Hacker News Reader

Comment by noisy_boy | Hacker News Reader

Obsidian has replaced all (work, home, mobile) note taking solutions everywhere for me. The last want from my side is removing the friction related to editing markdown tables (e.g. multi-line content in cells) - Obsidian has some plugins that makes things better but it is miles behind what, say, confluence wiki offers for tables.

View on HN

Biggest issue I have with Obsidian is sharing notes with others. Conversely the crimes I am able to commit with the dataview plugin make it all worthwhile.

You can use https://github.com/KosmosisDire/obsidian-webpage-export to turn Obsidian into a static site generator, and deploy the html to Vercel or github pages for free

I mentioned my workflow in a separate comment here but I’d say for personal notes yes you can use Obsidian for everything.

Where Zotero has come in useful for me is to gather and sort academic journal articles and to be able to feed them into Obsidian.

This is first I've heard of Obsidian, and looking at the web page I sort of maybe get what it does. But to help me out, can you describe what you use it does for you. I didn't see any references to citations or the like that zotero is mainly for. Is it just a note app? If so, what makes it so good?

What it does for me:

- everything is markdown which I'm comfortable in

- I can use conventional structure of folders and notes within folders (not for everyone but it works for me)

- extensive support for cross-linking/embedding/bookmarks along with connection graphs/search (out of these, I had use cases for cross-linking and embedding which worked very well)

- nice responsive UI with support for themes/customizations (I particularly like the Nord theme). Allows lots of control like custom CSS etc for more fine-tuning

- allows customizing keyboard shortcut for practically any action

- quality of desktop and mobile (Android) application is pretty good and the look and feel is consistent

- extensive plugin system: I mainly use plugins out of the box but with stuff like Data tables plugins, you can automate/implement your own workflow (I am too lazy to use all that). Even with out-of-box stuff, things like the git plugin allows version control with minimal effort, smart links allows regex based rules to convert strings to URLs (like entering JIRA ticket no. which converts to clickable URL), MathJax support for entering formulas which render beautifully etc; there are lots of such quality of life benefits via the plugins which adds up.

- allows easy syncing either using their paid service or using syncthing (which is what I use)

Thanks for this. Would you recommend this to someone who is not already a markdown user or that a key prerequisite for this to be useful?

The only concern I have is that the content that happens to match markdown rules will get interpreted and the subsequent highlighting etc might surprise/annoy a user not familiar with markdown. E.g. adding a dash at the beginning of the line will get interpreted as a list item, typing asterisk will trigger the editor to put another asterisk and put the cursor in the middle with the expectation that you want to type bold text - you can press backspace to remove the extra asterisk and continue as per normal but if you are in the business of dealing with loads of asterisks/dashes at the beginning of the line, and don't care about markdown, you might be pissed.

All the approaches to handle this kind of thing are not as simple as turning off a checkbox. If that is a deal breaker, then this may not be the app for you. OTOH, if you don't mind occasionally dealing with that (or better still, picking up the bare minimum amount of markdown), it'll provide a pretty rich note taking experience. For typical content, I don't think this will be a frequent issue but then again, what is typical for someone may be atypical for me and vice versa.

Personally I think it is totally worth it but YMMV.

The iOS app is similarly well done.

Do you use syncthing to sync notes with your phone too? How do you set that up?

Obsidian has an optional paid sync plugin that works out of the box. You could use Syncthing but I don't think it does text file diffing? Obsidian Sync keeps a version history of each file

I have tried to use a plugin called Obsidian Git that automatically runs git commits and pushes on an interval, but I have found it frequently had conflicts and the visual for resolving those conflicts wasn't super helfpul. I ended up just paying for Obsidian Sync. I wish I had a solution that kept my data just to myself, but I don't care that much of Obsidian has my notes

Great writeup of the tradeoffs. Also, Obsidian Sync offers end-to-end encryption.

For my notes, it is only me who edits, so I don't have conflicts as such. If I edit notes on the phone while on the move, syncthing syncs to PC once I'm back home; similarly any changes done at home on the PC flow to the phone. I also use the Obsidian Git plugin (though I have disabled automatic commits and commit as and when I feel the need) - haven't had any conflicts so far.

It's also only me editing my notes and I have Obsidian git conflicts all the time.

Also, it freezes my typing every time it tries to push/pull. So if you put it on an interval, to make it more automatic, your typing will just be frozen every however many seconds

I do - Syncthing runs on both Linux (my PC) and Android (my phone). The configuration is same as any syncthing setup to share a folder (the top-level folder containing all the Obsidian vaults in this case) between two nodes (my PC and phone in this case) - their UI[0] is relatively straightforward.

[0]: https://docs.syncthing.net/intro/getting-started.html

Vrite was featured recently, I just mention it because I like how the editor does tables:

https://editor.vrite.io/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446045

Obsidian should definitely take a page from that. I'm currently with a plugin they won't add to the community marketplace:

https://github.com/Stardusten/ob-table-enhancer

Vrite doesn't support mobile though, which seems important for OC's usage.

Thanks for the link to the plug-in for Obsidian! This solves so many of the problems I have had switching to Obsidian completely.

If only there were a way to enable a three pane layout in Obsidian, I’d be in heaven.

I think you can as it has both left and right sidebars. All settings, plugins, themes get saved in a dot subfolder from your starting point, so you can replicate that layout for other vaults if you want.

I like highly minimal interfaces, so I modded mine with the Border theme and few CSS snippets so it looks like this: https://cldup.com/LAeiG4q2ED.jpeg

I found the Obsidian mobile app to be really flaky. Unreliable sync and it didn’t feel at all like a native app (on iOS at least).

I'm not an Electron hater but I really want notes apps to feel as responsive as possible.

Ive been using Bear (now Bear 2 beta) for years for that reason, but I really wish it had a few features such as shared notebooks and a plug-in system.

I use synchthing so syncing is quite prompt. The android version works well.

What are you doing to sync your files? I'm current using the git integration and while it works it's a bit too manual for my tastes. I think I'm ok with last write wins as long as the sync stores history. The whole commiting changes, pushing, pulling, dealing with merge conflicts is a bit too much workflow for my notes.

Not parent, but I have had a good experience using SyncThing to keep my obsidian notes synchronized across devices.

I have a server at home where I self host a few services and access over tailscale so I have a device that is “always on” and syncing, but prior I used a $5 droplet for much of the same. Can recommend.

I second SyncThing in combination with Obsidian. Works like a charm.

I just setup Obsidian a couple days ago and have been using https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync which seems to work ok. I'm curious if SyncThing would be preferable. How does it handle conflicts? How often does it sync? Does it drain the battery on mobile if it syncs too often?

I cant speak to mobile personally as it is not a use-case for me but as far as conflicts SyncThing works great.

I have been running it for a little over a year now across three primary devices and the server and I don’t think I’ve seen more than a handful of conflicts. Don’t remember a single one with my obsidian directory which is currently ~500 files (markdown/pdf etc).

I’ve found that the official Obsidian Sync solution performs well and has no issues with conflicts, unlike iCloud Drive which I used prior. It does feel pricey for a single feature, but I just frame it as valuable support for an amazing product that I’d otherwise be paying nothing for. After futzing around with sync for a while I was happy to throw some money at the problem and move on.

I use iCloud to sync. Just locate the vault in an iCloud drive folder called Obsidian. Works beautifully to sync between my different Macs and iOS devices.

Drop the folder into Nextcloud.

When tables get too complex (e.g. generated columns using dataview) I switch to embedding subnotes using the ![[]] syntax and "clean embeds" CSS [1].

[1]: https://kool.casa/notes/dft1156nwrunrsma9dmyegh/

This is a good tip but I'm referring to the inadequacy of markdown tables + Obsidian plugins that deal with that. I'm yet to see a solution that works as well as tables in wiki. I think Obsidian should focus on improving that as part of the core software.

I don't think people should be making tables, they should be making data, which they put into a table via a query.

I ran with this for my own note taking system, mdld. https://github.com/vid/mdld , which works with hedgedoc.

A Table is data, don't make things unnecessary complicated. Some data are better managed directly in a table, if you have a good table interface, others are more natural managed in separate files. Each case their own.

And how does mdld differ from dataview?

Huh! I hadn't seen dataview before (I think mdld predates it), I'm more than happy to use another work if it's a supported superset. mdld is sort of inspired by Semantic Mediawiki, dataview uses SMW's :: notation, which is a good sign. However, I don't see a few features that mdld has, like concepts, which are very useful, and the hedgedoc application of mdld has some nice dynamic views, for example, creating a gantt chart out of data dispersed across markdown files. In general, its emphasis is creating things out of data to support features like round-tripping, rather than creating self-contained black box information views. But its more of a proof of concept, so I'm going to look at adopting dataview.

I don't think both serve the same use cases. Or can you use obsidian or does a plugin exist to annotate and read pdfs?

I use this one: https://github.com/elias-sundqvist/obsidian-annotator

Is it ok for you to pay 8$ monthly for sync between devices? Or did you use another way of sync or don't use it at all?

That’s my only gripe with obsidian.. I’d like sync between my devices that avoids central servers.

SyncThing can accomplish that.

Thank you - I’ll check it out

You can use SyncThing

Thank you I’ll check it out

Charging for the sync is their primary revenue model. Zotero is doing the same.

I don’t bemoan this approach that basically gives everything local away for free.

Having an easy way to sync is kind of a core feature of a note taking app.

I'm not sure how profitable Notion is though.

It’s a tricky one in this age of “free”. I’d ironically pay for them to allow my agency and privacy, I’m probably not _most_ people though.

Sorry whete are you missing agency and privacy? It’s desktop first software you can back it up and pretty much sync it as you like.

Specifically regarding Obsidian it’s just a folder full of plain text markdown files, doesn’t get much more portable than that.

I just store my vault in a backed up iCloud folder. Syncs to Apple devices automatically for free.

Does it work on iOS devices?

yes. This is the configuration I use.

I just use syncthing. Regarding keeping configurations in sync, I have a "template" vault where I install and test all my plugins first and have a script that copies the entire .obsidian folder (minus some specific files) from the template vault to all my other vaults which results in syncing of all plugins/settings. I did buy their Catalyst license though since I wanted to pay back something for all the good work they did.

$8 USD ($12 AUD) seems incredibly expensive just to sync your markdown notes around. That’s three times the price of my entire iCloud services (which apps other than Obsidian sync with fine, but Obsidian has all sorts of issues with it).

I use Resilio sync to sync the Obsidian vault on all my devices and NAS.

There's a plugin called Remotely Save to sync files in a s3-like service (I use the 10gb free backblaze offer for it).

Setting it up was a bit of a hassle but now it just works.

The problem I have with obsidian is I cant use it on my corporate machine which I'm forced to use all the time.

Native PDF search and frictionless adding of metadata to non-markdown files are lacking also.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com