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It looks like reinventing the wheel which is the world-wide-web: Documents of different kinds with links between them. I guess the graph view is semi-novel - th

It looks like reinventing the wheel which is the world-wide-web: Documents of different kinds with links between them. I guess the graph view is semi-novel - the idea is not new, but you usually don't see browsers or website editors presenting these graphs. Perhaps I'm missing something?

ssgodderidge 3y ago
Agreed on the doc-linking tech existing elsewhere. Obsidian just packages it in a really great format and UX. I really enjoy the local, note-writing experience here. Not sure if anyone uses Obsidian to publish a website, or if it’s even possible.
- claytonjy 3y ago
  They offer Obsidian Publish for $8/mo: https://obsidian.md/publish https://obsidian.md/publish
- 0thgen 3y ago
  I’ve found that obsidian and Jekyll play pretty nice together. Not perfect but not bad
- medimikka 3y ago
  Of course it is :). It's a bunch of Markdown, something that dozens of static site generators happily ingest and turn into a website. I am using 11ty (https://mikka.is https://mikka.is), a sprinkle of git to get things into production, Obsidian Git to simply push everything I write, as I write, and my website is done.
nerdponx 3y ago
The concepts are not new. The innovation is in the UI and UX that makes it easy (almost seamless) to build documents like that. As I said in another comment, you could get all of this functionality with any Markdown-based static site generator. But it would be a lot more work to achieve the same result.
0thgen 3y ago
The key value of Obsidian is that your “website” (linked documents) is a WYSIWYG text editor (and even has native vim keybindings) It may not be “new” but it’s extremely useful, and better than any existing alternatives that I’ve personally come across And the fact that a “vault” is just your existing directory is also extremely convenient; nothing is hidden or obfuscated
jwells89 3y ago
Interlinked heterogenous documents aren’t unique to Obsidian, but somewhat uncommon among local-first note systems that sit beyond the confines of browser chrome (though this is changing, for example Apple Notes in macOS 14 and iOS 17 support interlinked notes).
patmorgan23 3y ago
It is similar, but the idea is the files are closer to plain text and reable with a regular text editor if needed.
esjeon 3y ago
Technically, yes. You could even do this using MS Word, and wikis, of course, can do all of these. The only difference is that this is practically the first local-first app that maintains links automatically.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  Wikidpad I used a while back did this automatically as well.
ParetoOptimal 3y ago
The WWW doesn't treat searching your own knowledge graph as enough of a first-class citizen.
crucialfelix 3y ago
Well it would have been nice if the www had turned into a people's network of editable, interconnected documents. At this point it's about as far from that as we can get. It's a giant dystopian shopping mall. Could we activate the editable people's web? Could we resurrect the original Web 2.0 (before the meaning of "sharing" got mangled into "forward this corporate media post to another customer")? Yes, we could. We probably should. But we can barely get the Fediverse into the mainstream. Nobody blogs anymore. Attention spans are close to 0.
happytoexplain 3y ago
It's harder to build your own note-taking system based on existing web features than to use an app that does it. Even just programmers, and we're talking about everybody. For every human who can and would do the former, there are perhaps millions who can and would do the latter. That's a pretty big difference, to put it lightly.

ssgodderidge 3y ago

Agreed on the doc-linking tech existing elsewhere. Obsidian just packages it in a really great format and UX. I really enjoy the local, note-writing experience here. Not sure if anyone uses Obsidian to publish a website, or if it’s even possible.

claytonjy 3y ago
They offer Obsidian Publish for $8/mo: https://obsidian.md/publish https://obsidian.md/publish
0thgen 3y ago
I’ve found that obsidian and Jekyll play pretty nice together. Not perfect but not bad
medimikka 3y ago
Of course it is :). It's a bunch of Markdown, something that dozens of static site generators happily ingest and turn into a website. I am using 11ty (https://mikka.is https://mikka.is), a sprinkle of git to get things into production, Obsidian Git to simply push everything I write, as I write, and my website is done.

nerdponx 3y ago

The concepts are not new. The innovation is in the UI and UX that makes it easy (almost seamless) to build documents like that. As I said in another comment, you could get all of this functionality with any Markdown-based static site generator. But it would be a lot more work to achieve the same result.

0thgen 3y ago

The key value of Obsidian is that your “website” (linked documents) is a WYSIWYG text editor (and even has native vim keybindings) It may not be “new” but it’s extremely useful, and better than any existing alternatives that I’ve personally come across And the fact that a “vault” is just your existing directory is also extremely convenient; nothing is hidden or obfuscated

jwells89 3y ago

Interlinked heterogenous documents aren’t unique to Obsidian, but somewhat uncommon among local-first note systems that sit beyond the confines of browser chrome (though this is changing, for example Apple Notes in macOS 14 and iOS 17 support interlinked notes).

patmorgan23 3y ago

It is similar, but the idea is the files are closer to plain text and reable with a regular text editor if needed.

esjeon 3y ago

Technically, yes. You could even do this using MS Word, and wikis, of course, can do all of these. The only difference is that this is practically the first local-first app that maintains links automatically.

deafpolygon 3y ago
Wikidpad I used a while back did this automatically as well.

ParetoOptimal 3y ago

The WWW doesn't treat searching your own knowledge graph as enough of a first-class citizen.

crucialfelix 3y ago

Well it would have been nice if the www had turned into a people's network of editable, interconnected documents. At this point it's about as far from that as we can get. It's a giant dystopian shopping mall. Could we activate the editable people's web? Could we resurrect the original Web 2.0 (before the meaning of "sharing" got mangled into "forward this corporate media post to another customer")? Yes, we could. We probably should. But we can barely get the Fediverse into the mainstream. Nobody blogs anymore. Attention spans are close to 0.

happytoexplain 3y ago

It's harder to build your own note-taking system based on existing web features than to use an app that does it. Even just programmers, and we're talking about everybody. For every human who can and would do the former, there are perhaps millions who can and would do the latter. That's a pretty big difference, to put it lightly.