[HN Gopher] Writing down what I do in Obsidian
___________________________________________________________________
Writing down what I do in Obsidian
Author : larve
Score : 329 points
Date : 2022-11-09 03:42 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (v5.chriskrycho.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (v5.chriskrycho.com)
| prithsr wrote:
| I know this thread seems to be Obsidian specific, but wanted to
| share: I've been writing down every detail of my day since
| January 2021 on Diarly. I pay $15 a year to have it sync across
| iCloud devices. I have two "journals" - one for personal, and one
| for work. From thoughts, to encounters during the day, to what
| food I ate, I write everything. It has dramatically improved my
| day-to-day. I've had trouble remembering my whole life, and now I
| can just look back and find the exact date where I did something
| (the search feature is pretty spot on). It's even improved my
| retention skills - e.g. "i don't remember what day this happened,
| but I am positive xyz happened because I remember writing about
| it". Strongly strongly recommend it to all.
| belmont_sup wrote:
| I do this too for the past 12 years on DayOne! What started off
| as a "why am I doing this" first entry has now become an almost
| daily thought splurge.
|
| It's great for myself that always forget the little, prized
| memories too.
| buzzy_hacker wrote:
| Do you do this at the end of the day or throughout the day?
| tarentel wrote:
| Not the op but I keep a record of my work day. I try to do it
| as it happens but 50% of the time things come up so I'll
| usually spend some time before signing off to try to capture
| everything.
| chriskrycho wrote:
| Yes, and when combined with search (including just grep/rg/etc.
| on the command line!) it becomes really, really powerful. It's
| hard to _explain_ just how powerful, because it 's the kind of
| thing that, like compounding interest, really only shows up as
| you continue investing over time, but it really pays huge
| dividends.
| pkoird wrote:
| The major thing that people overlook in note-taking is "habit".
| Doesn't matter if you use Notepad, Obsidian or just plain
| pen&paper, the single most thing that matters is that you do it
| consistently. And like you said, consistent note-taking is a
| great cognitive exercise and has long term benefits.
| runevault wrote:
| I'd say it depends a lot on why. Tools like
| Obsidian/Notion/etc making it easier to crosslink things has
| value depending on how you use it. But a taken note is still
| better than no note even if just for the mental exercise I
| agree.
| rchaud wrote:
| Diarly seems like a nice tool, and very affordable.
|
| Unfortunately it's Mac/iOS only. I have a Mac but zero interest
| in using iOS.
| ZetaZero wrote:
| > I pay $15 a year to have it sync across iCloud devices.
|
| Curious how you do this? The Obsidian Sync option is $96/year.
| dexterdog wrote:
| He's not using Obsidian. I use Obsidian with syncthing (not
| really an iOS option) so I pay nothing.
| bojo wrote:
| Obsidian has their own sync platform independent of the rest.
| Diarly's $15/yr covers a handful of premium options, one of
| which is iCloud sync.
| darrmit wrote:
| Obsidian works perfectly fine with iCloud Drive if you're
| bought into the Apple ecosystem. It also works well with
| Google Drive, but that doesn't play well with iOS.
| krimpenrik wrote:
| I use obsidian with Synthing works like a charm sync it to my
| phone and laptop and to my server where it gets backed up
| jatins wrote:
| no shade, but just reading this I was sure this was written by
| someone who works in BigTech. Because this was very reminiscent
| of ceremony required for BigTech performance reviews.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| In fairness this is probably an answer to "how to pass
| promotion" in such an environment. I don't have the patience so
| will stay with git log immediately before the deadline but have
| some envy for people who enjoy this sort of logging.
| googlryas wrote:
| Yes, I thought it sounded like snippets for my OKRs. Could also
| be derived from quantified self lineage.
| wingerlang wrote:
| I think it is more the latter. Seems more like a passion (or
| obsession) than something they have to do for OKRs,
| especially with the super detailed logging and using
| dedicated apps, and super optimizing them on top of that.
| taubek wrote:
| I keep similar list so that when I we have quarterly/yearly
| reviews I can recall what was I doing few months ago.
| _glass wrote:
| I am blushing, because I have org mode open with my OKRs nicely
| tree-structured, and open tasks underneath. And, and, I giant
| mess of real-world task on top, that I don't know how to
| structure, but are somehow part of my job.
| chriskrycho wrote:
| It happens to be the case that I _do_ (I am at LinkedIn) but I
| actually started this years ago when I was working as an
| independent contractor /consultant. It was the only way I could
| keep track of having many, many different things in flight: I
| was working on a masters' degree, working ~full time, had two
| little kids, and also had several side projects going. It
| actually started out as just a way to help build the necessary
| personal disciplines to _get things done_ , and the logging
| grew out of it when I realized it was really helpful for two
| things: my own understanding of what I had done over a given
| period of time, and then _eventually_ for using at the startup
| I joined in 2016, and now at BigTech.
| craneoscopia wrote:
| I finally settled into:
|
| - text files (edited with vim using vimwiki format ie. adding ```
| %% vim: set ft=vimwiki ``` to the file
|
| - syncthing (@ mobile, desktop and server)
|
| - Markor (@ mobile)
| ynab4 wrote:
| No. You're not going to charge me for taking notes.
| raesene9 wrote:
| Obsidian is free though. Even for syncing it's totally possible
| to do that wit just git (which is what I do)
| callahad wrote:
| Only for personal use. If you're using it at work, you're
| supposed to purchase a license. https://obsidian.md/eula
|
| > 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.
| raesene9 wrote:
| That's not exactly how I'd read that EULA. To me it's
| asking for payment if you use it _for_ work not _at_ work.
| so someone recording personal notes on a work system wouldn
| 't fall into that category, but someone using it for
| product development at their company would...
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| If what you're writing is related to your professional
| activity, you're supposed to pay. So for example if you
| use it (as the article suggests) to record your work
| achievements at your job, you're supposed to buy a
| license.
| callahad wrote:
| Hm. Yeah, I guess it's not as clear-cut. The Commercial
| License docs are maybe a bit more explicit? https://help.
| obsidian.md/Licenses+%26+Payment/Commercial+lic...
|
| > _If your notes contain content directly related to work
| projects or processes for a greater-than-one-person
| company, then you require a commercial license._
|
| (This is from Q13 on that page, "I use Obsidian to store
| all of my knowledge, both personal and professional,
| because it's difficult to separate them. Do I need a
| commercial license?")
| raesene9 wrote:
| ah that's an interesting clarification! They should
| really give that more prominence as I'd guess there'll be
| quite a few people with that use-case.
| deliriumchn wrote:
| I honestly tried to love obsidian because of how easy it is to
| set up and how user friendly the UI is (plus there are tutorials
| and tons of articles), but I just can't get over it being offline
| and only means to sync are looking for a plugin that will use
| git/dropbox etc plus there are no mobile app anyways.
|
| Right now I found that notion is perfect for me. It does not have
| a mind mapping functionality but its very good, super easy to use
| (to the point it being intuitive) in all other areas AND I have
| perfect sync, mobile app and web app so I can use it on my work
| laptop, phone and personal PC without any problems
|
| But if you don't need that, obsidian is amazing
| zinfour wrote:
| I don't know when you tried obsidian but it does have a mobile
| app and a (paid) sync/backup service.
| jsty wrote:
| I'm slightly confused - Obsidian has mobile apps [0] and sync
| functionality is built in [1]
|
| [0] https://obsidian.md/mobile
|
| [1] https://obsidian.md/sync
| crimsoneer wrote:
| Honestly, it's worth paying for Obsidian sync. Sure, you can
| try and do some git/dropbox style combo, but Obsidian Sync is
| proper magical along with the mobile app.
| raesene9 wrote:
| FWIW I use Obsidian, and just a private GitHub account and git
| for syncing, it works well no costs, I just need to remember to
| use git :)
| pwillia7 wrote:
| webhook?
| raesene9 wrote:
| yeah I could likely automate it if needed but generally I'm
| ok with manual sync for now.
| ThePhantom wrote:
| I can see Obsidian being popular because it makes notetaking fun
| and customizable and may motivate people to do it more. But as
| far as actual productivity goes I can't see any benefit it adds.
| scottbruin wrote:
| That's kind of like saying an IDE has no clear productivity
| benefit when authoring software. It's an IDE for note-taking.
| ThePhantom wrote:
| When I think of productivity in this context, I am referring
| to the rate at which one can generate value.
|
| Software itself has value (eg, a client-facing web service).
| Therefore an IDE, which may require an investment to get past
| the learning curve, can have a productivity benefit as it can
| make generating software (and thus value) more efficient.
|
| Do notes themselves have value? I would argue not really. For
| the most part things like "life planners" / "task managers"
| I've noticed are highly intricate but require considerable
| upkeep to maintain. Time that can be used to actually
| generate value.
| beaker52 wrote:
| Does the software itself have value? Isn't it what people
| do with the software that really has value? The software
| sat on a floppy disk has pretty low value.
|
| I'd then argue that software has as much value as notes do.
| It's about what you do with it/them, what it/they enable -
| that counts.
|
| But both software and notes are therefore extremely
| valuable to the activity of doing.
|
| My notes are my software, heck I even call my note system
| "LifeOS", which makes that even more apparent.
| timrichard wrote:
| Incredibly valuable for me. When exploring something new, I
| journal as I go. If a side task has to be parked, I can
| pick up again months later because I use it as a
| knowledgebase. Also, a quick scan for #gotcha in my notes
| reminds me of subtle bugs and workarounds in tools and
| processes that are easily forgotten. I also create quick
| reference charts for tools I want to become familiar. I
| hashtag every new note as if I'm making a Twitter post, so
| things are linked in a useful way. I usually have Obsidian
| open near the IDE.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You've kinda addressed your own concern about productivity
| though - it's more fun.
| [deleted]
| happy2code wrote:
| I'm using `vimwiki` for years and love it.
|
| I also tried Obsidian but I need it also mobile and I cannot
| define a storage path for my files.
|
| I just like the freedom, minimalism and flexibility of vimwiki.
| petepete wrote:
| I tried vimwiki for a while but I found I used a tiny subset of
| its functionality and couldn't get it to respect my choice of
| syntax highlighting for markdown. It set me off in the right
| direction though.
|
| The fact that it's _just_ a directory full of markdown files
| allowed me to easily migrate to my own home-grown setup that
| reimplements the three keybindings I actually used.
|
| https://github.com/peteryates/dotfiles/blob/master/nvim/.con...
| codethief wrote:
| > I cannot define a storage path for my files
|
| I agree that this is _very_ annoying but couldn 't you still
| configure e.g. Syncthing (or FolderSync) to sync things
| correctly?
| sva_ wrote:
| There's a community plugin called "Remotely Save"[0], which
| allows you to sync your data on s3-like services. I use this
| with Backlaze's 10gb free plan.
|
| It took a minute to set up but runs without any issues for me.
|
| [0] https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Android's client lets you specify the location of the vault, in
| which all files/folders are placed.
| _bramses wrote:
| > Update the link to the weekly note. (I can definitely use a
| templating plugin to make this happen automatically, but haven't
| spent the time on that yet.)
|
| Here ya go! (Requires Templater plug-in)
|
| ``` Week: [[<% tp.date.now('yyyy') %>-W<% tp.date.now('ww') %>]]
| ```
| chriskrycho wrote:
| HEYO the internet did my work for me! Thanks!
| tfsh wrote:
| There's a useful plugin called "Daily Notes" which automatically
| creates a note each day with your desired template, along with
| the calendar plugin I have a daily chronology of everything I've
| done which I deem noteworthy.
|
| If anyones interested in Obsidian and daily journalling keep the
| initial ceremony low. Some people have sections for challenges,
| achievements, mood, emails, to-dos, etc. That'll be far too much
| cognitive load for anyone - keep it simple and very quickly
| you'll know whether you want to add or remove any of the daily
| ceremony.
|
| I have a "Key tasks" where I include a mostly succinct breakdown
| of anything worth noting. I did this on Google Docs for 3 years
| before very recently moving to Obsidian and I wouldn't turn back.
| Tags and back links definitely help me jump between related
| thoughts and actions much more than grepping in a 50k+ words
| Google doc :)
| noneeeed wrote:
| It works well with the calendar plugin too. You click on a
| future date and it will create the daily not for that day so
| you can pop something in as a future reminder.
|
| I've only been using Obsidian for a week but it's been a
| complete game changer for how I work.
| inferense wrote:
| this is great. For those who have a similar workflow we've
| built a tool[1] around daily documents which on provides full
| fledged tasks and calendar that can be synced with Gcal or any
| other calendar via .ics.
|
| [1] https://acreom.com
| rpastuszak wrote:
| I've just transitioned from Apple Notes to Obsidian and so far
| I'm loving it. In terms of high quality free software (not nec.
| OSS) it feels like the same league as Blender. It's so simple
| and so powerful.
|
| I use it for ad hoc notes and research (e.g. project ideas, an
| ML-course I'm taking now, random interesting subjects beyond
| tech) as well as for daily journaling.
|
| I start my day by writing in a "stream of consciousness" app I
| wrote for myself: https://enso.sonnet.io.
|
| The format is as follows (ca. 20m each morning, 700-800 words):
|
| - 100% unstructured description of my previous day, then
|
| - 3-4 things I found beautiful or interesting, then
|
| - a short TODO list for the day.
|
| Then I just copy past the notes into my new daily note in
| Obsidian.
|
| This seems to work really well for me. If I was to pick one
| improvement, it would be Apple Reminders treating multi-line
| text as separate entries when pasting. But again, it takes just
| a few seconds, and most of my workflow is just muscle memory at
| this stage.
|
| PS. I'm thinking about writing an Open AI Whisper powered
| transcription tool for voice notes in Obsidian. If that's
| something you'd find useful and would be prepared to pay for,
| please let me know.
| callistus wrote:
| > https://enso.sonnet.io
|
| Thanks for sharing this. Love the constraints and how minimal
| it is.
| erreJulian wrote:
| Enso looks great, thank you for sharing.
| [deleted]
| 0x008 wrote:
| Its not the same - I know, but you can try these options to
| get a similar experience in obsidian:
|
| - https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zen-focus-mode-with-
| automation/3... - https://github.com/deathau/cm-typewriter-
| scroll-obsidian with Zen-Mode enabled.
| tuvi13 wrote:
| I am going to use that serene enso thingy you built :-)
| stefandesu wrote:
| There's also the "Periodic Notes" plugin which additionally
| allows for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly notes.
| a10c wrote:
| Which integrates nicely with the Calendar plugin (you can
| click the week view to create a weekly note directly in the
| calendar)
| stefandesu wrote:
| True, forgot to mention that, that's how I use it as well.
| I use it for my journal and it works very well for me.
| fatfox wrote:
| If anyone is looking for the "Daily Notes" plugin in Obsidian:
| You can enable it under "Core plugins".
| nagarjun wrote:
| I use an iOS Shortcut to create a daily note in Bear. It's
| simple but, works surprisingly well!
| aliqot wrote:
| I use this every day :)
| crucialfelix wrote:
| I also use Memos which is a plugin for quick capture, short
| status updates. It inserts them in your Daily Notes page. Also
| can view and search all memos collected across all day pages.
| SystemOut wrote:
| Try the "Checklist" plugin. You can put a #todo tag above a
| section in your note and it will aggregate all your checklist
| items under that tag into the sidebar. It lets me put todos
| across all my notes and keep track of them.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| Does anyone have any experience with Joplin[0] as an alternative?
| I'm looking into using SyncThing + Joplin to create a sort of
| 'networked personal brain'. I was originally looking at Obsidian,
| but the arguments on why they chose not to go FOSS are pretty
| weak[2] imo, so I'm looking at using Joplin instead.
|
| [0] https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/
|
| [1] https://syncthing.net/
|
| [2] https://obsidian.rocks/why-isnt-obsidian-open-source/
| eitland wrote:
| I used Joplin for some time. It is really good and it has been
| very stable.
|
| Using Joplin Web Clipper from Firefox I could also snip pages
| (or parts of pages) into Joplin.
|
| But the most amazing thing is that
|
| - it works on mobile devices as well.
|
| - No lock in: it syncs flawlessly (AFAIK) over WebDAV so I can
| sync all my data using a really inexpensive Hetzner instance.
|
| Personally I happily used it for a long time but always felt
| something was missing and never felt completely at home with
| it.
|
| So now I use Logseq which is a little rough around the edges
| but which I, for now at least feel very at home with.
| srcreigh wrote:
| Can you describe the things you like about Logseq at the
| moment?
| krimpenrik wrote:
| I used Joplin for some years, really stable and worked well. I
| used nextcloud with webdev to sync.
|
| Switched over to obsidian couple months ago and am in love,
| such a great piece of software.
|
| I love the excalidraw integration, game changer
| _def wrote:
| I use Joplin and sync it with Dropbox, because after loosing my
| notes too many times I don't want to be responsible for hosting
| them anymore. Joplin works and syncs good enough across all
| devices I use (Linux, Windows, Android).
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| IIRC Joplin stores notes in a SQLite DB which is a huge no-no
| to sync with syncthing. Even the syncthing devs warn against
| syncing SQLite databases. It will seem to work fine until two
| machines write to the database independently (perhaps each is
| offline) and then their changes can't be reconciled by
| syncthing and data is lost or conflicted.
| alexktz wrote:
| Notes in Joplin are stored plain text with obfuscated
| filenames. The only time joplin uses a DB is for indexing.
| robviren wrote:
| I have used syncthing + marktext[0] and or ghostwriter[1]
| depending on the content of my notes. For a daily journal I
| like to use ghostwriter as it has almost no distraction and it
| forces me to focus. It just got shifted over to being
| maintained by the KDE team and I really enjoy it.
|
| I liked marktext over joplin for similar reasons. But I am
| probably a little overzealous in my search for distraction free
| note taking. I assume joplin provides more feature sets, I just
| happened to want less features for what I do on a day to day.
|
| [0]https://github.com/marktext/marktext
| [1]https://github.com/KDE/ghostwriter
| alin23 wrote:
| I'm using Syncthing with NotePlan and Caddy in a similar way,
| it should be doable as long as Joplin can sure individual
| files.
|
| Here's how I do it:
| https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/How%20I%20write%20this%20blog...
|
| If you want to sync an SQLite DB of articles instead, you can
| also do that with Litestream: https://litestream.io
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I use Joplin with the personal server; I migrated my notes away
| from Evernote and Notion to Joplin for my personal use. I
| really like it; it is fast, open source, simple plugin system
| and very stable (something I cannot say of notion or Evernote).
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| If I remember correctly Joplin doesn't like you to keep your
| own file structure for your markdown notes, it has some kind of
| a alphanumeric representation which obfuscates the original
| structure.
| tristanbvk wrote:
| I used Syncthing and Joplin on both desktop ans Android and it
| worked very well.
| graeber_28927 wrote:
| Joplin as a markdown note taking app was my gateway drug to
| Obsidian.
|
| I used to sync Joplin to just my Dropbox, and it worked well
| for free on all my devices.
|
| Once (and only once) I had a conflict, which from then on I was
| nervous to get again And I never really liked how top level
| folders are notes as well, somehow I found that strange.
|
| Obsidian saves markdown files, I use git so I can solve merge
| conflicts myself, and see the version history, albeit at the
| price of having to save and sync manually (Ctrl+Shift+C for
| commit, Ctrl+Shift+P to push, cause I'd rather do that than
| have it autopush at intervals). I like the UI more too, only I
| haven't set up Obsidian on my phone yet, but it's possible
| theoretically.
|
| Tldr: Setup is more hassle, but I migrated my notes (manually)
| and like the UI, layout, search and git integration better.
| Joplin was definitely easier to get running for free, and I can
| easily recommend it to anyone. It's just where I am now,
| exploring and liking something new, seeing if it sticks.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I used to use Joplin, but I prefer the Obsidian way where all
| my documents are just markdown in a directory structure.
|
| The plugin ecosystem seems more viable too, not that I'm using
| that many.
| master-12 wrote:
| Doesn't Joplin store all notes in a SQLite DB?
|
| I'd recommend looking into Logseq[0], it's free and open source
| and stores all notes on disk as Markdown. I version my notes
| with Git, but Syncthing will also work.
|
| [0] https://logseq.com/
| alexktz wrote:
| No, Joplin stores files as plain text with obfuscated
| filenames. An SQLite DB is only involved for indexing and
| search.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| It does, but if you use the build in synchronization, your
| notes will by synchronized as (optionally encrypted) files. I
| think using syncthing would be possible if you make Joplin
| synchronize to a local directory, and use syncthing to sync
| that directory.
| hookey wrote:
| I used to use Logseq with Syncthing, but I ran into a bunch
| of sync conflicts that were annoying to deal with and
| sometimes it would just stop syncing for no reason. Luckily,
| they've just made Logseq Sync available to all backers on
| OpenCollective and it works quite well. I'm very happy with
| the setup now. I think they're making Sync available as a
| paid monthly service soon.
| rroot wrote:
| My only two frustrations with otherwise brilliant Joplin is the
| sync and (lack of encryption).
|
| _Encryption:_ data isn 't encrypted at rest. The author seems
| to be quite dismissive of the idea:
| https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/289
|
| But then it's advertised as "end-to-end encryption" but that
| only refers to data being encrypted while it sits on a sync
| point. Perhaps within the definition of end-to-end, but might
| give people the idea that the data is encrypted from the time
| they enter it.
|
| _Sync:_ I set it to up sync so S3 so I could have mobile and
| desktop notes in sync.
|
| If I create or edit a quick note, it doesn't get synced
| automatically! I've set the S3 sync to 5 minutes (the minimum),
| but you have to press sync after edit.
|
| Last time I looked they were working on a server sync (instead
| of S3), so hopefully this gets fixed.
| kal87 wrote:
| Joplin's own sync service [1] works seamlessly for me. The
| basic plan is enough for my needs and is way cheaper than
| obsidian's sync subscription.
|
| [1] https://joplinapp.org/plans/
| rroot wrote:
| That's good news. Does the app sync on exit?
| linuxdaemon wrote:
| I thought "yes", but just tested and turns out it's more
| like "kinda". It doesn't do a full sync on shutdown, but
| if something is modified it sends a sync push , and that
| change will get picked up after a few seconds. So if you
| have a note that you modify, and then allow a few
| seconds, and then close...That modification will show up
| on other devices outside of a full sync.
|
| But you can't open joplin, create a note, and then
| immediately exit and expect the note to show up on other
| devices. It will still exist on the device it was created
| on, so it's not lost, it just hasn't synced yet. It will
| automatically sync the next time you start joplin though.
|
| In my case, I use the vim key bindings, and am so
| accustomed to hitting "<esc>:w" (which does perform a
| sync) when I'm finished writing the note, I never
| noticed.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Encryption: data isn 't encrypted at rest. The author
| seems to be quite dismissive of the idea:
| https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/289_
|
| Skimming the thread, the author does have a good point: this
| is something that _should_ be handled on the OS level,
| ideally in a transparent way on top of the filesystem. It
| makes no sense for every app to be handling securing
| documents on their own. Perhaps we 'll get there one of these
| days.
| Aeolun wrote:
| The OS does do this when you have FDE enabled right?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yes, but - as comments bring up - that's an orthogonal
| issue. The thing here is that the owner of the machine in
| many cases isn't the same as the owner of the documents -
| think notes on a family-shared PC, or NGO-provided
| laptop, etc. Relatedly, there are _degrees_ to protection
| - the person you want to protect your notes from may be
| the person you 're otherwise willing to grant access to
| rest of the computer, etc.
|
| What I think should be built into the OS is the ability
| to secure[0] specific files, or groups of files, on top
| of FDE. Think, "right click -> Password Protect" to set
| up, and then when an application tries to access the
| file, you're prompted for a password. Or, you mount the
| secured folder as a drive, TrueCrypt-style. I.e.
| document-level protection controlled by user.
|
| ----
|
| [0] - I originally wrote "encrypt", but perhaps OS
| preventing access is enough in this context if FDE is
| also enabled.
| stvrsxz wrote:
| I am using Joplin for years and I am pretty satisfied with it.
| (This is not a comparison because I have never used Obsidian)
|
| It is doing 99% of what I ever wanted to do with my knowledge
| base. Though, if I am in a hurry and I want to quickly write
| something down (like a quick todo or something), then I am
| still using google keep, because editing markdown in the Joplin
| mobile app and waiting for it to sync, it is ok but not as
| quick as google keep. (I will not be surprised if there is a
| solution to this and I am doing something wrong)
|
| Sure. There are plenty of alternatives, and being open source
| has its negative and positive things.
|
| Self host is a good alternative if you want to play some and
| want to own your data 100% and I have tried to self-host
| Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi once, but I gave up after some
| troubleshooting when I found that Hetzner offers ready-made
| Nextcloud boxes with https and all. I then synchronize my
| encrypted notes through Nextcloud pretty easily. I have never
| tried the Joplin cloud solution that was created after I chose
| Nextcloud (as an alternative also to Dropbox).
| zeruch wrote:
| I used Joplin for about a year, then switched to Obsidian.
| Joplin is/was good (and on mobile was nice and responsive) but
| Obsidian just (so far) has been a better overall fit.
| number6 wrote:
| I use a syncthing setup with logseq which is FOSS but is also
| opinionated. Could be something you could use
| wartijn_ wrote:
| You can create a template for your daily/weekly..etc notes via
| the templates plugin[0]. And I don't use them myself, but it
| looks like there are plugins for automatic backlinks[1] and
| embedding other notes[2] as well
|
| [0] https://github.com/joplin/plugin-templates
|
| [1] https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/automatic-backlinks-
| with-m...
|
| [2] https://github.com/ylc395/joplin-plugin-note-link-system
| stavros wrote:
| I use Joplin and like it a lot. I wrote some tooling to
| generate a static site out of my public notes:
|
| https://notes.stavros.io/
| e-brake wrote:
| Switched from OneNote to Joplin. It's been a good replacement
| for organizing notes & code snippets. A couple quirks. Had to
| write custom CSS in the config to get markdown previews scaled
| correctly. Formatting has been a nuisance, having to
| [shift]+enter to not have double lines in preview mode, which
| seems to break basic formatting around it on reload. Otherwise
| no complaints, it's free, encrypted, lots of plugins, a great
| client, and has built in support to sync directly to OneDrive.
| Better than the janky, slow to load web client of OneNote on
| Linux!
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Personally my Obsidian notes are a reflection of the chaos in my
| head. The neurons (notes) of my second brain all interconnect
| without rhyme or reason or folders or tagging...
| oxff wrote:
| This is imo how most people should start and use it. All these
| "structure first" approaches are like using someone else's
| preferred way of learning and memorizing, if it works its an
| happy accident.
|
| You'll get your structure out of your mind once you learn to
| know it.
| Sakos wrote:
| Articles like this are useful to see what's possible. You
| don't have to copy his workflow 1:1, you can take ideas from
| many places and design a workflow that works for you.
|
| Guaranteed the author didn't start "structure first". It's
| something that developed into its current form over a long
| time of experimenting and refinement.
| manbash wrote:
| I am constantly finding myself deliberating whether I should
| or shouldn't use folders in my Obsidian vault.
|
| Most of the times folders feel artificial. I prefer tags
| nowadays as the single source.
|
| The times I separate to a folder is for very-specific
| Dataview data-only pages, and for storing assets such as
| images.
| oxff wrote:
| I legitimately forgot to even consider folders once I had
| taken "enough" notes / diary entries. Just forgot they
| exist at all. I see everything relevant in the linked /
| unlinked mentions that I use to refresh the context.
|
| Tags I barely use, except for things I can't put into
| "atomic notes". Like when someone mentions a book and 1-3
| sentence review, I add it to today's diary entry and use
| #book tag on it.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I don't understand the concept of using tags or even
| avoiding them.
|
| Everything in my brain is highly categorized and those
| categories are hierarchical.
|
| Computer / Kubernetes / Helm / Something.md
|
| Computer / Java / JVM / Garbage Collection Tuning.md
|
| Construction / Foundation / Shallow Strip Foundation.md
|
| Hobby / 3D Printing / On Shape.md
|
| And so on.
|
| I don't even think that I need links. May be some. What I
| need is the ability to show multiple files at once. For
| example show all files in Computer / Kubernetes / Helm
| directory, separated with horizontal lines with the ability
| to edit this in one editor window. I hate when I need to
| constantly switch around in traditional editors.
| leogout wrote:
| That is very true to me as well, in my head things are
| organized in a hierarchy of concepts. The nice thing
| about tags is that it allows you to store a note below
| multiple tags like in my case a note about something I
| did with Python at work, tagged with #work,
| #work/project_name but also with #python.
|
| I use a plugin called Tag Wrangler to show my tags as a
| tree like folders (it interprets the "/" as a parent
| directory).
|
| This allows me to keep a note below multiple tags which I
| think is useful, at least for my own usecase.
| oxff wrote:
| Where / how do you save a HN shitpost that is definitely
| not worthy to be part of the atomic note of
| `Kubernetes.md`, but is still relevant / insightful and
| related to it?
|
| I would add it to either quotes.md or the daily note with
| #kubernetes tag.
| edelans wrote:
| same here. I've been using obsidian for more than a year
| now, and my notes are highly categorized in a structured
| hierarchy. But I regularly feel this is not optimal
| (sometime a note could fall into 2 different branches of my
| hierarchy), and I can feel the friction it creates when I
| want to add a note but I first have to think where to put
| it.
|
| So for people not leveraging folders, do you just create
| all the notes in the same folder ? (resulting on a folder
| with thousands of notes ? and then what's your process to
| add a new note ? do a search, see if there currently is a
| relevant note to ammend, if not create a new one ?
| oxff wrote:
| All of mine are in same folder, and I use search or
| linked / unlinked panels for finding / creating links.
| Thousands of notes in same folder doesnt really matter if
| you use the Obs. provided tools to navigate it.
| edelans wrote:
| interesting. Thanks for sharing. I should probably give
| it a try and "let go" some control over the structure.
| oxff wrote:
| The structure is there, it's just not in the file /
| folder layout, but in the wikilinks and whatever else
| Obsidian can uncover (ie. unlinked mentions, orphaned
| file output).
|
| I guess I learned how my own learning and memorizing
| works, and managed to match it better with how Obsidian
| works, and now I don't have to think about silly file /
| folder structure anymore. Your experience maybe
| different.
| edelans wrote:
| I'm very curious about this way of using obsidian (which
| sounds like the original "second brain" promise). I would
| love to connect in private to konw more. I don't see your
| address in your profile but you reach me at my hn user
| name with Gmail.
| leogout wrote:
| Personnally I use tags for this usecase, I tag every
| single note in obsidian and I use a plugin called Tag
| Wrangler to show my tags as a tree. Tags then act like
| folders (for example a tag #python/pip will be under
| python > pip).
|
| Pros :
|
| - A note can fall under as many tags as you want
|
| - The map view is pleasing to watch because tags can be
| shown but folders cannot, it also helps to categorize
| orhpan notes visually
|
| Cons :
|
| - You have to maintain the habit to tag each notes you
| write
|
| Finally, Tag Wrangler allows you to rename / edit tags in
| bulk so that it is close to be as fluid as moving notes
| between folders.
| mellavora wrote:
| I prefer folders.
|
| Memory, on a biological level, is tied very strongly to
| place or paths. Not just in humans, not just in mammals.
|
| My folder hierarchy gives me a path that lets me find
| things. I remember where I put them, I remember where to
| find them.
|
| If I need to search, fd and rg at a high level of the
| folder tree is a godsend.
|
| Tags mean it is just floating in some cloud somewhere,
| locationless.
|
| There can be friction if something could go into multiple
| categories, and one will always need a wildcard category,
| but these can be managed.
|
| The Johnny Decimal system https://johnnydecimal.com/ can be
| a nice structured approach. Creator is here on HN
| somewhere; that's where I learned about it.
| [deleted]
| beermonster wrote:
| I'll probably try out both Obsidian and LogSeq at some point. Do
| their use-cases overlap or are there different goals of each
| project?
| ajvs wrote:
| Depends the style of notetaking you prefer - document or
| outliner. I prefer outliner because it allows me to slap
| everything all nicely organised into one massive file.
|
| Another big difference is open-source - Logseq is, Obsidian
| isn't.
| throwaway180118 wrote:
| I've seen a lot of recent posts about Obsidian in the past week.
| If it's a marketing tactic then it might be working on me. I hope
| it's a decent product and not just some PR stunt.
| puchatek wrote:
| Gotta admit i also checked out obsidian and the top review for
| the app on the play store gave me pause. Seems the app cannot
| sync with your local server so you'd need the sync subscription
| if you wanted to use app and desktop together to maintain one
| set of notes.
|
| Can someone confirm this?
| emptysands wrote:
| I use the sync feature, but its not required. There are
| several tutorials for using got with a community plugin or an
| alternative like syncthing.
|
| Its just text after all. Which is the point of using
| Obsidian.
|
| Paying for sync is like paying to support the software
| development. Which is worth doing for Obsidian. Plus I find
| it useful. I am on the older lower rate.
| Kelteseth wrote:
| I used the git plugin for this on my iPad. This uses a JS
| based git version.
| johntash wrote:
| There's a plugin called "Remotely Save". I use it to sync to
| nextcloud (webdav), but there's also another plugin for
| syncing to a git repo.
|
| And worst case, you can use any 3rd party file syncing tool
| like nextcloud, dropbox, syncthing, etc since it's just a
| directory of files.
| Sakos wrote:
| Obsidian saves to a bunch of openly accessible markdown
| files. You can sync them however you want.
| eXpl0it3r wrote:
| Cross system / OS landscapes can make it nearly impossible
| without Obsidian Sync. It's okay for Android & Windows, but
| if you throw an iPad into the mix, you can't really find a
| local/cloud sync for them all. iOS especially has some
| limitations on how apps can access files, so your only
| options are iCloud or Obsidian Sync.
|
| For more info see here: https://help.obsidian.md/Getting+star
| ted/Sync+your+notes+acr...
| pomatic wrote:
| I use a community plugin that saves to a Hetzner storage
| box, which support webdav off the shelf. Works flawlessly
| across all the platforms you mention and Linux too.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| This is untrue, I use iOS Working Copy connected to my git
| repo which contains my Obsidian vault. It's also on on my
| android pixel phone and I have it on my windows machine.
| Everything syncs just fine using a private github repo.
| mateuszf wrote:
| Do you use end to end encryption? I don't want 3rd party
| companies to see my data.
|
| Of course obsidian is not open source so I can't
| guarantee their e2e sync service doesn't sneakily send
| the data to their servers, but it's still less risky than
| having it easily available to the company employees.
| [deleted]
| leovander wrote:
| I have it synced in a git repo, and I use their apps on
| windows and macos. I lazily use the git plugin to commit and
| push changes, but you can do at all in the command line if
| you wanted. Reminder, it's a bunch of plain text markdown
| files so commit away.
| ephimetheus wrote:
| On iOS/macOS you can use iCloud Drive to synchronize without
| the subscription. It doesn't work flawlessly but it's ,,ok".
| Sprocklem wrote:
| I use Syncthing to sync between my android phone and my
| computer without a subscription, and everything has been
| working perfectly.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Switched to it from Bear Notes, Apple Notes.
|
| Not affiliated with Obsidian. Can recommend it wholeheartedly.
| greyman wrote:
| But why, it's a free product. I used it for some time but then
| switched to Logseq.
| tuan3w wrote:
| I published my Obsidian vault template in Github more than 1 year
| ago [1]. It has some templates and tips that I use regularly now.
| It may help others.
|
| [1] https://github.com/tuan3w/obsidian-template
| sn41 wrote:
| I'm an ardent Emacs user for the past 20+ years. But I am
| considering writing a book, and the "throw things in anyhow, get
| things back" facility of Obsidian is quite useful for catching
| disparate thoughts to later incorporate into a flow in the final
| text.. Of course there is a mode in Emacs supporting obsidian-
| like facility, but does not feel as convenient - autocomplete
| never quite works as smooth as it does in Obsidian. For now, I am
| very impressed with the simplicity of Obsidian's usage.
| beermonster wrote:
| > Of course there is a mode in Emacs supporting obsidian-like
| facility
|
| Do you mean org-roam ?
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Nothing is ever "as convenient" in emacs, and I say that as a
| fairly die-hard user of OrgMode.
|
| I'm pretty curious about my ability to migrate to Obsidian and
| away from Org/emacs, mostly for reasons of polish. I'm not ever
| going to become a lisp hacker, but I ended up in Org because it
| was the ONLY thing I could find that allowed me to keep notes
| and to-dos intermingled, while giving me a great ability to
| pull out and collate those to-dos in a dynamic view.
|
| Obsidian can do that, too.
| chungus wrote:
| What Emacs mode might that be? And are there more reasons it
| falls short, besides the autocomplete?
| sn41 wrote:
| There is a simple mode available on melpa, called obsidian.
| The issue with it which I am facing is that if you link using
| markdown in actual Obsidian, it is able to find the link in
| whichever subfolder of the vault the target is in. But this
| does not seem to work with the emacs mode. It searches only
| the top vault path - so creates a new file when the file
| actually already exists in some subfolder. Maybe it is
| something I am doing wrong, I will read the source code and
| figure out/change the code.
| osener wrote:
| I went with Logseq because it can be configured to use org-mode
| syntax in place of Markdown, and I'm really happy with it.
| ajvs wrote:
| Same, and the plugin ecosystem is quite big too.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| As a wildly alternative workflow for writing a book, have a
| look at Scrivener.
| _glass wrote:
| I am writing right now my PhD thesis with Scrivener, and it's
| perfect, except (!) reference management is not working. My
| workaround is to have everything in Zotero, and manually put
| in the references, hoping I can convert later, in a big dirty
| manual step.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Wrote a book (93k words) in Scrivener, so can confirm.
|
| Could probably have done it in Obsidian too but didn't know
| of it when I was starting. Also compiling features of
| Scrivener (format the text into industry-accepted formats) is
| nice
| sn41 wrote:
| Scrivener is pretty impressive, but its Latex capabilities
| are not as good as those of other formats. I found indexing
| and bibliography lookup to be spotty. Another reason I found
| it lacking was when having labelled equations to be later
| referenced, Scrivener does not seem to have an autocomplete
| for this.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Buried in this is a reference to
| https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Link+to+blocks
|
| Turns out a (carefully written) link in one document will render
| as the contents of some part of another document. Possibly more
| useful in this context is
| https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Embed+files
|
| I've been trying literate programming in obsidian and that looks
| like a very direct solution to having source code in separate
| files, which all the tooling definitely prefers, which still
| renders inline from the main document.
|
| Does broadly work - the ```C ``` style block disables the
| embedding, so the markdown syntax to pretty print the code needs
| to be in the source file, not in the file that embeds it. Also
| the ^block_name syntax can't be on the same line as the closing
| ```.
| NickBusey wrote:
| Much of what the author does manually can be automated even
| further. For example, the whole "Working with Embeds" section
| could be replaced with a DataView query.
|
| I use DataView extensively to great effect. For example, every
| "Project" note uses the same template, which includes a #Project
| tag and a Status:: value containing a red, yellow, or green
| square emoji.
|
| Then a simple query like:
|
| ```dataview TABLE Status FROM #Projects SORT file.mtime ASC ```
|
| Gives you a very nice looking, automatically sorted and up to
| date Project status table.
| d33d33 wrote:
| i found my love in Trilium what has everything i need and if
| needed, i can still change the code by myself (AGPL) + files are
| stored as markdown documents (so i am still able to get into my
| notes, even if the repo would disappear). see
| https://github.com/zadam/trilium
|
| TLDR; - future proof file format (markdown)
|
| - possible as local standalone + sync to simple cloud storage
| (like gdrive/dropbox/...)
|
| - gantt charting
|
| - uml diagramming
|
| - task management
|
| - available on github
|
| - active development in the last months and years
|
| - editable
| corncob15 wrote:
| Obsidian stores all your files as Markdown as well, and has
| plugins to automatically back up your vault using Git on a set
| interval. I'm pretty sure across my various cloud sync and disk
| backup setups my Obsidian vault is fully recoverable from five
| different independent data sources, only one of which (Obsidian
| Sync) has any dependency on Obsidian itself.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Some corrections:
|
| > - future proof file format (markdown)
|
| Trilium has Markdown-like editing experience, but it stores the
| notes in HTML. Which is IMHO more future-proof than Markdown.
|
| > - possible as local standalone + sync to simple cloud storage
| (like gdrive/dropbox/...)
|
| Trilium stores data in an SQLite database, and sync tools like
| gdrive/dropbox don't know how to sync it and usually corrupt
| the database. To sync correctly, you need to have a server with
| trilium installed.
| alwillis wrote:
| _...but it stores the notes in HTML. Which is IMHO more
| future-proof than Markdown._
|
| No--Markdown is just plaintext, which by definition is the
| most future-proof format that exists.
|
| HTML is a structured markup language that has multiple
| versions and tags that come and go. And it's dependent on a
| user agent (such as a browser or voice assistant) to render
| it into something a human can view or listen to.
|
| And while Markdown _can_ be rendered, it's not required to be
| human readable.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > No--Markdown is just plaintext, which by definition is
| the most future-proof format that exists.
|
| HTML is human-readable as well. I'm not sure if it's really
| a dealbreaker if you have to read <em>text</em> instead of
| _em_.
|
| Markdown's big problem is standardization. It does have a
| standard, but it doesn't seem widely implemented, and it's
| notably poor - not even basic features such as tables are
| standardized. That's kind of a big deal for being future-
| proof. Worse, Markdown documents do not even record the
| Markdown flavor they are using.
|
| You might say that it doesn't matter as it's still sort of
| readable even if you can't understand exact formatting
| detail. But again, so is HTML.
|
| In my view, the future-proofness which actually matters is
| the tool support - and you have a much higher chance that
| in 30 years tools will correctly support HTML than
| Markdown.
| wyclif wrote:
| Did he mean to link to his Obsidian config? It looks like there's
| supposed to be a link there but there isn't.
| avjinder wrote:
| Yes, seems like the config could not be found.
| chriskrycho wrote:
| Yeah, I intended to link it when I started drafting this months
| ago but then forgot to add the link _and_ my config is out of
| date now that Obsidian 1.0 is out, so I removed it when someone
| else pointed out the same typo. Sorry about that!
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Since this post will attract Obisidan veterans, I asking for some
| validation of two potential need-gaps in Obisidian I'm tracking
| for a while -
|
| 1. Live recommendation for Obsidian[1]
|
| Say I'm typing a note and write a sentence about echo location
| then I get recommended a previous note with a comment from a HN
| user about how moths escape bats by deafening it in a side panel.
|
| It's not a keyword based recommendation, But a sentence
| classification (I understand the compute overhead drawback).
|
| 2. Automatic tag generator for Obsidian[2]
|
| This is simpler, Generate tags for the notes automatically based
| on previous tags and if none is available then generate new tags.
|
| [1] https://needgap.com/problems/409-live-recommendation-for-
| obs... (Disclosure: It's my problem validation forum)
|
| [2] https://needgap.com/problems/408-automatic-tag-generator-
| for...
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| The only notetaking tool I found that had support for live
| recommendations was Evernote which did something called context
| notes, it was quite useful.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Thanks, I will check it out. Btw, Others in Obsidian forums
| have mentioned DEVONthink as well.
| brimwats wrote:
| try either the Influx or Strange New World plugins for #1,
| depending on how you have your vault set up (either mostly
| daily notes or not respectively)
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Thanks, Influx does provide recommendations but it seems to
| require prior snippet in the notes; I'm thinking about live
| recommendation without prior action from the user apart from
| just writing notes.
| setr wrote:
| Regarding point 1, are.na effectively does this for
| bookmarking, by showing you the categories that others have
| stored the same bookmark to (so really showing you what they
| thought was related, according to whatever relationship they
| were interested in) which I think is a much more reliable/same
| way to approach the problem -- its much more precise, as the
| other user was literally on the same page as you at some point,
| rather than whatever tangential topical relationship identified
| by keyword matching. And it's more broad, as the relationships
| you can find are not simply the literal topic itself (e.g.
| hexing the technical interview might be stored by one user
| alongside programming taos, and by another with closure
| hackery, and another with programmers-as-wizards).
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| Very interesting, Thanks for introducing me to are.na.
|
| I like that they've essentially outsourced the computation
| required to classify the content to real humans.
|
| I understand the value in adding context to the bookmarks,
| But does it help in any way to recall a bookmark when I need
| it? Because not using the bookmark is a real problem[1] but I
| find the suggestions from bookmarks in Firefox address bar
| quite useful; Integration of in other writing tools which
| knows the content of the bookmarks could be useful.
|
| [1] https://needgap.com/problems/57-i-forget-my-web-
| bookmarks-qu...
| setr wrote:
| > But does it help in any way to recall a bookmark when I
| need it?
|
| Not particularly, except that the same bookmark can be
| placed in multiple groupings, so the usual organizational
| structure used is typically more conceptual; e.g. I had a
| grouping for Anime Recommendation System, which shares a
| bunch of links with CS Whitepapers as well as Social
| Dynamics; and of course Evangelion gets plastered in all
| sorts of random topics. CS Whitepapers is a fairly useless
| category for recall but a nice place to dump things,
| whereas Anime Recommendation System is a more focused
| project -- and if I'm looking for recommendation system
| papers, I'll obviously remember the latter more clearly,
| and find the related.
|
| So basically recall by duplication, and the organizational
| flexibility.
|
| Recall by auto-suggestion I think is useful in a different
| fashion, but vaguely meets the above by accident. It mostly
| serves to:
|
| 1. Help you complete a URL you only partially remember
|
| 2. Show you bookmarks that are strictly related to what
| you're doing, based on similar keywords + a neighboring
| expansion of them
|
| 3. Accidentally show you bookmarks completely unrelated to
| what you're doing, but causes a mental refresh - this is
| where it mostly competes with are.na
|
| In other words, the autosuggestion is googling, and are.na
| is acting like Wikipedia. The former is much faster, and
| better when you're precise, but its similarity metrics are
| quite limited. Whereas the latter can cross much wider
| chasms of similarity
| for_i_in_range wrote:
| Alternatively, there's the pen and paper version of Obsidian:
| https://www.antinet.org/
| agileAlligator wrote:
| Interesting! Now I wonder if this system can be digitized....
| (I am way too lazy to take pen and paper notes lol)
| terminal_d wrote:
| hoseja wrote:
| This would be interesting if it was about chiseling a volcanic
| glass, not another note-taking app.
| tarr11 wrote:
| I'd really like to understand how people managers who work on
| teams / corporate environments use Obsidian.
|
| I find that most of my work meetings are shared docs. It often
| feels like double work to put some things in Obsidian and move
| them around.
|
| I also don't use Obsidian as a task list - I use Todoist which is
| totally fine for that.
| ytechie wrote:
| I haven't updated it recently, but this should give you a
| starting point: https://github.com/ytechie/obsidian-sample
|
| There are some challenges with duplication, and I either keep
| my own version (focused on what I need to know about it), or I
| just have a link to the other system.
| drakonka wrote:
| I tried Obsidian on Windows early this year and found it to be
| quite slow and clunky, but it seems like everyone else loves it.
| Is it that the software has improved since earlier this year, or
| was it just a local issue all along?
| scambier wrote:
| They recently released 1.0 (with an announcement on HN too),
| which changed the interface to something more tabs-centric.
| It's not faster - it's still an electron app - but it
| definitely feels less clunky.
| brimwats wrote:
| I've never heard it described as slow, except in cases of
| purposefully stress teasing (vaults with 100,000+ notes). I've
| got nearly 10k and it works great on a 10yo laptop.
| Sakos wrote:
| I think people are just tolerant. I've used it on an M1 MacBook
| and a Ryzen 2600 and I've been using it on and off for years.
| It always feels a bit slow and sluggish, and I still open
| sublimetext first out of habit because of how much more
| performant and fluid it feels.
| Aperocky wrote:
| For the unix fundamentalist out here:
|
| https://github.com/Aperocky/diaryman/blob/master/diaryman.sh
|
| I had this little script aliased from shell, whenever I type
| `diary` it creates/open the current days' note file in vim.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| And there I was all excited, expecting long-term preservation of
| writing by 3D-printing molten rock.
|
| I'm a strong believer that names of software packages should be
| chosen to be something that doesn't yet return any results from a
| Google search.
| dwils098 wrote:
| Tell that to Microsoft, ehm... Windows.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| At least then you can google for "Microsoft Windows" and get
| specific results, but yes it is annoying that it pollutes all
| the search results when you are looking for sheets of glass.
| ygouzerh wrote:
| That's a very good idea to write down what you did during the
| day, it saved me from a bad burnout. I was working on multiple
| projects in parallel, and got the feeling that I was doing
| nothing productive on my day, but was always stressed and tired.
|
| Writing down what you did during the day allows to see that you
| actually did a lot of things. I put even meeting and technical
| discussions with others, because it's still takes work time.
| revskill wrote:
| My note taking system is simple:
|
| I'm using MacOS Notes application, in that basically have two
| important notes: Reading and Writing.
|
| My professional life is mostly about reading and writing.
|
| Other minor notes include: Awesome materials.
|
| I never have a separate Todo/Outcomes,.. notes.
| tunnuz wrote:
| This was like a window in an alternate dimension for me: I had no
| idea documenting what you do was a thing and the way the author
| describes it makes it sound like a well-known activity that
| everybody does. Have I been living under a rock?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Nah, counter-non-scientific-anecdote, very few people do it.
| Most of what I do is forgettable and not important. Code is in
| git and tasks are in jira, websites I want to remember are in
| my bookmarks; I never think "I wish I took minutes of my day
| from such-and-such date three years ago".
|
| But to each their own; if this is your jam, by all means. It
| KINDA feels like justifying your day and activities though.
| Some people work in teams or environments where they have to
| justify their time or report what they did the previous day in
| a daily stand-up, for who it may be relevant.
| beezlewax wrote:
| How do you guys handle images in Obsidian? I can't zoom or see
| detail on large screen shots for example. Pretty new to the
| application so maybe I'm missing something
| gilrain wrote:
| Media management is entirely manual and very bare bones,
| unfortunately.
| belmat wrote:
| I use a plugin called Image Toolkit [0]. When you click on an
| image it opens an overlay that lets you zoom and do some light
| editing. I started including images in my notes inline, scaled
| down to about 50px (so they are still roughly recognizable),
| and clicking on them when I want to see them in detail.
|
| [0] obsidian://show-plugin?id=obsidian-image-toolkit
| beezlewax wrote:
| Nice that will do the trick for my needs. Thank you!
| BlameKaneda wrote:
| You can do:
|
| _![[Pasted image 20221028163039.png|500]]_
|
| If you want to adjust the width and height, then you can do
| this:
|
| _![[Pasted image 20221028163039.png|500x700]]_
| Mandelmus wrote:
| I have yet to find a way to use Obsidian with images (sketches,
| diagrams) as easily as I would like. If there was a way to
| combine Obsidian's keyboard-based note-taking features
| (including LaTeX equations) with graphics and diagrams drawn in
| an app like GoodNotes 5 for iPad, that would be fantastic.
| krimpenrik wrote:
| Like mentioned, the excalidraw plugin is a game changer
| wilsongoode wrote:
| Have you tried the Excalidraw plugin?
| darreld wrote:
| I'd love to try something like this but my problem is that I
| routinely use 3 different computers throughout the day(Windows,
| Mac and Linux. Could this be used with git to keep things sync'd?
| mikhailt wrote:
| Same here, I need something that's encrypted and cross-
| platform. Plus a decent price for cloud sync with storage a
| separate fee if possible.
| mavci wrote:
| I am very impressed in the detail that the picture in the article
| is also a screenshot in dark mode when I switch to dark mode.
| Well done.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| and it's a very nice looking blog.
| [deleted]
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| General question for the Obsidian gurus in the audience.
| Is there anyway to use tab-key mid-line? I do not want to indent
| the start of my line, and I'd be happy to have tab-character
| auto-convert to spaces, but I cannot use this tool unless I have
| a way to tab. I seem to use tab to make columns of
| lists, usually two or three columns worth. A decent analogy
| would be like the hosts file, or CRON. 2+ vertically aligned
| columns of lists. I understand that <TAB> doesn't
| exist in markdown, but vim is able to convert tab-characters to
| spaces, is there any kind of plugin that allows this
| functionality?
| axelf4 wrote:
| That just sounds like a table but with extra steps?
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| Are you saying that there is functionality called a `table`
| that I could use to give me similar results?
|
| I don't need/want a fancy grid, I just make multi-columned
| lists a lot.
|
| Another similar use-case: recipes! 1cup
| flour extra fine/sifted 1tsp vanilla
| extract is fine 1/4cup something else more
| cooking words
|
| It's not a lot steps, but if there's a table function I could
| look into without creating a grid, I could probably use that.
| Macha wrote:
| There are plugins like improved tables (
| https://github.com/tgrosinger/advanced-tables-obsidian )
| which make markdown tables quicker to write up.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| I use a table plugin for both phone and desktop. It's a
| little finicky on the phone, but doable.
| eddof13 wrote:
| I use obsidian because apple notes lost all my notes amazingly
| when syncing between two computers and my phone- and my hope is
| that the markdown file method that obsidian uses in iCloud will
| be more resilient.
|
| That said I'd rather have something that versions my notes files
| uxdx wrote:
| My note taking system is a single "donelist.txt" that sits in a
| GDrive/onedrive/xdrive on my machine. Entries are:
|
| 9.11.22
|
| scrum
|
| working on stry1234
|
| meeting X
|
| - do a thing
|
| lunch
|
| created PR for stry1234
|
| meeting Y
|
| 8.11.22
|
| scrum
|
| working on def4321
|
| lunch
|
| created PR def4321
|
| meeting Z
|
| meeting A
|
| ...
|
| This is good enough for me although I'm still figuring out how to
| plan ahead better. Maybe I should write down how I expect the
| week to go, goals and schedule, on Monday and update from there.
| flakeoil wrote:
| That's more or less what I did as well. But it got a bit messy
| at the end so I started to use EasyOrg [0] which gives some
| more structure so it is easier to search on and you also get a
| useful Agenda/Calendar view where you can plan future tasks and
| see old completed tasks.
|
| [0] https://easyorgmode.com
| fefe23 wrote:
| Oh it's just an ad for some app.
|
| Here I thought he was actually writing things in actual Obsidian.
| That would have been actually interesting.
| whoibrar wrote:
| This is just someone sharing their workflow. What makes you
| think this is an actual ad ?
| fefe23 wrote:
| Seriously? Where do I even start!
|
| | Assumed Audience: People who are interested in working
| effectively
|
| Do you have this problem? Cue late-night "infomercial" video
| of women having back pain and unable to reach can of tuna
| high in the cupboard.
|
| Then you need our miracle cure!
|
| | Then I had a flash of inspiration: now that I'm using
| Obsidian, I never have to do this again.
|
| Oh look, it solves all the problems!
|
| But wait there's more! Not only does it solve the problems,
| it completely changes the calculus!
|
| | Obsidian's block embeds change that calculus entirely.
|
| That's incredible, Bob! I will call the phone number next to
| my country's flag immediately!!
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Doesn't make them wrong though.
| fefe23 wrote:
| I didn't say it was wrong.
|
| I said I wasn't interested.
| stavros wrote:
| I had the same problem, but needed something quicker, so I made a
| small CLI utility:
|
| https://pypi.org/project/dia/
| brightball wrote:
| I hadn't seen the block embeds feature. I'm going to have to add
| this to my workflow.
|
| I typically keep a daily note and then if any one section gets
| large, move it to it's own note and link it in my daily. The
| blocks would be a great addition though.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| I have just started using Obsidian this last week or two in the
| hopes of eventually migrating away from Notion. There are some
| things I miss though, like to-do lists. I've also found that code
| blocks are a little unreliable about whether they render pretty
| or just stay markdown.
|
| I like the idea of getting all my stuff local, but there are
| going to be a few things about Notion that keep me there for a
| while.
|
| Also, (and this is slightly tangential since this doesn't exist
| for Notion) - I would _love_ a nice way to be able to write
| guitar tablature in my notes. If some kind of plugin exists for
| that it would be awesome.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| Start and end your code blocks with the ticks on their own
| line.
| chriskrycho wrote:
| To-do lists work a bit differently; they're just Markdown
| tasks: - [ ] do something - [x] did
| something
|
| However, there are a number of neat plugins which can integrate
| those into anything from simple views of all open to-do items
| to full-up Kanban boards. Additionally, the Minimal theme lets
| you do Bullet Journal-style variations on that:
| - [/] partially did something - [<] scheduled something
| - [>] punted something to the next day/etc.
| examplary_cable wrote:
| If anyone is interested in. I'm working on a "emacs-like" system
| that you can also use to take notes in, but it's more line a
| Outliner(like Roam Research) + Brownser. It's still in
| development.
|
| https://github.com/ilse-langnar/notebook
| srcreigh wrote:
| Nice. I see there's a little piano on there, is that part of
| the app? One of my projects is always itching to become its own
| livecoding platform too..
|
| Are there any specific use cases you're working on right now?
|
| BTW, I'm seeing blank page when I run the demo linked from the
| README. Chrome on Windows.
| mundietalk wrote:
| I just installed Obsidian. Tried it. The vibe of the contents
| that I put into Obsidian has a funny 'Obsidious' tone. I think a
| neutral vibe is what is required for a generic content editing
| software. Uninstalled.
| gala8y wrote:
| > The vibe of the contents that I put into Obsidian has a funny
| 'Obsidious' tone.
|
| What do you mean? In my opinion UI is absolutely minimal. Not a
| single place with any kind of branding left - no logo, no
| 'Obsidian' text repeated all over. Ok, there is 'Choose
| Obsidian's default color scheme' in settings (totally
| warranted). Clean as it can be. It is actually unique in that
| matter of retracting logo/name from any view. There is branding
| on vault opener/switcher, which is tasteful and just in place -
| it's good to know what piece of software you're using, after
| all.
| mundietalk wrote:
| I'm talking about the [feeling]. It just imbues everything.
| gala8y wrote:
| Well, I'm really curious, if you could try to describe it.
| It is just interesting you get this. I am not here to
| defend Obsidian in any way, rather interested in
| understanding what it is all about.
| mundietalk wrote:
| It's a little like this:
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. It's called
| 'Feeling'. You know how certain objects feel a certain
| way. I'm not here to defend a 'supposedly overrated'
| text-image-arranging software that purports to be 'a
| second brain' either. You build a GUI that feels like
| [~~~~~this~~~~] then you 'Add an Emotional
| Aura(https://sims4studio.com/thread/3517/tutorial-make-
| object-emi...) that's supposed to make it seem 'edgy and
| cool' like [~~~~~this~~~~], [~~~~that~~~~], or
| [~~~~~something else~~~~~].
|
| If you don't get this, probably your hemispheres are out
| of sync. Reach out to someone who has good 'taste' in
| music or clothes.
| maksimur wrote:
| It's weird how you phrased your comment, but I suppose it
| gives you a cult vibe as opposed to say Typora or
| Marktext, maybe because it's too distinct and kind of
| opinionated and used/promoted by people who could be seen
| as cult leaders?
| mundietalk wrote:
| Do you see a <homepage> anywhere where you can join my
| cult, you cuck? It's pretty damn obvious your life goal
| is to chew on some green paper, you sub-human expendable.
| I get that how I 'phrased my comment' might be seen as
| 'weird' by your types; you probably get that I used to
| code.
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