://tangentnotes.com/ Also more performant and less plugin-dependent.
• kylecordes 4y ago
  The sync pricing is frustrating. You can choose between free (single device only), and surprisingly expensive for a low-volume file sync mechanism. Of course I understand there are good reasons for it. It is so difficult to find a paying customer for anything, that it's impractical to price below a cost threshold. LTV > CAC. Would love to see something like “$200 to enable the a peer-to-peer sync engine forever”, i.e. no ongoing hosting costs for Obsidian.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • JonChesterfield 4y ago
    It's markdown - could DIY a sync via git pretty easily
  • brimwats 4y ago
    lots of folks use syncthing or something similar
  • Macha 4y ago
    I pay for Obsidian sync largely to sync my work vault between my company provided laptop and my company provided tool as installing a general purpose sync tool apart from the company managed Google File Stream makes the IT security folks nervous of data exfiltration. Maybe even Google File Stream would work, but I will admit the lazy file downloading makes me nervous For my personal non-work vaults between my personal devices, I used Syncthing without issue for months, only switching since I was paying for the sync license for work anyway.
• pkulak 4y ago
  Fun! I just moved over to Obsidian because of the simplicity. I love that I can use the local folder just as easily as the full app. Tip for anyone wondering: if you need encryption, gocryptfs works great. Now I just need to wait for Flathub to update…
  • leodriesch 4y ago
    Could you expand on how you do encryption with gocryptfs?
    • pkulak 4y ago
      Oh, sure. Obsidian just reads from whatever directory you give it, so I set up an encrypted directory with gocryptfs, then mount it decrypted and point Obsidian at that. Sounds like a pain, but I have a separate "vault" (folder) for secrets and I don't have to get in to that one very often. But if I did, I could have the folder mount at boot or something.
• Jack_rando_fang 4y ago
  Interesting. I'll be switching from Logseq to Obsidian as the outline-only mode in Logseq felt limiting.
• mitchitized 4y ago
  I see this as "Joplin, just not nearly as free (speech or beer)." Why would I pay monthly for sync and have no control, when I can already sync to my own s3 buckets and only pay for AWS storage and transfer? Is there a compelling reason to switch from Joplin to Obsidian? Honest question.
  • DMell 4y ago
    I'm really struggling to understand how Obsidian isn't free. Maybe I'm simply missing your point. There is no expectation that you use sync, it's simply an option for those that want it and are likely less tech oriented.
    • huskyr 4y ago
      +1. It's pretty easy to setup your own syncing using iCloud, Dropbox or whatever you want.
      • volleygman180 4y ago
        Sync offers E2E encryption though. Definitely not getting E2E with iCloud (Apple says you do, however iCloud backups aren't E2E encrypted) and I don't believe Dropbox offers E2E either
        • larnon 4y ago
          You can do your own encryption using something like Cryptomator.
    • return_to_monke 4y ago
      > I'm really struggling to understand how Obsidian isn't free. Maybe I'm simply missing your point. I think they mean free, as in free software. Obsidian is not free neither open source software.
    • chiyc 4y ago
      From their licensing: "You need to pay for Obsidian if and only if you use it to contribute, directly or indirectly, to revenue-generating, work-related activities in a company that has two or more people." I imagine that applies to many of us. How many people are looking to use Obsidian purely for personal use?
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  I just can't keep up with all the note taking apps; I sometimes go through a Phase of "I need a means to organize my things", but invariably just go back to a folder with text documents. The note taking apps are fine, but they will either have a web/electron based interface that is too indirect, or their data storage is not open (like text documents), or they try and upsell you cloud storage / sync, or they offer no benefit over a plain text editor (with global search).
  • mitchitized 4y ago
    This is precisely why I ended up on Joplin several years ago... Being able to sync for free (I just pay for S3 costs) means I got cross-device/platform support and know I will never lose my notes. I'm trying to understand the use case where it would be worth it to switch to Obsidian and pay monthly for the sync and no longer host the data myself, which doesn't sound like an improvement to me. The way Obsidian organizes notes sounds intriguing though, I can see how some might find that worth the additional cost (or loss of sync ability).
    • brimwats 4y ago
      fwiw, I just use a syncthing folder for obsidian and I've never had an issue
    • coffeeling 4y ago
      Obsidian stores all the notes and attachments as normal files in a folder, you can sync it however you like.
    • infinityio 4y ago
      > Being able to sync for free (I just pay for S3 costs) means I got cross-device/platform support and know I will never lose my notes. This is also the case with Obsidian! Because the files are just loose `.md` files in a folder, I personally use Syncthing and Git to keep them synchronised across devices for free. Sync is another option to complement those, for people who don't want to roll their own solution. By default in Obsidian you own the data (and it never leaves your hard drive), you pay for them to host it for you so that it 'just works' across devices
• rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
  Tried Obsidian, wanted to save a note that had an url in the title, can't do that, not able to have special characters in titles(am on Linux btw where there's little limitations on what chars you can use in file names). Delete, good bye, auf wiedersehen!
  • ptomato 4y ago
    I'm not aware of any commonly used linux FS that allows `/` in a filename
    • rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
      What about other note taking tools that allow `/` in the title? How aware are you of them?
      • runald 4y ago
        Not quite what you are demanding for, but you can use ∕ instead of / https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2215 https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2215
• QuarterReptile 4y ago
  I've been wanting to play with your software for a while, and I happened to have a moment this time, so I loaded it on my Android phone. If the bracket notation is a commonality among note taking systems like this one, then I may just be too much of an outsider to jump in easily to this app. But I, as someone who was interested in using the app enough to press every button I could see, couldn't figure out how to link notes until I exhausted my possibilities in the app, looked at your Web page, scrolled through the comments here and finally found someone linking to the page I needed. I knew that linking is the main feature, but I couldn't find it. Filtering out dumb users like me may be a design decision, but if not, I would encourage something upon app installation that offers to tell new users how to link notes, even if it's just a link to a YouTube video ("new to Obsidian? Watch this 1 (2?) minute video to get you started.")
  • brimwats 4y ago
    the help/default vault contains exactly what you're describing
• recroad 4y ago
  This tool is so expensive. I want to use it but for this to be an alternative to Notion you'd have to pay for Sync and Publish, which would come to $24/month. That is very pricey for many people.
  • kirso 4y ago
    Good luck accessing Notion offline. Not that it happens often, but its a bit apples and oranges. Use iCloud/gDrive/dropbox for synching instead. Never had any issues.
  • jacooper 4y ago
    Checkout logseq. Fully open source
    • chrisweekly 4y ago
      logseq is cool, but it's not portable like obsidian. markdown files ftw!
      • nirvdrum 4y ago
        Logseq uses Markdown files for all of your pages and journal entries. However, it doesn't support nested directories, choosing to embed "%2F" in the filename instead. That is quite ugly. The only thing Logseq doesn't use Markdown for is configuration files, AFAIK.
  • shampto3 4y ago
    While I encourage supporting the Obsidian team by paying, there are ways that you can get the same features without paying. Sync - On iOS, you can use iCloud to sync your files between your Mac and iPhone. I imagine that there are more configuration options for this on Android. Publish - lots of different ways to deploy your notes to a site. There's one repo that helps you publish with Mkdocs [1], and I'm sure there are other tools the community has created to solve this problem. It may not be as simple to set up as Notion, but that's the price you pay for wanting a solution to be cheap, private, and let you own your own data. [1] https://github.com/jobindjohn/obsidian-publish-mkdocs https://github.com/jobindjohn/obsidian-publish-mkdocs
• Keegs 4y ago
  For an explanation of what changed see this forum discussion [0]. I’m not a fan of the tab metaphor in general but the implementation could’ve been worse. [0]: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-release-v1-0-0/44873 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-release-v1-0-0/44873
• ps 4y ago
  I found some threads mentioning sync so just my 5 cents - it is possible to create a vault on iCloud drive and thus having a content synced across devices. I am not sure if the Sync feature provides more functionality, but I personally would not need anything else.
  • Macha 4y ago
    Yes, you can sync with the external file sync tool of your choosing with no ill effects
• pshirshov 4y ago
  The sync feature is kinda overpriced. What about a family subscription and collaboration/sharing features? Also, from what I can see, there is no 2FA, am I wrong?..
  • kepano 4y ago
    You can sync using any sync solution, e.g. Git, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. There is no 2FA because there is no authentication necessary. All the files are local to your device.
• fho 4y ago
  Woohoo! Kudos for building what is a pretty awesome application! Use mine for Zettelkasten style knowledge tracking, Zotero and Vim plugins are awesome ... I guess I should donate some money because I am pretty happy with Obsidian!
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• roessland 4y ago
  Congratulations! Starting to use Obsidian has made me much more productive at work. I never forget anything now, since Obsidian is my second brain. I use it for logging, tasks, study, spaced repetition (with Dataview and tags), learning new things and even blogging. I sync manually using Git, using a Work-repo, a Home-repo, and a Shared repo that is a Git submodule of both Work and Home. I never edit notes on my phone, but I can read them on GitHub or Dropbox. I have more than 1200 notes in Work ∪ Shared, and some more in Home. Some of my essential plugins are: Dataview (Like inline SQL for querying notes), Natural Language Dates (entering current date easily), Minimal theme (just looks better). Some builtin stuff that I love: Frontmatter metadata, Mermaid charts (graphviz-ish), inline \LaTeX rendering, daily notes and syntax highlighting.
  • mtremsal 4y ago
    On your phone you might want to try GitJournal. It plays really well with obsidian + git, for traditional markdown.
• libraryatnight 4y ago
  Love Obsidian, keep up the good work
• lijogdfljk 4y ago
  I recently switched back to Obsidian (from nothing). It doesn't solve everything the way i want, but it's the closest. The biggest thing for me is it's very open to plugin development, so my goal is to heavily modify it myself (and a few community plugins) to do what i want in the short term. Saves me from forever yakshaving my home-rolled solution lol. Also the fact that i can easily use syncing with E2E encryption (though not sure if it's been reviewed yet.. would be nice) is awesome.
• runjake 4y ago
  A few tips for those new to Obsidian: - Don't rush to install a bunch of plugins. Start with the defaults, learn Obisidian and add only what you need. It is easy for some to spend more time tweaking Obsidian than actually using it. - If you're a macOS user, check out the Minimal theme, which will make Obsidian feel more native. -> https://minimal.guide/Home https://minimal.guide/Home - When you are ready for plugins, you may want Omnisearch[1] to be one of your first. I used to organize stuff into folders, now I pretty much just create a note at the vault's root level and use tagging and good semantics and use Omnisearch to pull up notes. 1. https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch
  • kepano 4y ago
    Great recommendations! I definitely agree with running the app without too many plugins at first, especially if you're new to using wikilinks. I wrote Minimal theme. BTW, I led the redesign of Obsidian 1.0 so I brought a lot of those ideas into the core app. We've also made a big push around using more native components. I'm still improving Minimal, but hopefully the "out of the box" experience feels a lot more native.
    • untech 4y ago
      > I led the redesign of Obsidian 1.0 Wow! It’s a shame it’s not highlighted in release notes! Great news, and thank you for your work!
      • brimwats 4y ago
        it's in the last paragraph :)
    • ngrilly 4y ago
      Your redesign is a fantastic improvement in terms of both ergonomics and aesthetics. Thank you for this!
    • patleeman 4y ago
      Wow! I just disabled minimal because I found the default theme to be perfect. Amazing work!
• diimdeep 4y ago
  Including most useful plugins, does it work offline without issues?
  • ngrilly 4y ago
    Yes. It has been designed to be offline first.
• NoMoreBro 4y ago
  Love Obsidian. My main problem with it and similar markdown apps for notes is the way they store images and attachments. I find it very confusing to maintain multiple files per note and IMO the only app that nailed it is FSNotes[1] using the textbundle[2] format (with a custom implementation for encrypted notes too). I think it's elegant and future-proof. But FSNotes is for the Apple ecosystem only and I can't tie myself to a single platform for something so important (I don't need another artificial reason to make OS switching so difficult). I hope the textbundle feature request[3] gets some love soon. It would be great for Excalidraw files integration too[4]. [1] https://fsnot.es/ https://fsnot.es/ [2] http://textbundle.org/ http://textbundle.org/ [3] https://forum.obsidian.md/t/textbundle-support/3585 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/textbundle-support/3585 [4] https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin
  • submeta 4y ago
    Absolutely agree. Very confusing to see a folder full of attachments. Ulysses app (another exmple) does this better via textbundle.
  • jq-r 4y ago
    I'm having high hopes for Bear notes v2 (called Panda in beta). It does the textbundle format which makes complete sense, and also has native pen support on iPads. So actually it is simple, and a joy to use, and also you're not locked in to anyone.
    • NoMoreBro 4y ago
      Wow, textbundle on disk instead of the database, right? It would be huge. Another great feature that Bear and FSNotes share is the ability to insert hierarchy tags like #parent/child For some reason, I find it perfect to organize notes without too much thinking.
• FanaHOVA 4y ago
  Wohoo! I've been using Obsidian for 2+ years and even wrote some personal plugins [0] to automatically backup my vault on GH, import all my Pocket.com highlights, etc. Highly recommend it :) [0] https://github.com/fanahova/fana-os https://github.com/fanahova/fana-os
• bloqs 4y ago
  Questions for users - if we work in an environment where we cannot install applications (and no this wont be approved) are we able to use this still, or is it only going to be viable for a "personal" machine. I ask as i can think of several times ive been stuck with just a work laptop or similar and it would suck to not at least have a browser version or something. Thanks
  • AlanYx 4y ago
    If you can't install applications locally, Logseq is a good alternative. It can operate entirely locally, with nothing installed, if your browser supports the localstorage API. Edge does, for example. (There are a small number of features that don't work in this mode.)
    • bloqs 4y ago
      This sounds interesting - but I've never heard of it, what is it?
  • DMell 4y ago
    This is very cool! Thanks for sharing.
    • bloqs 4y ago
      I think you replied to the wrong comment!
      • DMell 4y ago
        I absolutely did - apologies.
  • jeremy0x4a 4y ago
    There are a few posts in their feature requests forum asking for a portable version to run via flash drive, but so far I don't believe that request has ever been acknowledged, though some hacky workarounds exist.
  • 4y ago
• omair_inam 4y ago
  Anyone have any thoughts on Craft[1] and how it compares to Obsidian as a note-taking tool? My primary work machine is a Mac (I also have an iPad and iPhone). I'm looking primarily for a note-taking app with support for images. I don't necessarily need the more "glamourous" publishing type features that craft has. Things I like about the app: * (Generally) good keyboard support * Syncing (but I'm paying for it) * Good native apps on mobile Things that aren't so good * Editing code blocks [1] https://www.craft.do/ https://www.craft.do/
  • ngrilly 4y ago
    Two reasons why I’m using Obsidian instead of Craft: Craft uses a proprietary data format. Obsidian is more portable since it just uses folders of Markdown files. Craft for Windows doesn’t work offline (only online).
• colordrops 4y ago
  Is Obsidian open source? I couldn't figure it out from a quick perusal of the site.
  • kepano 4y ago
    Obsidian is not open source but it uses plain text local files with Markdown support, so you are not locked in. All plugins for Obsidian are required to be open source. Also Obsidian contains no tracking/analytics, and the Sync product is E2E encrypted. The Obsidian API is also very flexible and allows you to do almost anything if you want to modify the app.
    • wojciechpolak 4y ago
      How do you know that it doesn't contain tracking/analytics without the source code?
      • julienreszka 4y ago
        you don't
      • kepano 4y ago
        You can inspect network requests and see that nothing communicates to Obsidian servers. Since the app is Electron based you can also open up developer tools and unminify the JS code if you want to actually look at the code. You can also check out the privacy policy here: https://obsidian.md/privacy https://obsidian.md/privacy
• jeremy0x4a 4y ago
  Could someone tell me if the ability to export standard markdown has been implemented yet?
  • kepano 4y ago
    Can you explain more? The files are already in Markdown format, and you can use standard notation. You don't actually need to export them, they're just in your vault folder.
    • jeremy0x4a 4y ago
      Obsidian uses non-standard Markdown for things such as block references, wiki-style links, etc. Since very early beta "export to standard Markdown" had been on the todo list so that notes taken in Obsidian would not be "locked in" because they were reliant on app-specific markup.
      • kepano 4y ago
        Have you checked out the Obsidian Pandoc plugin? I think it might meet your needs: https://github.com/OliverBalfour/obsidian-pandoc https://github.com/OliverBalfour/obsidian-pandoc That being said standard Markdown does not provide notation for certain things, so it is somewhat up to interpretation how to convert certain features to standard Markdown.
        • jeremy0x4a 4y ago
          It appears that the feature in question is still on the roadmap, but moved to long-term: https://trello.com/b/Psqfqp7I/obsidian-roadmap https://trello.com/b/Psqfqp7I/obsidian-roadmap
          • kepano 4y ago
            Gotcha, check out the Obsidian Pandoc plugin as I think it can be modified to suit your needs!
• bleachedsleet 4y ago
  Surely a website advertising a “brand new look” would have a screenshot of the interface, right? Am I missing something?
  • kepano 4y ago
    Screenshots are visible if you're on desktop but not on mobile yet. We need to improve the mobile version. We're a small team! That said, you can see screenshots of the mobile app by tapping through to the app store.
  • unsafecast 4y ago
    It looks like they made it work in the meantime.
• mmlkrx 4y ago
  Not having used any of the graph based note taking/knowledge tools like Obsidian, logseq, Athens Research or Roam -- I was wondering if anybody has tried them for collaborative knowledge management? Obsidian seems to be single user based, Athens is "collaborative" and "for startup teams". But does anybody actually have any experience using a graph based knowledge tool for your teams knowledge management?
  • Macha 4y ago
    I think Notion is more aimed at teams. I haven't used Athens or Roam, but certainly Obsidian and loqseq are much more single user focused. You could use a shared sync but it requires the end user to have the same sync program as you, so it's not like sending a link to someone involved
• scubbo 4y ago
  I absolutely love Obsidian, and have been enthusiastically recommending it to everyone I can. Congratulations on hitting 1.0!
• Geee 4y ago
  Not sure if this is for me. I use one large text file where I put all my notes. Organizing everything into folders and files with formatting seems to be just too high friction.
  • chrisweekly 4y ago
    You can use as many or as few folders and files as you want in Obsidian. Try saving your one large text file as .md and open it in Obsidian. Voila, superpowers.
    • Geee 4y ago
      I'll try to get used to it.
• fudged71 4y ago
  I tried Obsidian and just couldn’t use it. After using Roam I can never go backwards to plain text, I need a block based editor with infinite nesting. I’ve recently switched to Tana.
• weekendvampire 4y ago
  All I'll say is that I'm a huge fan and Obsidian has been life changing, so thank you.
• psychomugs 4y ago
  I have nothing to add to the heap of praise here, apart from my own thank-you. I'm a fairly new user but exploring the tool gives me the childlike glee akin to coming home from school and continuing a video game or project.
• brimwats 4y ago
  Obsidian has made so much of my PhD process easier and smoother, and I've increasingly depended on it in real life as well. Amazing team but absolutely stellar community of passionate and kind people. Bravo!
  • Eugeleo 4y ago
    Hey, mind sharing your workflow? Where do you read papers? And do you annotate them?
• ngrilly 4y ago
  I started using Obsidian Sync and I’m quite impressed. The sync between my Windows laptop and my iPhone is almost real-time. Conflicts are handled nicely by merging changes from both sides and the user is notified about it. And of course, everything is still stored in a local folder of Markdown files. Would be interesting if someone from Obsidian could share some details on the implementation.
  • nvrspyx 4y ago
    I'd also be interested. It's surprisingly robust. In case you weren't aware, they also have version history[0] with Sync. 0:https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Version+history https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Version+history
  • emptyparadise 4y ago
    Is Obsidian Sync end to end encrypted?
    • nvrspyx 4y ago
      Yup, it is. https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Security+and+privacy https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Security+and+privacy
• Ruq 4y ago
  Wasn't expecting this release to be 1.0! But I suppose I should've seen it coming.
• vlugorilla 4y ago
  Love the respect for privacy that Obsidian brings. No tackers and no shit. It's beautiful to find such a great app with a respect for something so important.
  • imiric 4y ago
    It's still a proprietary and closed source application, so you can't be sure what it's actually doing. You can monitor which files it accesses and the network traffic it generates, but you can only trust that they're respecting your privacy according to their policy. It seems like a great program; it embraces open formats and is very extensible. But I don't think privacy should be a reason to use it while it's closed source.
• caycep 4y ago
  I wonder if Obsidian can support using Apple Notes as a data source/back end/sync source?
• soamv 4y ago
  Does anyone use obsidian with any of the e-ink note-taking devices (remarkable/supernote/etc.)?
• jerrygoyal 4y ago
  I just realised Obsidian is built by the same folks who built Dynalist wow. I enjoyed using Dynalist for a while (before discovering Notion) and even built a chrome extension for it (Dynalist Allstar).
• technosopher 4y ago
  It's awesome!
• _iyhy 4y ago
  I am still looking for a note editor that has good support for tables. Might as well use Excel for note-taking from now on.
  • submeta 4y ago
    How about Emacs + org-mode? Org-tables are plain text tables on steroids. You can quickly create, rearrange, modify these tables, and do even basic (or complex) calculations within them.
  • JoachimS 4y ago
    If its good or not can be discussed, but Obsidian supports tables. Obsidian also supports mermaid flowcharts. And there are plugins for mindmaps, GANTT charts etc. There really are an amazing range of functions in Obsidian.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• productceo 4y ago
  Interesting decision to have zero images of the new design on the landing page. Could you share why you decided this way?
• IcyPalm 4y ago
  After years of trying around multiple markdown tools like Standard Notes, and loads of open source I finally landed on Obsidian. Still trying to wrap my head around it but it seems like such a powerful tool
• thrillgore 4y ago
  This is great. As an Obsidian user, this update adds a lot.
• smusamashah 4y ago
  New UI looks nice I wish it felt faster (it still doesn't). I made that Windows 98 UI theme which is totally broke now :(.
• dmix 4y ago
  I was using Obsidian pretty hard for a year but I eventually switched over to https://www.ticktick.com/ https://www.ticktick.com/ It turns out I prefer having lists as my primary interface, especially for the mobile side (insert text and press enter, instead of typing "- [x] item"). It does 3 things (all integrated together): lists, notes, and calendar. The "Notes" section is like a mini obsidian mixed in with the lists, but you can also add markdown notes to each individual 'task'. So I use it like a personal knowledge-base, not just for expendable lists. The calendar integration is also nice. I've combined Obsidian, gCal, and Omnitasks/Todoist into one app. That said, for pure note taking Obsidian was the best. Especially for coding/work.
• oxff 4y ago
  Fantastic update for me.
• the-printer 4y ago
• nitin-pai 4y ago
  Obsidian is among the best note-taking apps out there today. Backlinks make it more useful than other note taking apps, and this helps me uncover connections even if I don’t use the graph feature that much. One plugin I am wish will arrive soon is Google Calendar integration.
  • sofixa 4y ago
    > One plugin I am wish will arrive soon is Google Calendar integration For what use? There's an obsidian-ics plugin to fill a daily note with events from a calendar, ans obsidian-google-lookup to put Google Calendar events and contacts as objects in notes.
• hemloc_io 4y ago
  hey! Don't have anything serious to add, but just want to say thanks! Obsidian is a great tool and I use it every day. I don't even use half the features/capabilities but as a simple markdown editor w/ links it's fantastic.
• CGamesPlay 4y ago
  Love the 1.0 on iPad! The tabbed interface (and weird history behavior when working with splits) was one of my biggest hiccups with the old version. The new one interface has smoother animations and behaves better. Wish you added multiple window support on iPad, but that's super minor. I know that Obsidian has roots as "database is a directory of markdown files", but I will say that the last remaining feature request I have for the app is about versioning: I want to browse my vault at a point in time, not look at old versions of files. Specifically, I want to delete a file, then do a text search in 6 months, find a match in the deleted file, and browse my notebook at the date before I deleted the file.
  • kepano 4y ago
    You can do something like this with Obsidian Git. If your vault is synced to Git then you can roll back to any commit in the history and return to that overall state of your vault.
• dkislyuk 4y ago
  Obsidian is a tool like no other: a "second brain" that you have complete ownership over. Being able to link together knowledge or concepts across contexts is a superpower. A recent example: the AlphaTensor paper comes out with a new approach to optimizing matrix multiplication algorithms: as I jot down some thoughts, can I seamlessly refresh my memory on every paper or talk or offhand ML finding I've come across on "matrix multiplication", "deep RL", "Strassen’s algorithm", etc.? I use it for every aspect of knowledge management, building a personal wiki, personal logging and writing, task tracking, reading notes, academic paper notes+metadata, planning, and more. Other tools offer similar features, but they all seem to have tradeoffs on data ownership or offline support or lack of extensibility or non-standard text format (i.e. not markdown). I wrote last year in another HN post that it's remarkable that the Obsidian team has delivered a superior product in a _very_ crowded note-taking / PKM space, and 18 months later it remains the single tool that I couldn't imagine abandoning.
  • M5x7wI3CmbEem10 4y ago
    how do you organize your notes? I find it hard to decide between a hyperlink, a tag, a new note, a folder, etc.
• Arrath 4y ago
  I'll have to give 1.0 a try, I installed Obsidian last time it came up on HN but unfortunately it won't run on my phone. E: Dang. Same thing. Installs and launches, but when I go to create a vault I get "Failed to create vault. Unable to create directory, unknown reason." Both on internal storage and the SD card. I granted it permissions upon install, so who knows. My phone might just be too old and busted.
• Move37 4y ago
  I would love to see Obsidian for teams. There is no knowledge app as elegant as obsidian, it could change team wikis forever.
• paradox242 4y ago
  I found that in my role I was task switching into different domains and have a lot of trouble remembering the details a various deep dives and at first tried OneNote, Evernote, etc but had issues with each, mostly the concern that the storage formats were incompatible and so I would be held hostage by whichever app I chose. I went searching for something I could store in the cloud and locally and could understand markdown. Lo and behold Obsidian kept coming up in recommendations. I've been using it for 3 months now and I love that it uses simple filesystem heirarchies to store the .md files. I can put it into a git repo and fit it neatly into my existing workflow. It is basically the perfect note taking app for me. Well done and keep up the good work!
• IndigoIncognito 4y ago
  I stopped using it due to the fact that it is like Vim for Microsoft Word, it takes more time to use, has less features than the original and hurts your sanity
  • jmcphers 4y ago
    If you just want a knowledge base in Vim, have you tried Vimwiki[1]? I use Vimwiki in vim and Obsidian outside of Vim -- they can be configured to use exactly the same pile of Markdown files as a vault/wiki. [1] https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki
• skybrian 4y ago
  Looks like the help docs [1] are an example of what Obsidian looks like when published? I found it strange that what I would consider to be the help site's table of contents (on the left) is in alphabetical order, somewhat like an index, instead of being arranged in a logical outline like a book's table of contents. Meanwhile, what's labelled as the "table of contents" on the right is actually just the headings in the current page. [1] https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian/Index https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian/Index
• canMarsHaveLife 4y ago
  Thank you for Obsidian! I really like it and I'm learning Zettelkasten with it! As a consequence I am leanrning things more deeply. The only thing I miss is a more acessible price for brazilians in Obsidian Sync (1 USD ≈ 5.50 BRL, that is too much). I know I can sync it using other tools, but I feel the native tool would be the best of the scenarios).
• ameixaseca 4y ago
  I installed Obsidian and did some initial testing, but two things completely threw me off: 1) Basic synchronization is a paid feature and you cannot (or at least could not) set up a private synchronization server. 2) Synchronization depends on the cloud. I simply cannot trust all important information of my life going to an unspecified location in the cloud for synchronization, even if it promises end-to-end encryption. The fact that the source is closed and it is a small company aggravates that immensely. Which is why I'm using Trilium now. It's a bit more limited (no app) but has a web clipper extension and it is open source, so I can do changes or quick fixes if needed. I also synchronize with my own server, running behind a VPN. For mobile, I'm pulling all tabs using adb and a couple of scripts, and it has been working nicely for my use case (mostly archival/planning).
  • elashri 4y ago
    While Trilium have a very good web version. It also have cross platform app (Linux, MacOS and Windows) [1] [1] https://github.com/zadam/trilium/releases/latest https://github.com/zadam/trilium/releases/latest
  • AB1908 4y ago
    Wait I can synchronize with nextcloud just fine. It's just a folder on my drive after all. That said, it's janky on mobile.
    • selykg 4y ago
      That's an understatement. The mobile app is... frankly, kind of a garbage can of usability issues imo, but I love the desktop app, it's pretty great. But until they fix the mobile app I just can't use it. I'd like to see the mobile app bridge the gap between typical mobile note taking apps and the desktop Obsidian app. Make it easy to create a new note like you would in any other note app, save it where it makes sense to save it, make sync easy to setup, etc. Probably asking too much, but ugh... the mobile app is so bad.
      • kepano 4y ago
• sylens 4y ago
  I love Obsidian because it puts everything in just a file that I can see live on my filesystem. Craft, Bear, Notion are all good tools, but I get uneasy knowing that so much of my knowledge base and documentation lives on their backend somewhere. I happily pay for Obsidian Sync even though I could use iCloud or OneDrive to sync my vaults because I want to support them
• stavros_ 4y ago
  WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Obsidian has changed my life. Everything about this software is chefs kiss. Thankyou.
• asabla 4y ago
  It feels like I've been using Obsidian for years. Really like most of all functionality and especially the community! Kudos to the team!
• tkk23 4y ago
  Am I mistaken or are all the note taking systems optimized for isolated usage? Some allow some form of communication by publishing notes but the last time I checked, there was no public pool of notes that were open for discovery. I would love to have a system where my notes are automatically linked with notes from other users who have the same ideas or goals.
  • ilikecode 4y ago
    I’ve had so many epiphanies from journaling. I wonder what society would realize if all our thoughts were linked.
• nhanjkl 4y ago
  Just wanted to drop by and say hi. Such a f*cking great app! Thank you so so much!
• shrvtv 4y ago
  The app experience is totally ruined now. It's insanity for me to see 1Password 7 to 8 transition level of nonsense again. Block-quotes are no longer quotes, just text with a strip of light on the left with no option to make it more obvious. File name is now H1 header at the top of the file with no option to hide it. Performance sucks so much, and that is on an eight-core x64 mobile CPU running Windows 10 Pro. Everything is sluggish 15fps mess. Shame. Markdown links are ruined too. The previous UI was light years ahead, using different colors for the text and the link. Now the color is the same. Most extensions don't care and don't render properly. Fckn great, man. The tabs are by far the only good thing in the update. Everything else is a downgrade.
  • kepano 4y ago
    You can turn off the inline title under Settings > Appearance It will likely take a few weeks for plugins/themes to update to the new theme system, so I would encourage a bit of patience! See theme migration guide: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/0-16-0-theme-migration-guide/42537 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/0-16-0-theme-migration-guide/425...
    • shrvtv 4y ago
      Wait, I recognize your username... Thanks for the tabs, but please, please do something to the links and quotes. They are completely and utterly messed up, now that they look the same. 10 hours ago there was a difference between the text and the URL in a hyperlink. And now there isn't. Perfomance is something we never had to begin with, at the very least I can live without it. But we had double colored links! We had quotes, highlighted out of the text by grey colored blocks. Why? Why would you take that? I mean, 1Password team has moved to Electron and lost features, that is partially understandle. Forgivable, at least. But Obsidian just got comically worse with no explanation provided.
      • kepano 4y ago
        I am not 100% sure I understand what you are describing but it sounds easy to fix. If you can share before/after screenshots of issue on the Obsidian forum or in Obsidian Discord, that would help!
• GSGBen 4y ago
  Awesome, I've been waiting for proper tab support. A tip that people on HN will probably enjoy: add --disable-smooth-scrolling to your shortcut to make scrolling more responsive.
• kepano 4y ago
  I was an early user of Obsidian in May 2020, and have been absolutely blown away by how fast this tiny team of 2 people was able to build such a life-changing app. Using Obsidian fundamentally changed the way I think. It's also been fun to see how rapidly the plugin ecosystem has grown. The community is so friendly and creative. I have contributed a few things of my own, notably Minimal theme[0]. When I was asked to help lead the new UI for 1.0 it was a dream come true. I am really proud of how it turned out. We were able to make a lot of the app feel more native across platforms. I'm also excited to see what new themes pop up that use the new theme system which is much simpler and more flexible. 1.0 is an amazing milestone, and one you don't get to celebrate often. It's so much fun to see all the love in the comments. [0]: https://minimal.guide https://minimal.guide
  • 9935c101ab17a66 4y ago
    I'm a HUGE fan of Minimal Theme, and I really appreciate not only all the work you've put in to improve Obsidian, but also your thoughtfulness and skill. Minimal not only looks wonderful, but it has a really great array of options/settings, both through Minimal Theme Settings and Style Settings. I've tried dozens of Obsidian themes, and frankly, nothing else comes close. It's no surprise you were tapped to improve the default theme for 1.0 :).
  • jdgoesmarching 4y ago
    Two people who also had a baby in the middle of this app’s explosion. I can’t imagine pulling that off.
  • kirso 4y ago
    Thank you for building Minimal and helping on Obsidian. I love the theme and it made me return back and really give it a fair shot!
  • emrah 4y ago
    It looks great, amazing work! One small issue is the way the filename is displayed at the top as if it's the title. It may or may not be. The way it is now is very confusing though because many other apps follow the pattern "first line is the title" but in some cases it won't be in Obsidian
• bityard 4y ago
  > over two years ago [2], when terms like "second brain" ... were still in their infancy. Funny, that was the exact title of my personal wiki that I started in 2006 or so.
• smesla 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, why is Obsidian closed source? It doesn't look like you charge for anything, and with the size and type of following you have, you'd probably see some really cool stuff get sent your way.
  • fknorangesite 4y ago
    > It doesn't look like you charge for anything, https://obsidian.md/pricing https://obsidian.md/pricing https://obsidian.md/sync https://obsidian.md/sync https://obsidian.md/publish https://obsidian.md/publish
    • Aeolun 4y ago
      Gotta love that the tile for the $0 personal plan has a link to their refund policy :D
  • muwtyhg 4y ago
    They seem to be particularly against it (https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515/11 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515/1...) which has always been my own worry about using this product. A knowledge base is something that takes a long time to start producing results and the idea of being locked into using a closed-source piece of software that I can't depend on being functional 5+ years from now is very scary. At least with open-source, a community project is likely to form a fork if the original maintainers disappear. I realize they are just markdown files, but they use a proprietary "Obsidian" markup that will require painful conversion if I ever need move to another app. I've been through this before and it has always been a massive headache.
• JohnTHaller 4y ago
  Congrats! Been following Obsidian here and there and I'm finally giving it a spin. Side Note: If you folks would like a portable version for Windows (non-installable version that can run from a cloud folder, portable drive, etc), let me know. PortableApps.com has a few Electron-based apps now.
  • reactspa 4y ago
    Yes. Please.
• codethief 4y ago
  Congrats on reaching v1.0! Does anyone have any experience with their Android app? How well does it work these days?
• Daunk 4y ago
  I'm sorry if I sound stupid, but this is an honest question. What would I use Obsidian for? Is it just for writing stuff down? And if so; how would I access these notes on something like my phone? I tend to just write down things and store attachments in "Saved Messages" on Telegram. That way I can access it all via my phone, home computer, work computer or the web. How would Obsidian be better?
  • Barrin92 4y ago
    it has a bunch more features. links between notes (sort of like hyperlinks on a wiki), tags, calendar, reminders, todos, you can structure your notes in folders, daily notes, etc. There's also a ton of plugins for features from other note-taking apps. They do provide mobile apps that work well but it's just markdown files so you can really access them however you want. I just have the entire vault in my Google Drive.
• badtension 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, can you share more on your pricing strategy? What is actually paying for your development? It looks like you give away a lot for free, do you do that cause the server costs are nil without e.g. sync? Can you share the rough number of users in each tier/service?
• c7b 4y ago
  The description sounds interesting! Can anyone comment on how this compares to or integrates with Anki? I've found SRS to be really powerful, but I'd like to integrate it more with note-taking.
• smeagull 4y ago
  What I want from a note taking app: * Takes pages from my browser * Uses github to sync across platforms * Has offline reading on mobile * Tagging and a todo list for triaging notes. Haven't found one yet.
  • andymac4182 4y ago
    Here is a way to capture pages from the browser in Obsidian https://stephanango.com/obsidian-web-clipper https://stephanango.com/obsidian-web-clipper https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git will help you sync across platforms Obsidian has all files locally so can be read offline I use a mix of tagging and two plugins (dataview and tasks) to accomplish the last one.
  • coffeeling 4y ago
    Use Obsidian and MarkDownload in the browser. Alternatively, route your web clippings via Readwise.
• casey2 4y ago
  Man pages. Very simple, yet more power markup language, already installed on your system, just make a new section and go.
• PotatoRigbee89 4y ago
  I used Obsidian for about 2 years. Unfortunately I found that I only ever used it as a database to store information. I didn't often use it productively, and when I did it felt like something was off. As to not appear like a product I will not share what I use as my main program instead, but will say it is much more "press check box, and you're done." I did move everything over to Org Mode using a convenient conversion script I found on GitHub, and find using Org Mode to be much snappier than Obsidian, which is one of the key things that led me away from Obsidian.
• chrisjarvis 4y ago
  Ive been a paying customer (off their Sync feature, the rest is free) for more than one year. I love this software and use it everyday. Congrats and keep up the great work :)
• smcleod 4y ago
  Looks interesting - is it a proper / native app or is it Electron?
  • smcleod 4y ago
    Update - just tried it out, it's VERY much Electron, with no notes it uses about 350-450MB of memory, after importing my markdown notes it used over 1.2GB! (and broke a lot of their standard formatting)
• somishere 4y ago
  Just converted all my completely random unsaved (30+ permanently open) note taking tabs/windows from sublime into an obsidian document structure, synced to android with syncthing. Took about 10mins total. Love it. If anyone's interested ... two very (very) minor things I've noticed in my 20mins of usage (apologies if these are solved - I haven't got to the literature yet): - same-same appearance of sub-list markers (I prefer alternative icons for tiered lists) - Headline / filename special characters conundrum. Many of my docs had headlines in them that weren't suitable as filenames, I found myself repeating the non-filesafe headline on the first line. I wonder if there's some kind of front-matter setup that could resolve this?
  • somishere 4y ago
    I should add, obsidian value add here is the android client which IMO needs a lot more focus due to input / storage considerations (constraints). If just syncing across desktops then sublime/similar with it's folder display would likely suit my needs.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• nathan_f77 4y ago
  I might give it another go. I tried switching from Evernote a while ago but was a bit underwhelmed. I don't really see the value of bidirectional links yet, the search feature in Evernote has been working fine for me. But will try it out again, and maybe give it a week this time. EDIT: The Sync feature is far too expensive. I pay about $22/year for Evernote: https://evernote.com/compare-plans https://evernote.com/compare-plans Syncing is a core feature, and I'm not going to use any notetaking tool if it can't sync my notes between mobile and desktop. I don't really want to switch to a tool that will cost $96/year. I'd be comfortable paying up to $25/year. Even better if there was a self-hosted database that I could run on my own server, or a way sync via Dropbox or Google Drive (that also works on mobile.) Maybe iCloud is an option.
• saheljalal 4y ago
  I use Bear notes and have used notion, coda, notable and others in the past. Help me understand why I should switch. Is there something that’ll get me hooked?
• saltymimir 4y ago
  Congrats! Been using the insider builds, so I've used the overhauled UI for quite a while. What I've been waiting for is the mobile app, and as expected you folks delivered. Hands down the best note-taking experience in mobile platforms, and it's not even close. I'm still using Logseq as my PKMS app by default, but seeing how active you've been with pushing genuinely new (and useful) changes, I might just reconsider this.
• fancymcpoopoo 4y ago
  I will stick to one note. I like the ability to locate things arbitrarily in space.
• twodave 4y ago
  I spend a lot of time in vscode. So I started keeping notes in vscode. I push my notes to github to access them from my phone. I change file extensions from .md to .old.md to hide old notes. What am I really missing here?!
  • Daunk 4y ago
    You can use GitHub plugin in VSCode and use "Gists" instead of having push and pull notes from a repo. I find it a lot easier, and the quick scratchpad is really nice.
• ripvanwinkle 4y ago
  Can I store the data on my local windows machine on a google drive i.e in a folder that is synced to Google drive. I ask because there was one other note taking app that couldn't cope with the semantics of Google drive's write activity (been a while and i've forgotten which one) and consequently I lost data
  • tipaklong 4y ago
    Yeah you can I am using Google Drive to sync my notes between my pc and my laptop, no problem so far.
• dSebastien 4y ago
  For those just getting started with personal knowledge management and/or Obsidian, check out my starter kit: https://developassion.gumroad.com/l/obsidian-starter-kit https://developassion.gumroad.com/l/obsidian-starter-kit It's both a pre-configured knowledge base (with a structure, plugins, templates, etc) and a detailed user guide with theory and practical how-to guides. It's not free but might be a good investment if you want to spare time when diving in.
• sweetsocks21 4y ago
  Is there a note taking app/knowledge database that auto-magically tags + adds metadata to everything and is searchable? I've tried many different tools in the past and I find I can't stay organized. I don't want to sit there linking stuff together, I just want to jot down a quick note or thought and have it link up with enough stuff that I can find it easily later. I was thinking of making a personal tool based on some kind of database like datalog. Where I can dump a bunch of facts and have the computer automatically tag and link items. I'd love something that knows I'm currently in a meeting with X,Y,Z persons while I took a note and automatically links it with them and any keywords etc from my note to other notes and topics. I saw a demo for outreach? I think that did some cool stuff for sales, listening to phone calls and making notes linking people etc. I want that but for _everything_ haha. Have it link in with JIRA, slack, GitHub, Gmail etc. One stop shop.
  • NhanH 4y ago
    The problem with automatically tagging/ linking is that everyone has a different categorization system (for good reasons). A note that only needs to be tagged “meeting” for one person might need to be tagged as “casual one on one meeting” for another —- just imagine the difference in granularity for IC vs management.
• jzig 4y ago
  I’m surprised there’s only one other comment talking about the open source Foam.
  • wraptile 4y ago
    I moved from Obsidian (big fan) to Foam because I already do most of my writing and coding in vscode might as well keep my notes there as well. Loads of vscode functions and plugins (like asciidoc) carry over to note taking world perfectly! Have to say though - it's quite a bit of work to get the whole Foam ecosystem working compared to obsidian but once you get it done it's very freeing.
• yangcheng 4y ago
  For people who use a personal notes tool like obsidian, how would you deal with notes that turned to work related later? I always find myself end up with half-finished notes in multiple different places. First versions in personal notebook and refined ones in company's google doc/etc. Thanks
  • Gatsky 4y ago
    Not entirely sure of your use case. You could maybe use backlinks for this. Say have a summary document within obsidian for a work project, and backlink to your existing notes which are relevant. You can even link specific blocks of text in a note. Another option is to write a document up in Obsidian, then upload the markdown to google docs. Or there are obsidian plugins converting obsidian notes to Word format.
  • ramones13 4y ago
    It varies for me. I’ll often write a draft of something in obsidian, then put it onto a doc/wiki and update my obsidian file to a link to that with a list of keywords for if I ever search it again.
• yzlnew 4y ago
  Insane performance as an electron app. Impressive job indeed.
• tbt 4y ago
  Does anyone know any writeups that describe how someone solved a difficult problem they couldn't previously solve, using a note-taking app?
• pentagrama 4y ago
  I use Sublime Text as a simple note taking app (love the speed and tabs). Didn't know about Obsidian and was exited to try it after reading about it today, but the simple fact that Obsidian loads a fraction of a second slower than Sublime, may be a deal breaker for me. Here I recorded a comparison https://imgur.com/a/6QzpwYw https://imgur.com/a/6QzpwYw Will give it a chance, looks so good and has several interesting features that I may didn't know that I needed. Kudos to the Obsidian team.
• alok-g 4y ago
  Newbie question: Which tool would be the best for assembling distinct documents from a large of pre-written paragraphs/sentences. I frequently need to write a set of docs with extensive cross-referencing, however, (a) the exported output docs needs to have referenced paras/sentences 'inlined' into the final version, and, (b) 'locking' the exported output docs should lock all the paras used by that doc while leaving the remaining ones editable. Thanks.
  • zeckalpha 4y ago
    Obsidian has a way of transcluding files, so you would have a bunch of logical paragraphs and transclude them together. Updating the individual paragraphs would update each instance they appear, since tranclusion is at view time.
    • alok-g 4y ago
      Nice! Can I also lock edits on some of the views resulting in locking of all transcluded paras/sentences but no others?
      • zeckalpha 4y ago
        When they are transcluded you have to click through to the source file to edit it. I think that accomplished what you mean.
• Mosciskies 4y ago
  [flagged]
• stonepresto 4y ago
  Open source it and I'll care.
• juliennakache 4y ago
  Is there a way to toggle / collapse bullet list? I find that it’s one of the most useful features when organizing my thought as it allows me to explore one nested branch very deeply while still keeping the doc easy to deal with. You can hide the unnecessary details when you want to keep think a higher level.
  • ngrilly 4y ago
    Yes, Obsidian does it out of the box.
• hookey 4y ago
  Honestly surprised by how much support this is getting, despite the devs' absurd views on open source[1]. Why anyone would choose this instead of Logseq is beyond me. [1]: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515/219 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515/2...
  • ddulaney 4y ago
    I was considering Obsidian, and your comment worried me enough to investigate. Looking through that link, though, I don't see anything too absurd. It's a closed-source app, which isn't ideal but is common enough. It looks like they have a Github repo that explicitly does not have the core source code but hosts some secondary files, and that's spelled out in the first couple lines of the readme. Seems fine to me, overall. Maybe there's something objectionable I missed in there?
  • xcambar 4y ago
    Many reasons: * in logseq, everything is a list. In Obsidian, prose is first class citizen as well * The plugin API is simple and discovery of plugins is super well inregrated * I don't like Obsidian's business model either but it's a bunch of commited indie devs actively engaging with their community and the efforts are visible. Kudos for that. * The community of practitioners and contributors of plugins is just incredible. Maybe some of it is true for logseq, but finding articles, tutorials, guidelines and examples for obsidian certainly contributes to it's success.
  • aussiesnack 4y ago
    Have you considered that your personal ethos which appears to stipulate 'views on open source' as a prime criterion for choosing software may not actually be a human universal?
• lolive 4y ago
  Obsidian. My epiphany of the decade. Thank you SO MUCH!!!
• lr1970 4y ago
  I love Obsidian and has been using it for about two years and I am a paying supporter. But at least on MacOS obsidian-1.0.0 is a forced update that automatically happens when you start (restart) obsidian. It broke my v0.15.9 setup and made it almost unusable. Really NOT nice at all.
• simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  Is Obsidian venture-backed?
• tediousdemise 4y ago
  Looks cool! Might try it out one day if I ever become unhappy with Notion.
• simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  What would be the absolute best tutorial to quickly learn how to use Obsidian, as a power user? Asking for a friend :)
  • jslakro 4y ago
    Recommended LYT: Intro - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVLHty1-NuvPa9V0b0UwbzBd https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVLHty1-NuvPa9V0... Advance - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVIDaYB0yeH3lnB9CZ0Hp_xs https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVIDaYB0yeH3lnB9...
• examplary_cable 4y ago
  I used obsidian for a long time. But the problem for me was that it's "granular" enough. The basic "atom" is a markdown file. There's nothing wrong with that of course. But I wanted to have the freedom of simply writing something, without worrying in which "file" it would go. After that I started working on my own "roam-like" app, I took inspirations from Spacemacs(The SPC key concent) and use HTML as the "final form" of things. if you want to look at it's at: https://github.com/ilse-langnar/notebook https://github.com/ilse-langnar/notebook
• xenreal 4y ago
  Why new apps still using electron, instead of tauri?
  • xenreal 4y ago
    I am tired of apps with 400mb weight. It's almost the same as windows 2000 or two times more then win98 os. With tauri they could get rid at least 200mb of electon and use system builtin browser.
• yonz 4y ago
  Demo and HN reaction make this promising congratulation on the launch. The only thing that will drag me any my years of OneNote notes is Grammarly integration and support for using with Remarkable. For the last five years I have been on the look out for free form writing tool that I can use with any E-Ink tablet writers. My pesky OneNote + surface sort of works but code highlighting and typo corrections always drive me nuts. I have tried notion, OneNote and recently a direct graph note taking competitor anytype.io to no avail.