2 ms·

Love to see Shida & Erica achieve such a runaway success. I remember alpha testing it during covid and thinking this is really clever and visionary. Their previ

by geor9e 2y ago

Love to see Shida & Erica achieve such a runaway success. I remember alpha testing it during covid and thinking this is really clever and visionary. Their previous product Dynalist didn't take off, but I still use it, along with a devoted niche of folks. They still maintain it, despite Obsidian being the money maker. Dynalist is a workflowy-style infinite nested list that loads entirely into RAM, so all your whole list can filter and move around with zero perceivable latency (if your computer can handle the size). Its really good for storywriting or to do lists or other highly manipulated text. It's up to you to nest the hierarchal structure of it all. Obsidian is more notion/wikipedia style so it's good for tons of notes you don't look at often, but want linked together in a big non-heirachal graph. It doesn't vibe with me personally, feels like hoarding to have that many inevitably-neglected notes, but I get why folks like it.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
I still use Workflowy. Never wanted anything else. I know a lot of people keep migrating tools. I wonder how much increase in productivity they actually get.
- geor9e 2y ago
  Yeah Workflowy is still popular. Dynalist was created because Jesse Patel was taking years to add any basic feature to Workflowy at the time. They didn't even have hyperlinks (you had to paste links in the note field as URLs) Dynalist added hyperlinks and API access and CSS themes and all sorts of features. Workflowy has slowly been catching up, but isn't quite there. Still no API, so my scripts can't send notes straight to nodes via mac spotlight for example. And lots of little nuances that have grown on me. But Workflowy has added some unique features like mirror nodes that Dynalist never had. I like both. If I wasn't used to years of Dynalist at this point, I'd definitely be on Workflowy.
- 1123581321 2y ago
  Migrating writing to a new organization is a great way to think about what you've written. It's field and personality specific whether that kind of reviewing and reshaping is helpful.
veidr 2y ago
I never understood why they haven't added the awesome from Workflowy^WDynalist to (the presumably much more financially lucrative) Obsidian. I liked Workflowy^WDynalist, but (just like Notion and the lesser Notionesques) I didn't like my data being in some weird ass place I couldn't control. For some data it's OK, but... The open-standards awesome of Obsidian is a huge benefit. But sync, while it works great once set up, costs like 5-10 minutes per machine. Which, compared to just being "on the web" is a huge cost. Potentially hours. They obviously have the tech to make "on the web" an optional property of your Obsidian vaults... the only thing I can think is that they just don't have the manpower to do it with their lean team. Which I can respect, but at the same time, as a (paying) user I am unsatisfied, and it seems like a glaring weakness to leave out there. A competitor with half the features, but with that one, seems like the biggest threat to Obsidian to me (even though I don't know of one yet). EDIT: Oops, yes, I meant Dynalist (updated). I used Workflowy, too, and found them both good but both had that same flaw I couldn't accept for my important data.

by geor9e 2y ago

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

I still use Workflowy. Never wanted anything else. I know a lot of people keep migrating tools. I wonder how much increase in productivity they actually get.

geor9e 2y ago
Yeah Workflowy is still popular. Dynalist was created because Jesse Patel was taking years to add any basic feature to Workflowy at the time. They didn't even have hyperlinks (you had to paste links in the note field as URLs) Dynalist added hyperlinks and API access and CSS themes and all sorts of features. Workflowy has slowly been catching up, but isn't quite there. Still no API, so my scripts can't send notes straight to nodes via mac spotlight for example. And lots of little nuances that have grown on me. But Workflowy has added some unique features like mirror nodes that Dynalist never had. I like both. If I wasn't used to years of Dynalist at this point, I'd definitely be on Workflowy.
1123581321 2y ago
Migrating writing to a new organization is a great way to think about what you've written. It's field and personality specific whether that kind of reviewing and reshaping is helpful.

veidr 2y ago

I never understood why they haven't added the awesome from Workflowy^WDynalist to (the presumably much more financially lucrative) Obsidian. I liked Workflowy^WDynalist, but (just like Notion and the lesser Notionesques) I didn't like my data being in some weird ass place I couldn't control. For some data it's OK, but... The open-standards awesome of Obsidian is a huge benefit. But sync, while it works great once set up, costs like 5-10 minutes per machine. Which, compared to just being "on the web" is a huge cost. Potentially hours. They obviously have the tech to make "on the web" an optional property of your Obsidian vaults... the only thing I can think is that they just don't have the manpower to do it with their lean team. Which I can respect, but at the same time, as a (paying) user I am unsatisfied, and it seems like a glaring weakness to leave out there. A competitor with half the features, but with that one, seems like the biggest threat to Obsidian to me (even though I don't know of one yet). EDIT: Oops, yes, I meant Dynalist (updated). I used Workflowy, too, and found them both good but both had that same flaw I couldn't accept for my important data.