Show HN: MdSilo – A knowledge silo that runs in your web browser | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: MdSilo – A knowledge silo that runs in your web browser

mdsilo.com

153 pointsihndan67 comments

Hi, hackers and writers:

Excited to introduce mdSilo on Hacker News, it is a Zettelkasten note-taking app runs entirely in your web browser, free and open source.

We believe connection is good in thinking. mdSilo supports [[BackLinks]], ((Block Reference)) to connect everything in writing. On top of that, we also believe that the digital garden is better not a walled garden. So mdSilo opens a window and builds a bridge for each digital garden. We can connect with each other via {{ PubLink }}. Just like links to liaison points between private digital gardens, a liaison point can be a shared wiki page of any systematic knowledge generated from different digital gardens spontaneously.

Here are some of the features that mdSilo offers:

- WYSIWYG editor, Markdown support, Live Preview like Typora;

- PWA and Local File System Access support to make it functions as same as native app on desktop;

- Side menu, Hovering toolbar, hotkeys, Slash command to make writing and formatting fun;

- #HashTag and nested notes to help organize your writing;

- View your writing in different ways: Page Stacking View, Graph view, Chronicle view, Task view...;

- Connect everything in your writing by BackLink, Block Reference, Direct/Indirect Mentions, etc.;

- Import or export your notes at any time as Markdown files or Json;

- Full-text search;

Like an online IDE, mdSilo is a vscode.dev for notes, a good free and open source alternative to Obsidian, Roam Research and more.

mdSilo puts privacy first. No registering is required, no installation is required, You are writing locally, you fully own and control your data even the code(it is open source, anyone can inspect it and make it even better together).

Official site and demo: https://mdsilo.com/ The source code repo: https://github.com/danloh/mdSilo-web

this looks very good, but I'm I being daft?

I cannot see any instructions on how run it locally?

Thanks and sorry for confusing you, You can go to live demo from home page, the live demo is also a help docs.

To run locally or to open local folder, your web browser should be Chrome or Edge which supports File System Access.

many thanks,

Hey, the creator of Notabase [1] here, which it looks like MdSilo was based off of.

Your project looks cool! Always interesting to see how other people tackle note-taking. Thanks for keeping it open source.

I'd encourage people to check out Notabase as well, which offers an alternative vision and UI which some people might like better. You can use it hosted, or self-host it yourself -- the code is open source [2].

Best of luck with MdSilo! :)

[1]: https://notabase.io

[2]: https://github.com/churichard/notabase

Thanks Richard! :)

> Thanks for keeping it open source.

Not really an option to do otherwise, thanks to the license (AGPL).

Yep, although there are people who would change the license or ignore it, and hope that no one notices.

"Note: by default, Notabase has a cap on the number of notes you can create. You can circumvent this by inserting an active subscription for your user id in the subscriptions table."

Not really "self-hosted", then.

Maybe it's unclear, but you just need to insert a row in the subscriptions table with the value "ACTIVE". You don't actually need to have a real subscription on the hosted version of Notabase.

Besides, if you know how to code, it's simple to change the max number of notes to something like Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY anyway - but adding a row in the database is likely easier so that's what I recommend.

It may be a bit of a hassle, but I do this because the codebase for the hosted version and the self-hosted version is the same, which makes it easier for me to maintain. In the future, I may make a separate self-hosted version so that this step can be skipped.

I was wondering if/when Firefox would implement the File System Access API. Mozilla's official position [0] implies: Not anytime soon, as they consider it harmful, mostly due to security considerations.

> There's a subset of this API we're quite enthusiastic about (in particular providing a read/write API for files and directories as alternative storage endpoint), but it is wrapped together with aspects for which we do not think meaningful end user consent is possible to obtain (in particular cross-site access to the end user's local file system). Overall we consider this harmful therefore, but Mozilla could be supportive of parts, provided this were segmented better.

The GitHub issue discussing this position is now closed [1].

[0] https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#native-file-s... [1] https://wicg.github.io/file-system-access/#security-ransomwa...

Sadly, they don't plan to add PWA support either.

Given their declining market shares, I guess that this decision by Firefox goes in the already quite large bucket of bad choices made by Firefox in the last years. I really tried my best to use it, going back to it every now and then, but I finally gave up. They don't offer anything that's really superior to other alternatives, privacy included.

I recently started using Obsidian after playing with several others. I think I'm going to stick with Obsidian as it has good number of people around on an active basis. Your product looks pretty fast and sharp but it is hard to trust browser-based workload for such a personal and subjective activity.

The note-taking market is very crowded. I think note-taking has already delivered its original slice bread. Pretty difficult to continue to reinvent the same and expect a different result. However, I do think, that going back to the basics of HTML (instead of continuing with the markdown) may break the ceiling a little further.

Any case. Good luck with your offering. It looks good and acts well.

Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say that HTML would break the ceiling a little further?

I feel that there's a lot of focus on markdown lately. Markdown is good. No issue there. But I feel we need to go back to html editing, so the modern day note taking apps can make more inroads into common usage.

Markdown compiles directly into HTML, or you can inline it with specific rendering rules if you want to get a little more complicated.

Is there a way to make it display dates as YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY? I've never been keen on the US date format.

The author should simply stick to ISO 8601; YYYY-MM-DD.

That would be nice, but ‘%x’ — date(1): locale's date representation — is also acceptable.

Now it is YYYY-MM-DD.

Ok, will improve this.

Now the date format is: MMM DD, YYYY

I'm sorry, but that's not much better than the original. Can't it be made configurable? Or at least follow the locale?

Although throwing this in is quite late: This discussion shouldn't be left wihtout mentioning https://logseq.com/ which I and many others utilized as my place for notes, sources and texts. There is a lot of activity around it - promoting, extending and developing this toll further

Having had only a short view on MdSilo I'm not able to distinguish all similarities or differences. Logseq is clearly defined as an outliner (every block is a bullet point) but all the other features look pretty similar.

Especially that Logseq as well as MdSilo are living in (chromium-alike) browsers working on local files (accessible as plain text) is a feature which I can't underline enough as this allows to use your notetaking environment idependently of user privileges.

Is anybody able to add something for a contrasting juxtaposition? With now 1000+ pages generated during heavy usage of Logseq during the last weeks it is unlikely for me to switch but might be helpful for other users.

Indirect Mentions seem to be worth a closer look. Do we see this feature in Logseq as well?

The landing page should probably make it clear that this is FOSS and not SASS. I saw the "Pricing" link at the bottom and closed the tab. I only saw that it was FOSS when I came here to comment about only wanting things that I can host myself for knowledge management.

I should change the wording Pricng to Source

Hey, this seems really nice.

I've been using Obsidian to keep my Japanese dictionary clip, so I did a quick test.

The import feature is working well, the .md renders perfectly.

But somehow, pasting is not working normally:

- Pasting into empty note is not working at all.

- If I type anything, then select it then paste, I can paste my clipboard into it, but urls are missing.

This is what I paste: https://www.toptal.com/developers/hastebin/nuhavenuge.md

BTW, I'm wondering how well does the graph view performs when there are, like, 1000+ notes?

Thanks for your test and feedback.

Yes, Pasting Markdown does not work currently. need to do some investigation.

It can handle 1000+ notes, may depends on computer performance.

Other than pricing and being able to write without an account, what would you say is the biggest difference between this and Notabase?

Has anything with the format changed since the fork that would prevent people from moving data between them?

Thanks to Richard. mdSilo is based on Notabase: https://notabase.io/. You can move data freely.

The biggest difference between Notabase or any other networked note-taking apps is that we introduced a new feature: {{ PubLink }}.

try it out for more details.

Is there a demonstration of {{ PubLink }}?

I enjoyed reading the documentation that's in the live preview however the part explaining this feature left me wondering exactly how it works and what it is used for.

Another thing I wasn't sure about was the Workspace feature. When I tap on New Workspace I am not sure how to switch back to the old one. Is it possible to switch among workspaces?

Worth reiterating that the live demo/help docs are great. Nice work!

Thanks.

short answer: PubLink just like BackLink, but it links to a public wiki note instead of a private note.

new workspace is just to open new mdSilo app on a new tab. it is OK for you to switch among the tabs?

I plan to prepare a more detailed docs in live demo soon.

Looks nice. However I don't like custom extensions like [[BackLinks]] or ((Block Reference)), because they translate badly to other markdown tools. I like my markdown files to be independent of the applications I use to edit them.

[[BackLinks]] seem to be common in the md-knowledge-base space, less so (()) and {{}}. I'd prefer standard markdown links with support from the editor to insert them faster and add backlinks and stuff like that.

I understand this objection. For me this is an acceptable compromise. I'm using logseg where links to pages [[]] and blocks (()) are noted the same way. In contrast to standard markdown links []() where displayed text and path is separated it fits better in typing flow if there is only the handle of page / tag required in brackets. Furthermore, at least Logseq is rendering those internal links diferently.

Another non-standard-markdown markup which Logseq allows is ^^highlighting text^^. However, this is something I miss at pure markdown.

The compromise is perfected as Logseq allows to remove those special markup for exporting content and using it elsewhere (e.g. as Pandoc input).

Don't know how MdSilo will handle this.

Reminds me of HackMD (https://hackmd.io/)

Hackmd has no live preview. Huge difference !

Yes it does.

And it's successor HegdeDoc (https://hedgedoc.org/)

Sounds interesting. How is keeping a reading list tackled? I currently use Obsidian.

maybe can utilize the HashTag?

Just looked at Obsidian - seems interesting and the graph connection seems neat but also a bit shiny object like. Do you find it particularly useful?

- Lively ecosystem of extension developers

- Acts as a GUI to manage markdown files which live on your system

- Works well as a dump of info

- Gives you features such as search and tag handling to your MD files

I feel like I have tried all the notes apps and this is the best for me by far. The editor mentioned in this thread is "Roam like" which is great, but I like something a bit more "lo-fi" in that it's basically just a manager for plain text files. I feel the functionality of "Roam like" is distracting because I think about things like "where should I put this" or "what title should I give this?" Also distracting is that they feel too much like a "no-node" platform on which I find myself building an application. In Obsidian, I name files as numbers based on date and then discover them via a hierarchy of tags and through search. Since the files are already on my system, I can also use other applications to manage or search these files.

Thanks - some helpful points there. As a function of the search and tag handling - do you find that you do use this or its just a nice to have option?

The tag handling and search are critical for me, and they work together. Because I name all files based on the date, I use the tagging system as a way to put files into buckets. I also create a "field" in the markdown file for a description. I can then run a search query which outputs a list which shows filename, tags and, the description field for each result.

The way I use tagging, allows for a hierarchical layout. For example, you could make a tag #layer1/layer2/layer3 and those tags will show in that hierarchy in the sidebar. If I click on layer3 in the list, then I'll get all the files in that tag. If I'm doing a lot of work in a certain bucket, then I might make an "index" file which has an embedded query to list files in that bucket. I could also add more fields to query against if I wanted only a subset of those files (project.)

The tool sits in that Goldilocks spot for me. Compared a "Roam Like" I feel it's a bit hacky and messy while still looking and working well. "Roam Like" feels like what you would get if you aimed more for perfection and more powerful functionality (remember that "Roam Like" is running on a database, while Obsidian is using MD files.) The trouble is, my brain breaks down when trying to be messy in a squeaky clean tool. And everything I do is messy.

Is there a way of self hosting the application in a server and have it access the data stored on that server file system? (aka runnings it in the cloud).

Thanks for distributing the fork and contributing to the note taking apps landscape!

You can try Notabase https://notabase.io/, which is better for self-hosting.

if you prefer mdSilo, need to toggle the Offline mode false in code and use the third-part services: vercel and supabase

Does actually data sitting under local folder, but seems isn't there web browser automatically update changes to the notes when edit notes same folder with vscode?

try to re-open/reload the folder?

Will tackle this issue, Thanks

Looks cool! Does Json-import mean it can import from Roam? Does it support Attributes and Attribute-Tables (like Roam)?

It cannot. I need to do some research.

WYSIWYG markdown editor is such a rarity.

How do I run it locally/on my server?

Is it possible to make some of my notes public but RO?

if your web browser is Chrome or Edge, which supports File System Access API, you can open/edit your local files under your permission.

no Publish feature currently, we can hope it in the future. you can export your works as plain text Markdown files.

there's a lot of good stuff happening in this space. Nice to see another option out there.

Any plans for Latex by any chance?

Latex or Diagrams like flowchart still in mind, will not be soon.

I had a pretty good time setting up Katex (https://katex.org/) on my personal blog. It’s fairly straightforward and supports most of the set of LaTeX people use in shorthand notes/blog posts. Having all the rendering happen on the client is a big win too.

And works on local Markdown

Seems nice. I am using tiddlywiki with tiddlymap plugin nowadays.

Alomost perfect tool! Please add support for Markdown tables.

Is this an alternative to Obsidian?

Yes, It could be, and it is free and open source, with a WYSIWYG editor

Just to add, Obsidian had a recent update that introduced a WYSIWYG editor.

It’s open source? You should have a link to the repo on the website.

This comment is not about MdSilo itself... but the design style on the linked page looks too much like certain splog-like landing pages I've come across (namely "this domain is for sale" pages.) Since I opened a bunch of Hacker News links all at once, I almost closed MdSilo's tab when I came across it, out of instinct.

Depending on how you spread the word about MdSilo, that may not be a problem. If it is a problem, though, you may wish to address it.

Thanks for your suggestion, I will tackle this next, Thanks.

I second this reaction, and almost closed the tab out of habit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com