16 ms·

Obsidian Bases

695 points by twapi 1y ago

nxobject 1y ago
I hope more programs use ".base" files for database views – it runs a lot of workflows in Notion that would benefit from a diversity of implementations.
- deafpolygon 1y ago
  That isn't going to happen. Just like there isn't going to be a bunch of people using .canvas files for canvas views.
umajho 1y ago
[dead]
mudkipdev 1y ago
Is this essentially an official replacement for the Dataview plugin? Last time I used Obsidian was 2 years ago
- LordDragonfang 1y ago
  Yes and no. It's not meant to be as "kitchen sink" comprehensive yet, but it's a like 90% replacement and it's a ton faster and more responsive. (And I suspect once extension support comes in the dataview team will fully change over)
datadrivenangel 1y ago
So obsidian is now notion is now airtable. Interesting to see how well this scales.
- haydenlingle 1y ago
  Yes, but their kicker has always been that you own your data in a readable format even if you don’t use their app and can self sync it if you prefer. I imagine they’ll keep adding functionality of notion and airtable while still keeping this underlying premise
  - abakker 1y ago
    I create .md files programmatically based on my calendar. One day, I'll figure out how to take my copilot notes and paste them in automatically, but for now I know that a note and metadata are already there. its great to be able to do the front matter.
- viccis 1y ago
  I haven't really looked into what Airtable does, and I shouldn't be surprised at how much AI nonsense I had to dig through on their website to get any real info, but I still was.
  - cyberpunk 1y ago
    It's a shit internet spreadsheet for managers who think they can use it to "no code" code some feature or other that some poor sucker has to painfully migrate off of sometime down the road.
    - blitzar 1y ago
      I wonder sometimes how managers became managers of people who use spreadsheets all day without figuring out how to use spreadsheets.
wjrb 1y ago
Wow, I remember when this feature was planned/announced. It's great to see first class support for the Dataview-type workflows. I hope the API has support to allow extensions---I see that it is on the Roadmap[0]. I'm particularly interested to see how this integrates with Canvas and other note types. [0]: https://obsidian.md/roadmap/ https://obsidian.md/roadmap/
- kepano 1y ago
  You can embed a base in a canvas, and you can list canvases in a base.
  - wjrb 1y ago
    Hey, thanks for the reply. Big fan of your work! Cheers.
- jcutrell 1y ago
  I am curious about how this compares to dataview. As a dataview user, I'm not immediately seeing something bases does that dataview doesn't, but I am not a power user.
  - bad_username 1y ago
    Dataview can be used for queries that output tables, but its strength is letting you write essentially custom imperative Javascript code that renders stuff in notes dynamically (dataviewjs mode). Whereas "queries to tables" is more or less what Bases does, the dataviewjs mode will probably always be unique.
dadrian 1y ago
Are there any good LLM plugins for Obsidian, beyond just throwing Claude Code / Codex at your markdown folder?
- eightysixfour 1y ago
  I put Claude Code in MCP server mode, then use it as an MCP server for claude desktop to interact with that folder. Works better for me since Claude Code desperately wants to edit things instead of chat sometimes.
- gavmor 1y ago
  There's no decent RAG functionality, AFAICT, but the Text-Generator plugin has been fantastic w/ larger contexts and a template that pulls either/both links and backlinks into the inference query window. Hands-down my most productive interface to LLMs for [years since GPT3.5] years running.
  - Noumenon72 1y ago
    The fact there is no app to do "RAG on localhost for my own notes" really makes me wonder whether the tech works at all.
  - obsidianbases1 1y ago
    > There's no decent RAG functionality Do you have any examples of what decent RAG functionality might look like? And where the current plugins fall short?
    - gavmor 1y ago
      I simply haven't gotten Smart Connections to index my vaults successfully, for whatever reason. So I can't give them a proper review. I'd hope that any inference performed in a given note would take as context not only the full text of the note, but its nearest neighbors—although, frankly, what I really want are the implicit definitions of proper nouns, ie links. I also frequently generate articles based on the subject's backlinks, ie mentions in other notes. Both of those functionalities are provided by Obsidian's core featureset, so all that's missing—and what might provide outsized value—is indexing notes based not only on the embeddings of their literal text, but on meta-text such as: the questions they might answer; the definitions of their principle subjects; counterfactual statements they falsify. All of which would allow the editor to bring up a relevant note when writing/reviewing another–ie the "unknown knowns". I think this technique is akin to "knowledge enrichment", or "meta-embeddings," but I think actually those terms have lower-level meanings. Of course, generating these embeddings would make the indexing process slower and more failure prone, and so I'd be even more likely to fail to get it working and call it a dud.
LordDragonfang 1y ago
I've been using bases (in beta) for a month or so for the vault I keep for the notes for each of the (many) D&D/ttrpg campaigns I play in, and it's really made it a ton easier to get an overview of e.g. the many different NPCs we meet and interact with, and the relevant info (name/pronouns/pic/race/class/etc) all in one place. The Obsidian dev team has been really responsive to feedback from those of us in the beta, and I'd encourage people to look at the changelog to see that in action (e.g. changing the syntax to be more object oriented, smoothing over UI issues, etc)
- lolive 1y ago
  Man, you probably gave me the only use case that could push me beyond my basic usage of Obsidian. [i wait for your YouTube demo. #PROOOOFIT]
  - LordDragonfang 1y ago
    Lol, I'm not much of a "content creator" (though I'd recommend wanderloots' intro series on bases[1]), but here's a quick gist of what I extracted from my for one of my campaigns: https://gist.github.com/LordDragonfang/d826cb686c64d582afbe228817d7e707 https://gist.github.com/LordDragonfang/d826cb686c64d582afbe2... This is a combined view of the players and npcs from one campaign with the portrait gallery in the second view. I've got the official template plugin bound to ctrl-shift-2, so I just hit that to pre-populate the frontmatter whenever I create an npc/pc/etc note with the appropriate template. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWhMzDKA7vJ4NDvVhlZMki0a4Dv3iYO-S https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWhMzDKA7vJ4NDvVhlZMk...
- wjrb 1y ago
  I also made pretty heavy use of plugins to manage PCs, NPCs, encounters, items (!!), custom tables, maps, and setting details in a single campaign. Led to a lot of bug reports for the D&D-specific plugins, but Dataview worked like a charm. Having a more Obsidian-native interface for managing all of that is. Like other commenters, would definitely watch a video of you sharing your Obsidian "build" for that use-case.
jasonjmcghee 1y ago
Super interesting to see this. Are things like Kanban views (a la notion) planned?
- kepano 1y ago
  It's on the roadmap, yes. https://obsidian.md/roadmap/ https://obsidian.md/roadmap/
alberth 1y ago
This is slick. Does anyone know what JS library (presumably) they are using to display, filter, sort the table?
- sebmellen 1y ago
  If I were in their position I’d use TanStack Table.
- joethei 1y ago
  For the grammar: Lezer For the editor: CodeMirror Everything else is custom as we generally don't use existing frameworks and the large amount of baggage they carry. CodeMirror and Lezer we already used before Bases.
  - alberth 1y ago
    Any chance the entire table layout, filtering, etc will be open sourced? I can see plenty of SaaS apps, especially indie made, that could benefit from such functionality.
  - hu3 1y ago
    Neat! Does it use a library like React? Or perhabs Lit?
    - joethei 1y ago
      Nope, that's not the Obsidian way. We don't use frameworks We include very few dependencies, see: <https://help.obsidian.md/credits#Third+party+acknowledgements https://help.obsidian.md/credits#Third+party+acknowledgement...>
- echelon 1y ago
  This is beyond slick. I'm finally able to kill Notion (good riddance - I never liked it!), and if it can handle larger tables then I'll stop using Google Suite as well. My last request of the Obsidian team is a better git plugin. Their official built-in sync product is fine, but I'd still like to manage my own versioning so I can use automations. The currently available git plugin is extremely dangerous (!!!) if set up incorrectly. I would consider myself an advanced user of git, and Obsidian's git plugin has on several occasions blown away my history and notes. It has frustrating and opaque behavior for how it consolidates change sets and diffs.
dang 1y ago
I found one previous thread. Others? Obsidian Bases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44058972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44058972 - May 2025 (13 comments)
- LordDragonfang 1y ago
  (May 2025 was from when the donor-only beta was announced, the current thread is the official release many changes later)
hereme888 1y ago
Yes! No more need to evaluate AnyType or similar apps. Obsidian rocks.
patrickhogan1 1y ago
Obsidian is amazing
johntash 1y ago
Neat. I haven't been using Obsidian for a couple years now, but this will probably get me to give it another try.
dottjt 1y ago
As much as I like the idea of Obsidian, I just can't get over all the additional functionality that Notion provides due to the integrated nature of it. In particular, I love how you select text/blocks in Notion and how every line is a "block". I really wish other editors did that as well. In fact, it's probably the main reason why I haven't moved away from Notion.
- bachmeier 1y ago
  IMO they're for completely different customers. Obsidian constrains itself to working on local text files that you can sync yourself. Notion is just another complex website where you turn over all your data and they sell you AI services.
  - dottjt 1y ago
    The complexity is what makes it valuable to some people. Put simply, it does more than Obsidian. Do you need that complexity? That's a personal question.
- shminge 1y ago
  That seems such a minor gain to me. Are you not concerned about notion a) being online only and b) not letting you be in control of your data? I'm a strong proponent of File over App: who knows how long Obsidian or notion will exist - at least I know I can work with my Obsidian notes as long as text editors exist
  - dottjt 1y ago
    I am concerned about those things, but what I've personally realised is that it's more important to use a tool that you really enjoy using + provides the functionality you want, as opposed to a tool you hate using and doesn't resonate with you. I hate making notes in plain text. It's too inconvenient, not to mention doesn't provide me with the functionality I want. On the other hand, I love organising things into databases i.e. Notion. So either I don't take notes (net negative) or I take notes (net positive).
- 1y ago
__jonas 1y ago
Neat! Is the 'import from notion' functionality able to convert Notion databases to this?
- kepano 1y ago
  You can import all the underlying data from Notion using the Obsidian Importer plugin, however I believe that Notion's Databases export only includes a CSV. So you'll need to recreate the views to be able to interact with them dynamically. https://help.obsidian.md/import/notion https://help.obsidian.md/import/notion
  - __jonas 1y ago
    I see. I just tried the Notion import on the latest version of Anytype, and they now seem to be able to import Notion databases, which is useful. They use the Notion API though, not any export option that Notion offers.
    - jitl 1y ago
      I want to build a fully round-tripable semantic HTML “microformat” for Notion data so both backup and take-out workflows can depend just on exports, but right now I’m too focused on scaling offline mode to work on it. Sigh. The first version of the HTML/PDF exporter I built as part of my interview process in 2019, I think we could do a much better job
andyferris 1y ago
So where does the data "live"? I was looking at the syntax, it defines predicates for filters and views and so on, but I don't see the "rows". There is this `file.name` and `file.ext` thing - but where do you set them? What type of file does it point to? CSV? JSON? Something else? The docs seem incomplete.
- kepano 1y ago
  The rows are individual Markdown files and the columns are YAML frontmatter properties in those files. There are some special properties prefixed by `file.` which are implicit to the file itself, e.g.`file.name` refers to the file name, and `file.ext` is the extension. The base views are defined as YAML in .base files or can be embedded in code blocks within a Markdown file. You can also export the rendered views to a Markdown table or CSV. See also: https://help.obsidian.md/bases/syntax https://help.obsidian.md/bases/syntax
  - andyferris 1y ago
    Hmm... so I can't use this to render and filter a table with 10k rows without having 10k markdown files? If I understand correctly, the intention seems to be "curated list of links" which the user can sort, filter, etc when viewing. I guess that's cool, if you use Obsidian lots and have many notes/links - but when I clicked the article and saw the table I was hoping for a "dataframe" plugin for .md (much like how mermaid works, defined in a codeblock) that references a nearby CSV/JSON/etc file. I often have a lot of .md files floating around "data" projects and a lightweight tabular renderer (with filtering, sorting, possibly editing) would be absolutely killer. Does such a thing exist already?
    - wjrb 1y ago
      Have you ever tried the Dataview plugin? It allows inline blocks in the `key:: value` format, as well as frontmatter-based data (sort of what Bases are doing) and probably even more.
    - jskherman 1y ago
      I think what you're trying to describe is a Jupyter notebook but in a slimmer package. Maybe marimo or quarto? Maybe there are already notebook viewers out there (on GitHub?) that only allow view or edit without code execution, if that suits your needs.
raviisoccupied 1y ago
I’m an Obsidian user. I pay for Obsidian sync, and I love the philosophy behind their product. However, and I feel stupid for saying this, but I just find it confusing to use. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around plugins, and understanding how it wants me to use it. For now, I’m just sticking to using it for daily notes, but I feel there’s so much I’m missing.
- Eji1700 1y ago
  I think the one thing that really kills me is "consolidating" data is harder than it probably should be. A simple thing I started with was "lets track movies and shows people recommend to me and I watch". Ok, page for each rec, and then I can use props to tag them with things like if I watched them or not, who recommended them, genre's, and most importantly, if it's just for me, or also something the wife would enjoy. Well....obviously I'd like to have a quick view on some page of the recommendations, and then ideally the recommendations that are tagged to include my wife so I can glance view between the two. Thiiiiiis is not as easy as it should be. I'm writing this as some massive sql vquery on a couple billion records churns away. I'm not great (i'm much less impressive than that previous comment sounds in fact), but im way above beginner. I'm shocked at how hard this seems to be. Tag searching is possible, but it gets ugly fast and sucks to constantly have to do and the bookmarks weren't clear. Want to do queries, oh there's a plugin for that. Kinda odd but ok. Oh but wait those too are ALSO kinda of unintuitive (to me, i suspect it's a syntax and style I just haven't used to some extent), and why do I need to do a massive custom dataview query to just get what I feel should be built in? Why can't I just say "put in a query result for anything tagged with x and y", since that's what i'm typing out the hard way? I haven't really "dug in" on this issue in awhile. I know they made some changes somewhat recently that allow some of this, but it seemed like it wasn't enough. It's baffling to me, because having a "dashboard" is the end goal of almost all these systems, and yet it seems so difficult in obsidian even for technically minded users. I can learn it, but god knows I don't need ANOTHER personal research project on my pile. I'll admit that by griping about this i'm praying I get they "hey idiot" response below that explains how I should've done this. Edit- To be clear, this new change certainly seems like it might help. It'll depend on how those views work in practice, and obviously appeals to me in my databasing mindset.
e1gen-v 1y ago
Slightly off topic but why is everyone switching to these really wide fonts?
bachmeier 1y ago
I'll be checking this out. I've used Dataview in the past, and while it has some great functionality, it's a bit too clumsy for my taste and it has a learning curve. Hopefully this resolves some of those issues.
raybb 1y ago
For those curious, this feature is just now publicly launching and before it was only available to people who paid for early access. The Reddit thread has some good discussion about the feature https://old.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1mtxh52/obsidian_bases_now_available_to_everyone/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1mtxh52/obsidia...
- raybb 1y ago
  On a side note, the docs don't seem to mention if this is possible but does anyone know how to use a template or set a default frontmatter (like created date) when using the "new" button in a Base? The solution I used before bases is eh... pretty hacky. ```meta-bind-js-view {memory^inputText} as title --- const toShow = context.bound.title || "TKTK"; const str = `\`\`\`meta-bind-button label: New Project Idea - ${toShow} icon: "" hidden: false class: "" tooltip: "" id: "" style: primary actions: - type: templaterCreateNote templateFile: Templates/Project.md folderPath: Project Ideas fileName: ${toShow} openNote: true \`\`\``; return engine.markdown.create(str) ```
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - codethief 1y ago
    FYI On HackerNews you can use indentation (by 2 spaces) to indicate code snippets, not ```.
    - alsetmusic 1y ago
      Not OP, but I didn't know that. Thank you.
  - kepano 1y ago
    Default template will be added in an upcoming version.
- safety1st 1y ago
  Is there a good AI plugin for Obsidian yet?
nylonstrung 1y ago
I've used obsidian for years but if you want more db in your PKM then Siyuan is honestly a much better (albeit newer) option It's also open source, unlike obsidian which is proprietary
flakiness 1y ago
I hope Obsidian has a headless SDK running outside Obsidian that allows devs to read the vault and do various analysis and automation. With this kind of structured data there are a lot of potential use cases. The obsidian binary limitation is a roadblock there.
- zekenie 1y ago
  Because the data is front matter you can get it into other systems pretty easily but an sdk for executing the views seems really key
- threecheese 1y ago
  There’s a plugin that exposes a local api, which folks use for this type of access pattern. Obsidians sdk for plugins is not external, but it does exist and is used broadly.
abrookewood 1y ago
I don't think they do that good a job of explaining what it is, but the Reddit post linked below included this comment which is helptful: "You know how when you search your notes for something, say a phrase? Well, Bases can basically hold a static search that automatically updates. And, instead of searching all over again, you just click into the Bases file and new notes are just there in the default table format. On top of that, you can add other properties to the view, especially one like modified date, which updates every time you modify the file. This is useful for seeing which files you haven't looked at in a while. Old concepts often apply to new ones, but we sometimes forget to check back to make that connection explicit."
- abrookewood 1y ago
  Another one: "Bases provides filtered and sortable table and card views of note Properties and Tags."
- slightwinder 1y ago
  The first sentence of the documentation already says it: "turn any set of notes into a powerful database". It's really just that, basically. It's a database-view, where the vault is the database and the rows are your files. There is a fancy GUI for creating views, and it seems there is the ability for live-editing data from within the view. Basically a more user-friendly replacement for the very popular dataview-plugin. Maybe it's a bit harder to understand, as it's a more mushy than the usual relational database.
  - torium 1y ago
    > The first sentence of the documentation already says it: "turn any set of notes into a powerful database No, horrible job at explaining. What does it mean to turn any set of notes into a powerful database? What does it mean to "turn"? Does it mean that a file will become a database? Or does it mean that a file can be interpreted as a database? And why set of notes? If I have a single note, can I turn that into a database too? Are the records of the database files, or items in a file? What is happening when I type ![[Untitled.base]]? Is the file where I typed that a database now? Or does that text assume that the file named Untitled must be a database? They do a horrible job at explaining it.
redkoala 1y ago
One thing I still need is the ability to paste screenshots in-line in notes easily, like how OneNote handles it.
- obsidianbases1 1y ago
  Admittedly, I don't know how OneNote handles it. But as an Obsidian power-user, I regularly paste screenshots into notes There is a plugin that allows templating the screenshot file name, so naming the pasted screenshot, using the same as the note where it's being pasted, and a timestamp, for example, is easy.
jdprgm 1y ago
This would really benefit from a 10-15 minute video demo building up a simple example use case in a similar style to how dhh previews rails.
abalaji 1y ago
This seems useful for folks who use Obsidian as a personal CRM. I got some queries with data view that I'm going to see if this can replace: https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/ https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/ I often want to answer questions like: - When was the last time I chatted with this person - What did we talk about - Who haven't I spoken to in a while
- wscott 1y ago
  Dataview can generate all of the data from Bases (and a whole lot more), but Bases is a lot easier to use as you can build queries in the GUI and the data comes out in nicely formatted table where you can edit the fields directly in the table rather than needing to load each data item one by one to make changes. And still after using and making changes in the GUI the query is stored in a nicely formatted and editable YAML file.
criddell 1y ago
Why is this a core plugin? It’s interesting, but seems a bit niche. How do you decide if it’s a core plugin or a regular plugin?
- abhinavk 1y ago
  Core plugin is first-party closed-source plugins the Obsidian team created and maintains. Regular (community) plugins are third-party, open-source and vetted only at the submission time.
- jitl 1y ago
  This is a core feature of Notion which is a pretty popular app (I’m biased tho I work at Notion)
galoisscobi 1y ago
Great idea, but the feature is poorly implemented. Cannot select multiple cells/rows. I have no idea how to extend past 20 or so rows. I regret having started transferring one of my documents to Obsidian Bases.
remram 1y ago
I've been using the 'DB Folder' and 'Dataview' plugins, I'll definitely look into this new option. Does it work with Dataview at all?
crashabr 1y ago
How does it compare to the table view of a Logseq query? Is UI the main added value? Is it possible to build a base of content blocks rather than notes?
sureglymop 1y ago
A feature I have always missed in Obsidian is the continuous journal view from Logseq. How hard could it be to display the journal all on one page. I even started just writing the daily journal all in one file because that gives me that but it's starting to get a little big.
- kot-behemoth 1y ago
  Daily Notes Editor plugin (https://github.com/Quorafind/Obsidian-Daily-Notes-Editor https://github.com/Quorafind/Obsidian-Daily-Notes-Editor) does exactly that. Might do the trick for you.
UltraSane 1y ago
I really want Obsidian with Neo4j as the backend storage and full cypher query support.
avinassh 1y ago
is there any easier way to manage bookmarks with Obsidian? With Bases, I would get a nice UI as well
- kepano 1y ago
  You could use Obsidian Web Clipper to save pages from your browser and then make a base that filters based on the folder or tag you use for your bookmarks. https://obsidian.md/clipper https://obsidian.md/clipper
- setopt 1y ago
  I’m not using Obsidian atm, but my approach is simply to store them in normal notes. So if I have e.g. a topic.md file I’d make a section called `# Links` there which I can click on. That makes it easier to rediscover links in the right context. (I’m currently using Org-mode, but the approach is the same.)
blubber 1y ago
This one-file-one-record approach to databases somehow makes me feel strange.
- leokennis 1y ago
  Notion does the same; every database entry is a separate note/page. As someone working with databases often it “freaked me out”. Over time I’ve learned to accept it…
  - blubber 1y ago
    But notion doesn't work on the file system. And nobody knows what file system on what kind of disk.
dpacmittal 1y ago
A little off topic but I've always wondered why Ms office doesn't allow embedding of excel cells within word/powerpoint and then allowing reference to certain cells within word with some syntax. That would unlock a lot of new ways to create reactive presentations and word documents.
- ForOldHack 1y ago
  I tried to do it with first powerpoint and then wotd, and finally pounded excel to accept update from word and power point using VB. It was ugly, until someone made a python library to build spreadsheets in excel, now it just throws everything in, and plays it in excel like a power point.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jitl 1y ago
  Didn’t they promise this with “Fluid Framework”? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft_365blog/introducing-the-first-microsoft-fluid-framework-experiences-in-outlook-and-offic/1345543 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft_365blog/i... I remember being a bit spooked when they announced this and their Notion clone Loop (I’d been at Notion for a year or so). Where are they now? Idk.
appplemac 1y ago
Hm I was hoping this would be about Obsidian-based Wikis.
- slightwinder 1y ago
  Obsidian is already a wiki in itself.
divan 1y ago
Is Obsidian desktop app still an electron app?
- gradientsrneat 1y ago
  Yes, iirc
bryanhogan 1y ago
Have been using Obsidian for a lot of stuff ( https://bryanhogan.com/tags/obsidian https://bryanhogan.com/tags/obsidian ), from writing posts for various websites of mine to personal knowledge management. Very happy that Bases is officially launching. My experience so far has been great. It can definitely replace the "Projects" plugin for me, maybe the "Dataview" plugin as well? Hope it can rival Notion Databases in the future, e.g. by adding a Kanban view.
wkat4242 1y ago
Thanks for this submission. I use Obsidian but I wasn't aware of this feature.
budududuroiu 1y ago
Thought this could be a full replacement for Dataview but it’s just not there yet. I love the dataview flexibility and multiple display options. I’ve moved my Chinese vocab list to Bases (I already had all data in front matter so it was easy) and it’s much much nicer and faster than Dataview However, for task lists, Dataview still works better imo
submeta 1y ago
This is awesome. It’s exactly what I needed at the right time. Is it possible to embed `Bases` in existing notes? Or do they always have to be standalone files? Currently I have lots of files with embedded Dataview queries in files. I’d like to replicate that with this new functionality.
- iamrecursion 1y ago
  It is unfortunately not possible to have a Base exist without its own file, even if they can be embedded using the standard `![[]]` syntax.
  - bryanhogan 1y ago
    The documentation tells me that it is possible to create a Base using code blocks, similar to how you'd do it with the Dataview plugin: https://help.obsidian.md/bases/create-base#Embed+a+base+as+a+code+block https://help.obsidian.md/bases/create-base#Embed+a+base+as+a...
    - submeta 1y ago
      Excellent! Thank you very much!
hresvelgr 1y ago
This seems distinctly in opposition to what I believe makes Obsidian a great program, providing an excellent editing environment and extensibility for markdown. The more it ventures into these types of features, the more they're going to lose to applications that designed for this from day dot, like Notion and Anytype.
- isege 1y ago
  It’s a markdown editor, but they can’t modify the markdown standard, so their scope is limited. All they can do is build features around it. Having a database isn’t mutually exclusive with the core functionality. You can simply not use it.
  - input_sh 1y ago
    To be very pedantic, "Markdown standard" is basically a blog post written over 20 years ago and never updated. Everything more "advanced" like tables, to-do lists and multi-line code blocks aren't a part of the "standard" as it was written, but were added on top by different implementations (like CommonMark) which are now commonly-mistaken for the original Markdown. My point being that this isn't something unique to Obsidian, pretty much everyone does it slightly differently while still calling it "Markdown".
  - slightwinder 1y ago
    > It’s a markdown editor, but they can’t modify the markdown standard, They have several modifications of Markdown, everyone has. But not everything makes sense to implement in a flavour of Markdown. YAML is for structured data significant better than a freeform-format, especially when you're in the phase of building the foundation of a new feature-family. The complain is valid, Markdown is for documents, free form, free flow, structured data are a very different use case, and while YAML is better for the job, it's still a different language with different smell. But Obsidian is a tool for managing knowledge, always has been; it's not just a plain Markdown-editor. All those features which are going beyond simple flavoured text, have always been part of it's Core-Mission, just not materialized yet.
- 1y ago
turing_complete 1y ago
I just started using Obsidian. What is the best way to use Obsidian both on your phone as well as your PC/laptop? I use it within git and google drive. How can I sync it most easily to my phone as well?
- skarlso 1y ago
  By using their Sync subscription feature.
- DavideNL 1y ago
  Obsidian Sync: https://obsidian.md/sync https://obsidian.md/sync
- oxcabe 1y ago
  Obsidian Sync is the best way, as others commented. If you're just trying it out and you use Apple devices, you can also save the Vault in the iCloud Drive, which is what I used to do at the beginning.
- bryanhogan 1y ago
  I'm using Google Drive to sync between my Windows laptop and desktop, and Android phone. It works very well. In general you can use many cloud provider, SyncThing Fork or GitHub. I wrote about all these options in more detail here: https://bryanhogan.com/blog/how-to-sync-obsidian https://bryanhogan.com/blog/how-to-sync-obsidian The easiest way to sync would be with the official Obsidian subscription, which costs the most amount of money from the options mentioned here.
- TheFreim 1y ago
  I use Syncthing to sync between multiple devices, it works without issue. You could also pay for Obsidian Sync. This has the added benefit of being officially supported and it funds the development of the software.
- eddythompson80 1y ago
  Obsidian has a git plugin that works on all platforms I tried it on (Windows, Linux, Mac and iOS). So I just have a private repo that syncs all the devices through git. For iOS, the "hard" part is getting the initial git clone, but after that whenever you open the app you can pull/push any changes or set it to automatically do that on a schedule. To setup a git repo on an iOS device you need iSH[1] but you can delete it the initial `git clone`. The plugin can handle it from there. Make sure to use https and a token that doesn't expire as part of your git clone url. Here is a guide[2] The only thing to keep in mind is to have a .gitignore that excludes some of .json config files in .obsidian folder as they often cause conflicts. I exclude workspace.json and workspace-mobile.json which just define what tabs you have open on a given device so I think it makes sense to keep that device specific and not commit it. [1] https://ish.app/ https://ish.app/ [2] https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-sync-with-git-on-ios-for-free-using-ish/20861 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-sync-with-git-on-ios-for-...
Jgoauh 1y ago
for those (like me) who didn't understand the feature : a base is a table where each row is a specific file in your vault, and each column is a proprety of this file. Using a base you can manage, sort and filter your files and their propreties (ex add a rating, price, or deadline proprety to your files or only show files from my movie folder where my proprety is set to [this]) The base doesn't DO anything you couldn't do by hand, it just allows you to do it faster, as you could always modify a file propreties by hand in that file, or search for it using the search features. The propreties you add are stored in plain text on top of your markdown files The base is stored in a very readable format similar to yaml to the .base file you can see in obsidian. Here is the generated .base file for a test Movies folder : views: - type: table name: Movies filters: and: - file.folder == "All/Movies" order: - file.name - tags - Watch Date columnSize: file.name: 167
- al_borland 1y ago
  I found this out today when I went to go use it. To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed. I thought they’d be like tables on steroids. I think there was (probably still is) a plugin that did something similar to bases that I tried before and didn’t really like conceptually.
- mercat 1y ago
  like "dimensions", so to speak
gangstead 1y ago
Is there a way in Obsidian to have a virtual file separator like `---` in yaml documents? For bases to work I need to split my stuff up into tiny documents but I'd prefer to have one big document with separate sections. For example I keep one document `book-recommendations.md` with many small sections for books I'd like to read. I can't search through that with bases unless I split those out into many small files in with one recommendation each.
- TechPlasma 1y ago
  This is my main complaint for Bases. It forces you to split your data into many many small files. I don't need entire files for each individual book/movie/task I want to manage. They'll have maybe 4-5 properties at most with not much content in them. File system, and syncing operations will take a massive hit if I have to manage that many files.
  - er4hn 1y ago
    How many files do you have? At what scale did you see this being a problem? I'm a fan of Obsidian, not affiliated with them, but my experience with basic file syncing like syncthing or git is that you should be able to easily get up into the ten's of thousands of files without an issue.
    - diggan 1y ago
      The Obsidian Sync (official) plugin isn't very clever with its syncing, it does one file at a time, seemingly new requests for each file. I recently had to sync a new Obsidian vault from scratch, a vault with thousands of files, and it took minutes to complete because of this, even though most files are a couple of KB at most. Easy to fix and low hanging fruit, but still an issue for us with many files in our vaults.
    - TechPlasma 1y ago
      I don't want to manage that many files. I'll fully admit that I'll hit my limits before the computer cares.
gradientsrneat 1y ago
Obsidian is great, but it's no substitute for a text editor. It's more like a power user's Microsoft Office suite which operates on folders rather than files. Case and point: you can't even open plaintext files (.txt). Also, I'm still waiting for the org mode comment from a seasoned emacs user. :)
- LordDragonfang 1y ago
  One of the nice things about Obsidian is its extensive plugin ecosystem for people who want additional features. Case and point, there's been an extension to do this almost as long as Obsidian has been around: https://github.com/Falcion/UNITADE.md https://github.com/Falcion/UNITADE.md
crudgen 1y ago
Is there an Obsidian alternative, that is snappy and loads instantly?
- deafpolygon 1y ago
  Spreadsheets.
radicalriddler 1y ago
Obsidian just being markdown files Pepperidge farm 'members
- lazzlazzlazz 1y ago
  I believe the Bases are Markdown files that contain filters for other Markdown files. So it's still all Markdown. Amazing actually.
  - dtkav 1y ago
    Obsidian markdown has "frontmatter" which is yaml before the markdown file. A .base file is a query written in yaml that aggregates frontmatter values across many .md files into a table view.
candu 1y ago
I see a lot of complaints about scope creep and vision drift here, so I'll add a different perspective: I use Notion right now, but have been considering a switch to Obsidian for a while now (variety of reasons, chief among them a desire to reduce my own dependence on US-based tech platforms and tools). The lack of something like Notion databases / tables was the last thing stopping me from migrating over; I found this feature really helpful for organizing my thoughts and tasks as I want them organized, and not having it would have been a noticeable UX regression for me. With this launch, I'll take a deeper look. It's that simple: it provides a feature many want, largely because it's seen as a killer feature of comparable closed platforms.
deafpolygon 1y ago
I tried Bases out but it's not suited for my uses. One issue I have with Bases, for any useful piece of information to be tracked underneath one subject -- you have to shard the data into tiny files which can then be used in the table. Say you're setting up a media log of your engagements and you want to track completed season for a show-- if you're doing a handful of shows, this isn't a big deal. Over 100 shows, averaging 4 seasons -- that's 400 "completions", one file each. Plus another 100 files for the media metadata itself. That's 500 files that can be simply represented by 500 lines of a spreadsheet, even if you're duplicating title, year, etc. over and over. The sharding of data into tiny files is what makes it difficult to use anywhere outside of Obsidian. If Obsidian Bases used the full power of YAML front-matter data properly, that'd be SO much better. It's still faster, more efficient to use a spreadsheet. For anything more than what a spreadsheet can handle-- I would use SQLite.
dash9483 1y ago
So it seems like Bases is an official and more userfriendly version of the community plugin Dataview.

695 points by twapi 1y ago

I hope more programs use ".base" files for database views – it runs a lot of workflows in Notion that would benefit from a diversity of implementations.

deafpolygon 1y ago
That isn't going to happen. Just like there isn't going to be a bunch of people using .canvas files for canvas views.

umajho 1y ago

[dead]

mudkipdev 1y ago

Is this essentially an official replacement for the Dataview plugin? Last time I used Obsidian was 2 years ago

LordDragonfang 1y ago
Yes and no. It's not meant to be as "kitchen sink" comprehensive yet, but it's a like 90% replacement and it's a ton faster and more responsive. (And I suspect once extension support comes in the dataview team will fully change over)

datadrivenangel 1y ago

So obsidian is now notion is now airtable. Interesting to see how well this scales.

haydenlingle 1y ago
Yes, but their kicker has always been that you own your data in a readable format even if you don’t use their app and can self sync it if you prefer. I imagine they’ll keep adding functionality of notion and airtable while still keeping this underlying premise
- abakker 1y ago
  I create .md files programmatically based on my calendar. One day, I'll figure out how to take my copilot notes and paste them in automatically, but for now I know that a note and metadata are already there. its great to be able to do the front matter.
viccis 1y ago
I haven't really looked into what Airtable does, and I shouldn't be surprised at how much AI nonsense I had to dig through on their website to get any real info, but I still was.
- cyberpunk 1y ago
  It's a shit internet spreadsheet for managers who think they can use it to "no code" code some feature or other that some poor sucker has to painfully migrate off of sometime down the road.
  - blitzar 1y ago
    I wonder sometimes how managers became managers of people who use spreadsheets all day without figuring out how to use spreadsheets.

wjrb 1y ago

Wow, I remember when this feature was planned/announced. It's great to see first class support for the Dataview-type workflows. I hope the API has support to allow extensions---I see that it is on the Roadmap[0]. I'm particularly interested to see how this integrates with Canvas and other note types. [0]: https://obsidian.md/roadmap/ https://obsidian.md/roadmap/

kepano 1y ago
You can embed a base in a canvas, and you can list canvases in a base.
- wjrb 1y ago
  Hey, thanks for the reply. Big fan of your work! Cheers.
jcutrell 1y ago
I am curious about how this compares to dataview. As a dataview user, I'm not immediately seeing something bases does that dataview doesn't, but I am not a power user.
- bad_username 1y ago
  Dataview can be used for queries that output tables, but its strength is letting you write essentially custom imperative Javascript code that renders stuff in notes dynamically (dataviewjs mode). Whereas "queries to tables" is more or less what Bases does, the dataviewjs mode will probably always be unique.

dadrian 1y ago

Are there any good LLM plugins for Obsidian, beyond just throwing Claude Code / Codex at your markdown folder?

eightysixfour 1y ago
I put Claude Code in MCP server mode, then use it as an MCP server for claude desktop to interact with that folder. Works better for me since Claude Code desperately wants to edit things instead of chat sometimes.
gavmor 1y ago
There's no decent RAG functionality, AFAICT, but the Text-Generator plugin has been fantastic w/ larger contexts and a template that pulls either/both links and backlinks into the inference query window. Hands-down my most productive interface to LLMs for [years since GPT3.5] years running.
- Noumenon72 1y ago
  The fact there is no app to do "RAG on localhost for my own notes" really makes me wonder whether the tech works at all.
- obsidianbases1 1y ago
  > There's no decent RAG functionality Do you have any examples of what decent RAG functionality might look like? And where the current plugins fall short?
  - gavmor 1y ago
    I simply haven't gotten Smart Connections to index my vaults successfully, for whatever reason. So I can't give them a proper review. I'd hope that any inference performed in a given note would take as context not only the full text of the note, but its nearest neighbors—although, frankly, what I really want are the implicit definitions of proper nouns, ie links. I also frequently generate articles based on the subject's backlinks, ie mentions in other notes. Both of those functionalities are provided by Obsidian's core featureset, so all that's missing—and what might provide outsized value—is indexing notes based not only on the embeddings of their literal text, but on meta-text such as: the questions they might answer; the definitions of their principle subjects; counterfactual statements they falsify. All of which would allow the editor to bring up a relevant note when writing/reviewing another–ie the "unknown knowns". I think this technique is akin to "knowledge enrichment", or "meta-embeddings," but I think actually those terms have lower-level meanings. Of course, generating these embeddings would make the indexing process slower and more failure prone, and so I'd be even more likely to fail to get it working and call it a dud.

LordDragonfang 1y ago

I've been using bases (in beta) for a month or so for the vault I keep for the notes for each of the (many) D&D/ttrpg campaigns I play in, and it's really made it a ton easier to get an overview of e.g. the many different NPCs we meet and interact with, and the relevant info (name/pronouns/pic/race/class/etc) all in one place. The Obsidian dev team has been really responsive to feedback from those of us in the beta, and I'd encourage people to look at the changelog to see that in action (e.g. changing the syntax to be more object oriented, smoothing over UI issues, etc)

lolive 1y ago
Man, you probably gave me the only use case that could push me beyond my basic usage of Obsidian. [i wait for your YouTube demo. #PROOOOFIT]
- LordDragonfang 1y ago
  Lol, I'm not much of a "content creator" (though I'd recommend wanderloots' intro series on bases[1]), but here's a quick gist of what I extracted from my for one of my campaigns: https://gist.github.com/LordDragonfang/d826cb686c64d582afbe228817d7e707 https://gist.github.com/LordDragonfang/d826cb686c64d582afbe2... This is a combined view of the players and npcs from one campaign with the portrait gallery in the second view. I've got the official template plugin bound to ctrl-shift-2, so I just hit that to pre-populate the frontmatter whenever I create an npc/pc/etc note with the appropriate template. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWhMzDKA7vJ4NDvVhlZMki0a4Dv3iYO-S https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWhMzDKA7vJ4NDvVhlZMk...
wjrb 1y ago
I also made pretty heavy use of plugins to manage PCs, NPCs, encounters, items (!!), custom tables, maps, and setting details in a single campaign. Led to a lot of bug reports for the D&D-specific plugins, but Dataview worked like a charm. Having a more Obsidian-native interface for managing all of that is. Like other commenters, would definitely watch a video of you sharing your Obsidian "build" for that use-case.

jasonjmcghee 1y ago

Super interesting to see this. Are things like Kanban views (a la notion) planned?

kepano 1y ago
It's on the roadmap, yes. https://obsidian.md/roadmap/ https://obsidian.md/roadmap/

alberth 1y ago

This is slick. Does anyone know what JS library (presumably) they are using to display, filter, sort the table?

sebmellen 1y ago
If I were in their position I’d use TanStack Table.
joethei 1y ago
For the grammar: Lezer For the editor: CodeMirror Everything else is custom as we generally don't use existing frameworks and the large amount of baggage they carry. CodeMirror and Lezer we already used before Bases.
- alberth 1y ago
  Any chance the entire table layout, filtering, etc will be open sourced? I can see plenty of SaaS apps, especially indie made, that could benefit from such functionality.
- hu3 1y ago
  Neat! Does it use a library like React? Or perhabs Lit?
  - joethei 1y ago
    Nope, that's not the Obsidian way. We don't use frameworks We include very few dependencies, see: <https://help.obsidian.md/credits#Third+party+acknowledgements https://help.obsidian.md/credits#Third+party+acknowledgement...>
echelon 1y ago
This is beyond slick. I'm finally able to kill Notion (good riddance - I never liked it!), and if it can handle larger tables then I'll stop using Google Suite as well. My last request of the Obsidian team is a better git plugin. Their official built-in sync product is fine, but I'd still like to manage my own versioning so I can use automations. The currently available git plugin is extremely dangerous (!!!) if set up incorrectly. I would consider myself an advanced user of git, and Obsidian's git plugin has on several occasions blown away my history and notes. It has frustrating and opaque behavior for how it consolidates change sets and diffs.

dang 1y ago

I found one previous thread. Others? Obsidian Bases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44058972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44058972 - May 2025 (13 comments)

LordDragonfang 1y ago
(May 2025 was from when the donor-only beta was announced, the current thread is the official release many changes later)

hereme888 1y ago

Yes! No more need to evaluate AnyType or similar apps. Obsidian rocks.

patrickhogan1 1y ago

Obsidian is amazing

johntash 1y ago

Neat. I haven't been using Obsidian for a couple years now, but this will probably get me to give it another try.

dottjt 1y ago

As much as I like the idea of Obsidian, I just can't get over all the additional functionality that Notion provides due to the integrated nature of it. In particular, I love how you select text/blocks in Notion and how every line is a "block". I really wish other editors did that as well. In fact, it's probably the main reason why I haven't moved away from Notion.

bachmeier 1y ago
IMO they're for completely different customers. Obsidian constrains itself to working on local text files that you can sync yourself. Notion is just another complex website where you turn over all your data and they sell you AI services.
- dottjt 1y ago
  The complexity is what makes it valuable to some people. Put simply, it does more than Obsidian. Do you need that complexity? That's a personal question.
shminge 1y ago
That seems such a minor gain to me. Are you not concerned about notion a) being online only and b) not letting you be in control of your data? I'm a strong proponent of File over App: who knows how long Obsidian or notion will exist - at least I know I can work with my Obsidian notes as long as text editors exist
- dottjt 1y ago
  I am concerned about those things, but what I've personally realised is that it's more important to use a tool that you really enjoy using + provides the functionality you want, as opposed to a tool you hate using and doesn't resonate with you. I hate making notes in plain text. It's too inconvenient, not to mention doesn't provide me with the functionality I want. On the other hand, I love organising things into databases i.e. Notion. So either I don't take notes (net negative) or I take notes (net positive).
1y ago

__jonas 1y ago

Neat! Is the 'import from notion' functionality able to convert Notion databases to this?

kepano 1y ago
You can import all the underlying data from Notion using the Obsidian Importer plugin, however I believe that Notion's Databases export only includes a CSV. So you'll need to recreate the views to be able to interact with them dynamically. https://help.obsidian.md/import/notion https://help.obsidian.md/import/notion
- __jonas 1y ago
  I see. I just tried the Notion import on the latest version of Anytype, and they now seem to be able to import Notion databases, which is useful. They use the Notion API though, not any export option that Notion offers.
  - jitl 1y ago
    I want to build a fully round-tripable semantic HTML “microformat” for Notion data so both backup and take-out workflows can depend just on exports, but right now I’m too focused on scaling offline mode to work on it. Sigh. The first version of the HTML/PDF exporter I built as part of my interview process in 2019, I think we could do a much better job

andyferris 1y ago

So where does the data "live"? I was looking at the syntax, it defines predicates for filters and views and so on, but I don't see the "rows". There is this `file.name` and `file.ext` thing - but where do you set them? What type of file does it point to? CSV? JSON? Something else? The docs seem incomplete.

kepano 1y ago
The rows are individual Markdown files and the columns are YAML frontmatter properties in those files. There are some special properties prefixed by `file.` which are implicit to the file itself, e.g.`file.name` refers to the file name, and `file.ext` is the extension. The base views are defined as YAML in .base files or can be embedded in code blocks within a Markdown file. You can also export the rendered views to a Markdown table or CSV. See also: https://help.obsidian.md/bases/syntax https://help.obsidian.md/bases/syntax
- andyferris 1y ago
  Hmm... so I can't use this to render and filter a table with 10k rows without having 10k markdown files? If I understand correctly, the intention seems to be "curated list of links" which the user can sort, filter, etc when viewing. I guess that's cool, if you use Obsidian lots and have many notes/links - but when I clicked the article and saw the table I was hoping for a "dataframe" plugin for .md (much like how mermaid works, defined in a codeblock) that references a nearby CSV/JSON/etc file. I often have a lot of .md files floating around "data" projects and a lightweight tabular renderer (with filtering, sorting, possibly editing) would be absolutely killer. Does such a thing exist already?
  - wjrb 1y ago
    Have you ever tried the Dataview plugin? It allows inline blocks in the `key:: value` format, as well as frontmatter-based data (sort of what Bases are doing) and probably even more.
  - jskherman 1y ago
    I think what you're trying to describe is a Jupyter notebook but in a slimmer package. Maybe marimo or quarto? Maybe there are already notebook viewers out there (on GitHub?) that only allow view or edit without code execution, if that suits your needs.

raviisoccupied 1y ago

I’m an Obsidian user. I pay for Obsidian sync, and I love the philosophy behind their product. However, and I feel stupid for saying this, but I just find it confusing to use. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around plugins, and understanding how it wants me to use it. For now, I’m just sticking to using it for daily notes, but I feel there’s so much I’m missing.

Eji1700 1y ago
I think the one thing that really kills me is "consolidating" data is harder than it probably should be. A simple thing I started with was "lets track movies and shows people recommend to me and I watch". Ok, page for each rec, and then I can use props to tag them with things like if I watched them or not, who recommended them, genre's, and most importantly, if it's just for me, or also something the wife would enjoy. Well....obviously I'd like to have a quick view on some page of the recommendations, and then ideally the recommendations that are tagged to include my wife so I can glance view between the two. Thiiiiiis is not as easy as it should be. I'm writing this as some massive sql vquery on a couple billion records churns away. I'm not great (i'm much less impressive than that previous comment sounds in fact), but im way above beginner. I'm shocked at how hard this seems to be. Tag searching is possible, but it gets ugly fast and sucks to constantly have to do and the bookmarks weren't clear. Want to do queries, oh there's a plugin for that. Kinda odd but ok. Oh but wait those too are ALSO kinda of unintuitive (to me, i suspect it's a syntax and style I just haven't used to some extent), and why do I need to do a massive custom dataview query to just get what I feel should be built in? Why can't I just say "put in a query result for anything tagged with x and y", since that's what i'm typing out the hard way? I haven't really "dug in" on this issue in awhile. I know they made some changes somewhat recently that allow some of this, but it seemed like it wasn't enough. It's baffling to me, because having a "dashboard" is the end goal of almost all these systems, and yet it seems so difficult in obsidian even for technically minded users. I can learn it, but god knows I don't need ANOTHER personal research project on my pile. I'll admit that by griping about this i'm praying I get they "hey idiot" response below that explains how I should've done this. Edit- To be clear, this new change certainly seems like it might help. It'll depend on how those views work in practice, and obviously appeals to me in my databasing mindset.

e1gen-v 1y ago

Slightly off topic but why is everyone switching to these really wide fonts?

bachmeier 1y ago

I'll be checking this out. I've used Dataview in the past, and while it has some great functionality, it's a bit too clumsy for my taste and it has a learning curve. Hopefully this resolves some of those issues.

raybb 1y ago

For those curious, this feature is just now publicly launching and before it was only available to people who paid for early access. The Reddit thread has some good discussion about the feature https://old.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1mtxh52/obsidian_bases_now_available_to_everyone/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1mtxh52/obsidia...

raybb 1y ago
On a side note, the docs don't seem to mention if this is possible but does anyone know how to use a template or set a default frontmatter (like created date) when using the "new" button in a Base? The solution I used before bases is eh... pretty hacky. ```meta-bind-js-view {memory^inputText} as title --- const toShow = context.bound.title || "TKTK"; const str = `\`\`\`meta-bind-button label: New Project Idea - ${toShow} icon: "" hidden: false class: "" tooltip: "" id: "" style: primary actions: - type: templaterCreateNote templateFile: Templates/Project.md folderPath: Project Ideas fileName: ${toShow} openNote: true \`\`\``; return engine.markdown.create(str) ```
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- codethief 1y ago
  FYI On HackerNews you can use indentation (by 2 spaces) to indicate code snippets, not ```.
  - alsetmusic 1y ago
    Not OP, but I didn't know that. Thank you.
- kepano 1y ago
  Default template will be added in an upcoming version.
safety1st 1y ago
Is there a good AI plugin for Obsidian yet?

nylonstrung 1y ago

I've used obsidian for years but if you want more db in your PKM then Siyuan is honestly a much better (albeit newer) option It's also open source, unlike obsidian which is proprietary

flakiness 1y ago

I hope Obsidian has a headless SDK running outside Obsidian that allows devs to read the vault and do various analysis and automation. With this kind of structured data there are a lot of potential use cases. The obsidian binary limitation is a roadblock there.

zekenie 1y ago
Because the data is front matter you can get it into other systems pretty easily but an sdk for executing the views seems really key
threecheese 1y ago
There’s a plugin that exposes a local api, which folks use for this type of access pattern. Obsidians sdk for plugins is not external, but it does exist and is used broadly.

abrookewood 1y ago

I don't think they do that good a job of explaining what it is, but the Reddit post linked below included this comment which is helptful: "You know how when you search your notes for something, say a phrase? Well, Bases can basically hold a static search that automatically updates. And, instead of searching all over again, you just click into the Bases file and new notes are just there in the default table format. On top of that, you can add other properties to the view, especially one like modified date, which updates every time you modify the file. This is useful for seeing which files you haven't looked at in a while. Old concepts often apply to new ones, but we sometimes forget to check back to make that connection explicit."

abrookewood 1y ago
Another one: "Bases provides filtered and sortable table and card views of note Properties and Tags."
slightwinder 1y ago
The first sentence of the documentation already says it: "turn any set of notes into a powerful database". It's really just that, basically. It's a database-view, where the vault is the database and the rows are your files. There is a fancy GUI for creating views, and it seems there is the ability for live-editing data from within the view. Basically a more user-friendly replacement for the very popular dataview-plugin. Maybe it's a bit harder to understand, as it's a more mushy than the usual relational database.
- torium 1y ago
  > The first sentence of the documentation already says it: "turn any set of notes into a powerful database No, horrible job at explaining. What does it mean to turn any set of notes into a powerful database? What does it mean to "turn"? Does it mean that a file will become a database? Or does it mean that a file can be interpreted as a database? And why set of notes? If I have a single note, can I turn that into a database too? Are the records of the database files, or items in a file? What is happening when I type ![[Untitled.base]]? Is the file where I typed that a database now? Or does that text assume that the file named Untitled must be a database? They do a horrible job at explaining it.

redkoala 1y ago

One thing I still need is the ability to paste screenshots in-line in notes easily, like how OneNote handles it.

obsidianbases1 1y ago
Admittedly, I don't know how OneNote handles it. But as an Obsidian power-user, I regularly paste screenshots into notes There is a plugin that allows templating the screenshot file name, so naming the pasted screenshot, using the same as the note where it's being pasted, and a timestamp, for example, is easy.

jdprgm 1y ago

This would really benefit from a 10-15 minute video demo building up a simple example use case in a similar style to how dhh previews rails.

abalaji 1y ago

This seems useful for folks who use Obsidian as a personal CRM. I got some queries with data view that I'm going to see if this can replace: https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/ https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/ I often want to answer questions like: - When was the last time I chatted with this person - What did we talk about - Who haven't I spoken to in a while

wscott 1y ago
Dataview can generate all of the data from Bases (and a whole lot more), but Bases is a lot easier to use as you can build queries in the GUI and the data comes out in nicely formatted table where you can edit the fields directly in the table rather than needing to load each data item one by one to make changes. And still after using and making changes in the GUI the query is stored in a nicely formatted and editable YAML file.

criddell 1y ago

Why is this a core plugin? It’s interesting, but seems a bit niche. How do you decide if it’s a core plugin or a regular plugin?

abhinavk 1y ago
Core plugin is first-party closed-source plugins the Obsidian team created and maintains. Regular (community) plugins are third-party, open-source and vetted only at the submission time.
jitl 1y ago
This is a core feature of Notion which is a pretty popular app (I’m biased tho I work at Notion)

galoisscobi 1y ago

Great idea, but the feature is poorly implemented. Cannot select multiple cells/rows. I have no idea how to extend past 20 or so rows. I regret having started transferring one of my documents to Obsidian Bases.

remram 1y ago

I've been using the 'DB Folder' and 'Dataview' plugins, I'll definitely look into this new option. Does it work with Dataview at all?

crashabr 1y ago

How does it compare to the table view of a Logseq query? Is UI the main added value? Is it possible to build a base of content blocks rather than notes?

sureglymop 1y ago

A feature I have always missed in Obsidian is the continuous journal view from Logseq. How hard could it be to display the journal all on one page. I even started just writing the daily journal all in one file because that gives me that but it's starting to get a little big.

kot-behemoth 1y ago
Daily Notes Editor plugin (https://github.com/Quorafind/Obsidian-Daily-Notes-Editor https://github.com/Quorafind/Obsidian-Daily-Notes-Editor) does exactly that. Might do the trick for you.

UltraSane 1y ago

I really want Obsidian with Neo4j as the backend storage and full cypher query support.

avinassh 1y ago

is there any easier way to manage bookmarks with Obsidian? With Bases, I would get a nice UI as well

kepano 1y ago
You could use Obsidian Web Clipper to save pages from your browser and then make a base that filters based on the folder or tag you use for your bookmarks. https://obsidian.md/clipper https://obsidian.md/clipper
setopt 1y ago
I’m not using Obsidian atm, but my approach is simply to store them in normal notes. So if I have e.g. a topic.md file I’d make a section called `# Links` there which I can click on. That makes it easier to rediscover links in the right context. (I’m currently using Org-mode, but the approach is the same.)

blubber 1y ago

This one-file-one-record approach to databases somehow makes me feel strange.

leokennis 1y ago
Notion does the same; every database entry is a separate note/page. As someone working with databases often it “freaked me out”. Over time I’ve learned to accept it…
- blubber 1y ago
  But notion doesn't work on the file system. And nobody knows what file system on what kind of disk.

dpacmittal 1y ago

A little off topic but I've always wondered why Ms office doesn't allow embedding of excel cells within word/powerpoint and then allowing reference to certain cells within word with some syntax. That would unlock a lot of new ways to create reactive presentations and word documents.

ForOldHack 1y ago
I tried to do it with first powerpoint and then wotd, and finally pounded excel to accept update from word and power point using VB. It was ugly, until someone made a python library to build spreadsheets in excel, now it just throws everything in, and plays it in excel like a power point.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jitl 1y ago
Didn’t they promise this with “Fluid Framework”? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft_365blog/introducing-the-first-microsoft-fluid-framework-experiences-in-outlook-and-offic/1345543 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft_365blog/i... I remember being a bit spooked when they announced this and their Notion clone Loop (I’d been at Notion for a year or so). Where are they now? Idk.

appplemac 1y ago

Hm I was hoping this would be about Obsidian-based Wikis.

slightwinder 1y ago
Obsidian is already a wiki in itself.

divan 1y ago

Is Obsidian desktop app still an electron app?

gradientsrneat 1y ago
Yes, iirc

bryanhogan 1y ago

Have been using Obsidian for a lot of stuff ( https://bryanhogan.com/tags/obsidian https://bryanhogan.com/tags/obsidian ), from writing posts for various websites of mine to personal knowledge management. Very happy that Bases is officially launching. My experience so far has been great. It can definitely replace the "Projects" plugin for me, maybe the "Dataview" plugin as well? Hope it can rival Notion Databases in the future, e.g. by adding a Kanban view.

wkat4242 1y ago

Thanks for this submission. I use Obsidian but I wasn't aware of this feature.

budududuroiu 1y ago

Thought this could be a full replacement for Dataview but it’s just not there yet. I love the dataview flexibility and multiple display options. I’ve moved my Chinese vocab list to Bases (I already had all data in front matter so it was easy) and it’s much much nicer and faster than Dataview However, for task lists, Dataview still works better imo

submeta 1y ago

This is awesome. It’s exactly what I needed at the right time. Is it possible to embed `Bases` in existing notes? Or do they always have to be standalone files? Currently I have lots of files with embedded Dataview queries in files. I’d like to replicate that with this new functionality.

iamrecursion 1y ago
It is unfortunately not possible to have a Base exist without its own file, even if they can be embedded using the standard `![[]]` syntax.
- bryanhogan 1y ago
  The documentation tells me that it is possible to create a Base using code blocks, similar to how you'd do it with the Dataview plugin: https://help.obsidian.md/bases/create-base#Embed+a+base+as+a+code+block https://help.obsidian.md/bases/create-base#Embed+a+base+as+a...
  - submeta 1y ago
    Excellent! Thank you very much!

hresvelgr 1y ago

This seems distinctly in opposition to what I believe makes Obsidian a great program, providing an excellent editing environment and extensibility for markdown. The more it ventures into these types of features, the more they're going to lose to applications that designed for this from day dot, like Notion and Anytype.

isege 1y ago
It’s a markdown editor, but they can’t modify the markdown standard, so their scope is limited. All they can do is build features around it. Having a database isn’t mutually exclusive with the core functionality. You can simply not use it.
- input_sh 1y ago
  To be very pedantic, "Markdown standard" is basically a blog post written over 20 years ago and never updated. Everything more "advanced" like tables, to-do lists and multi-line code blocks aren't a part of the "standard" as it was written, but were added on top by different implementations (like CommonMark) which are now commonly-mistaken for the original Markdown. My point being that this isn't something unique to Obsidian, pretty much everyone does it slightly differently while still calling it "Markdown".
- slightwinder 1y ago
  > It’s a markdown editor, but they can’t modify the markdown standard, They have several modifications of Markdown, everyone has. But not everything makes sense to implement in a flavour of Markdown. YAML is for structured data significant better than a freeform-format, especially when you're in the phase of building the foundation of a new feature-family. The complain is valid, Markdown is for documents, free form, free flow, structured data are a very different use case, and while YAML is better for the job, it's still a different language with different smell. But Obsidian is a tool for managing knowledge, always has been; it's not just a plain Markdown-editor. All those features which are going beyond simple flavoured text, have always been part of it's Core-Mission, just not materialized yet.
1y ago

turing_complete 1y ago

I just started using Obsidian. What is the best way to use Obsidian both on your phone as well as your PC/laptop? I use it within git and google drive. How can I sync it most easily to my phone as well?

skarlso 1y ago
By using their Sync subscription feature.
DavideNL 1y ago
Obsidian Sync: https://obsidian.md/sync https://obsidian.md/sync
oxcabe 1y ago
Obsidian Sync is the best way, as others commented. If you're just trying it out and you use Apple devices, you can also save the Vault in the iCloud Drive, which is what I used to do at the beginning.
bryanhogan 1y ago
I'm using Google Drive to sync between my Windows laptop and desktop, and Android phone. It works very well. In general you can use many cloud provider, SyncThing Fork or GitHub. I wrote about all these options in more detail here: https://bryanhogan.com/blog/how-to-sync-obsidian https://bryanhogan.com/blog/how-to-sync-obsidian The easiest way to sync would be with the official Obsidian subscription, which costs the most amount of money from the options mentioned here.
TheFreim 1y ago
I use Syncthing to sync between multiple devices, it works without issue. You could also pay for Obsidian Sync. This has the added benefit of being officially supported and it funds the development of the software.
eddythompson80 1y ago
Obsidian has a git plugin that works on all platforms I tried it on (Windows, Linux, Mac and iOS). So I just have a private repo that syncs all the devices through git. For iOS, the "hard" part is getting the initial git clone, but after that whenever you open the app you can pull/push any changes or set it to automatically do that on a schedule. To setup a git repo on an iOS device you need iSH[1] but you can delete it the initial `git clone`. The plugin can handle it from there. Make sure to use https and a token that doesn't expire as part of your git clone url. Here is a guide[2] The only thing to keep in mind is to have a .gitignore that excludes some of .json config files in .obsidian folder as they often cause conflicts. I exclude workspace.json and workspace-mobile.json which just define what tabs you have open on a given device so I think it makes sense to keep that device specific and not commit it. [1] https://ish.app/ https://ish.app/ [2] https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-sync-with-git-on-ios-for-free-using-ish/20861 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-sync-with-git-on-ios-for-...

Jgoauh 1y ago

for those (like me) who didn't understand the feature : a base is a table where each row is a specific file in your vault, and each column is a proprety of this file. Using a base you can manage, sort and filter your files and their propreties (ex add a rating, price, or deadline proprety to your files or only show files from my movie folder where my proprety is set to [this]) The base doesn't DO anything you couldn't do by hand, it just allows you to do it faster, as you could always modify a file propreties by hand in that file, or search for it using the search features. The propreties you add are stored in plain text on top of your markdown files The base is stored in a very readable format similar to yaml to the .base file you can see in obsidian. Here is the generated .base file for a test Movies folder : views: - type: table name: Movies filters: and: - file.folder == "All/Movies" order: - file.name - tags - Watch Date columnSize: file.name: 167

al_borland 1y ago
I found this out today when I went to go use it. To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed. I thought they’d be like tables on steroids. I think there was (probably still is) a plugin that did something similar to bases that I tried before and didn’t really like conceptually.
mercat 1y ago
like "dimensions", so to speak

gangstead 1y ago

Is there a way in Obsidian to have a virtual file separator like `---` in yaml documents? For bases to work I need to split my stuff up into tiny documents but I'd prefer to have one big document with separate sections. For example I keep one document `book-recommendations.md` with many small sections for books I'd like to read. I can't search through that with bases unless I split those out into many small files in with one recommendation each.

TechPlasma 1y ago
This is my main complaint for Bases. It forces you to split your data into many many small files. I don't need entire files for each individual book/movie/task I want to manage. They'll have maybe 4-5 properties at most with not much content in them. File system, and syncing operations will take a massive hit if I have to manage that many files.
- er4hn 1y ago
  How many files do you have? At what scale did you see this being a problem? I'm a fan of Obsidian, not affiliated with them, but my experience with basic file syncing like syncthing or git is that you should be able to easily get up into the ten's of thousands of files without an issue.
  - diggan 1y ago
    The Obsidian Sync (official) plugin isn't very clever with its syncing, it does one file at a time, seemingly new requests for each file. I recently had to sync a new Obsidian vault from scratch, a vault with thousands of files, and it took minutes to complete because of this, even though most files are a couple of KB at most. Easy to fix and low hanging fruit, but still an issue for us with many files in our vaults.
  - TechPlasma 1y ago
    I don't want to manage that many files. I'll fully admit that I'll hit my limits before the computer cares.

gradientsrneat 1y ago

Obsidian is great, but it's no substitute for a text editor. It's more like a power user's Microsoft Office suite which operates on folders rather than files. Case and point: you can't even open plaintext files (.txt). Also, I'm still waiting for the org mode comment from a seasoned emacs user. :)

LordDragonfang 1y ago
One of the nice things about Obsidian is its extensive plugin ecosystem for people who want additional features. Case and point, there's been an extension to do this almost as long as Obsidian has been around: https://github.com/Falcion/UNITADE.md https://github.com/Falcion/UNITADE.md

crudgen 1y ago

Is there an Obsidian alternative, that is snappy and loads instantly?

deafpolygon 1y ago
Spreadsheets.

radicalriddler 1y ago

Obsidian just being markdown files Pepperidge farm 'members

lazzlazzlazz 1y ago
I believe the Bases are Markdown files that contain filters for other Markdown files. So it's still all Markdown. Amazing actually.
- dtkav 1y ago
  Obsidian markdown has "frontmatter" which is yaml before the markdown file. A .base file is a query written in yaml that aggregates frontmatter values across many .md files into a table view.

candu 1y ago

I see a lot of complaints about scope creep and vision drift here, so I'll add a different perspective: I use Notion right now, but have been considering a switch to Obsidian for a while now (variety of reasons, chief among them a desire to reduce my own dependence on US-based tech platforms and tools). The lack of something like Notion databases / tables was the last thing stopping me from migrating over; I found this feature really helpful for organizing my thoughts and tasks as I want them organized, and not having it would have been a noticeable UX regression for me. With this launch, I'll take a deeper look. It's that simple: it provides a feature many want, largely because it's seen as a killer feature of comparable closed platforms.

deafpolygon 1y ago

I tried Bases out but it's not suited for my uses. One issue I have with Bases, for any useful piece of information to be tracked underneath one subject -- you have to shard the data into tiny files which can then be used in the table. Say you're setting up a media log of your engagements and you want to track completed season for a show-- if you're doing a handful of shows, this isn't a big deal. Over 100 shows, averaging 4 seasons -- that's 400 "completions", one file each. Plus another 100 files for the media metadata itself. That's 500 files that can be simply represented by 500 lines of a spreadsheet, even if you're duplicating title, year, etc. over and over. The sharding of data into tiny files is what makes it difficult to use anywhere outside of Obsidian. If Obsidian Bases used the full power of YAML front-matter data properly, that'd be SO much better. It's still faster, more efficient to use a spreadsheet. For anything more than what a spreadsheet can handle-- I would use SQLite.

dash9483 1y ago

So it seems like Bases is an official and more userfriendly version of the community plugin Dataview.