The latest release of Obsidian is still very basic, but it does now allow you to do some basic folding in Markdown. Off by default, but can be enabled via plugins, you can fold Markdown headers and lists.

https://pastebin.com/6Bxba4Xw

Version 0.5.0 was still a bit hard to use, but 0.5.1 which just came out feels pretty solid if anyone has been holding off giving Obsidian a try. Personally, I still need to wait to see how the editor evolves. It works, but I wouldn't say that using it "sparks joy" yet. Hopefully that will come.

“sparks joy” – that’s a lovely phrase, perfectly describing the thrill felt by a veteran CRIMPer when s/he encounters an app that is a genuine pleasure to use! UX is still vastly underestimated by many programmers. If you want your users to use your app every day, for hours at a time, focus on UI/UX (no matter how many clever/powerful features you’ve incorporated into your app).

It’s a pleasure to watch NotePlan (originally a singularly uninspiring UX) develop into a well-rounded app that “sparks joy”. Mind you, there are one or two bugs in the very latest version (which does the Typora thing of instantly converting Markdown into a rich-text lookalike). But it still sparks joy!

Luhmann wrote:

Version 0.5.0 was still a bit hard to use, but 0.5.1 which just came out
feels pretty solid if anyone has been holding off giving Obsidian a try.
Personally, I still need to wait to see how the editor evolves. It
works, but I wouldn't say that using it "sparks joy" yet. Hopefully that
will come.

To be clear -- folding in Obsidian is not persistent. Close the document or app and return later and the folding (at the heading level) is gone. It's because there's nothing in the raw plain text file behind the scenes in Obsidian that can retain folding knowledge -- it's not part of any "standard" markdown.

0.52 just came out, and someone already posted a video walkthrough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2ysYig8Wo

Updates are coming fast now. 0.5.3 just dropped. One nice thing is that it now self-updates so you don't need to re-download with each update. Just restart the app. (I suppose re-downloading may be required for more major updates.)

It is getting to the point where it could be a good replacement for other general purpose note taking apps, such as FSNotes or Bear. But it is unlikely to ever replace an outlining app like Workflowy, Dynalist, or Roam if that is what you want. With some additional plugins and some improvements to the editor, I could see it also taking on something like Ulysses or Scrivener though.

I agree in part. I think Obsidian bloomed rapidly to a certain feature set and is now probably reached its plateau. Scrivener and Ulysses replacement? No, not at all --- sort of comparing a fork to a power drill. Obsidian doesn't even offer meaningful export options and there are none on the roadmap.

OTOH, it looks like the Roam guy has been tweeting about making a Roam version that works with locally-stored files -- which was the stated motivation for Obsidian and other apps. Another market equilibrium emerging.

Luhmann wrote:

It is getting to the point where it could be a good replacement for
other general purpose note taking apps, such as FSNotes or Bear. But it
is unlikely to ever replace an outlining app like Workflowy, Dynalist,
or Roam if that is what you want. With some additional plugins and some
improvements to the editor, I could see it also taking on something like
Ulysses or Scrivener though.

Obsidian is only at 0.5 and even when it gets to 1.0 the plugin architecture will open up to third party developers allowing new features to be added. The main thing that is still in development I think is the editor. I think as this grows the full potential of the app will show itself. For instance, will it have transclusion where you can edit linked documents? Maybe. But I do think we can see some general directions in the development..

Paul Korm wrote:

I agree in part. I think Obsidian bloomed rapidly to a certain feature set and is now probably reached its plateau.

In software like this one would expect nested tags, but that is not yet in the roadmap.

Theoretically, it would be pretty easy to incorporate obsidian into the workflow since all my note are stored as markdown files inside a single folder. They rely, however, on automatic wiki linking, so this works very well as an indexed folder in DEVONthink. Even if it would be easy, then, for me to open my folder as a volt in Obsidian, I am not sure it would be useful as I would be missing out on the best feature, in my view, that is the graph view. (The graph view relies on double brackets style wiki linking.)

Apart from that, I am not sure it offers much more. The return links are nice, but that is also possible in devonthink. One also has to make an effort to set aside the fact that it is an electron-based app for, in a way, it still feels a lot like a browser. For editing the files, it feels weird to choose it over something else, like, let us say, BBEdit.

A last remark: I find it astonishing that automatic wiki linking is so underrated as a feature and how poorly disseminated it is. Apart from DT3, only VoodooPad has it. And this last one is not even worth considering at this point.

Actually, due to the Roam Research mania there's quite of bit of this popping up everywhere. Obsidian pretty shameless advertises it's Roam without the cloud (you can add your own cloud storage but it's not required.). Then we have the venerable (but fading) and incomparable ConnectedText. Tinderbox recently got onto emulating Roam with substantial new linking / back-linking features. Other Roam emulators with wikilink/back-link support of some sort or another include Amplenote, TiddlyRoam, Org-Roam. And now apparently Roam Research itself is getting onto the anti-Roam bandwagon by suggesting it will have a feature-limited local-storage (i.e., not cloud) version some unknown time down the line.

It's sort of interesting to watch how these wiki-like things are popping up all over -- did Roam scratch an itch?

bvasconcelos wrote:

I find it astonishing that automatic wiki linking is so
underrated as a feature and how poorly disseminated it is. Apart from
DT3, only VoodooPad has it. And this last one is not even worth
considering at this point.

By automatic wiki linking I mean the mode in which every name corresponding to another file appears as a link, regardless of double brackets. I don't see this popping up anywhere else at all. Which is a shame.

The "new" Tinderbox features aren't new at all, they are just stuff that should have been there already a long time ago. For a long time, there was a tick box in the preferences to allow [[wiki links]], but it did absolutely nothing. It is also worth pointing out that the so-called "zip links" do not work with markdown or plaint text, only with rtf (which renders it without much worth or use to me).

So, indeed, it must have itched quite a bit.

Speaking of Connected Text... it still remains the best wiki software there is, in my view. And Roam is much inferior to it in terms of features, usability, price, and so on. If only it were easier to use in a mac...

Both Roam and Obsidian identify "unlinked references"/"unlinked mentions" alongside those that have been deliberately linked, and allow you to link them if you like. (Not sure if this is implemented yet in Obsidian, but I know it is planned.)

Obsidian version 6.0 gets more granularity - you can now link to markdown headers within a document.

bvasconcelos wrote:

By automatic wiki linking I mean the mode in which every name
corresponding to another file appears as a link, regardless of double
brackets. I don't see this popping up anywhere else at all. Which is a
shame.

I think that VoodooPad did have it all the time.

0.6

Public v1.0 has not been released as yet.

Luhmann wrote:

Obsidian version 6.0 gets more granularity - you can now link to
markdown headers within a document.

Luhmann wrote:

Both Roam and Obsidian identify "unlinked references"/"unlinked
mentions" alongside those that have been deliberately linked, and allow
you to link them if you like. (Not sure if this is implemented yet in
Obsidian, but I know it is planned.)

True, they do. Yet, this is something completely unrelated.
With auto wiki links I can go from page a to pages b, c or d even if they don't mention page a. Moreover, I can set up aliases for pages b, c and d so that I can have as many names as I can possibly conceive serving as links towards them.


Bernhard wrote:

bvasconcelos wrote:
By automatic wiki linking I mean the mode in which every name
>corresponding to another file appears as a link, regardless of double
>brackets. I don't see this popping up anywhere else at all. Which is a
>shame.
>

I think that VoodooPad did have it all the time.

I mentioned it in my previous post. Only DEVONthink and VoodooPad have this feature. So what I was saying is that I don't see it popping up in new places.

With auto wiki links I can go from page a to pages b, c or d even if they don’t mention page a.

Please explain. This doesn't make sense to me. Aliases I understand, and both Roam and Obsidian seem to plan to implement this in some form in the future, but I don't understand how a page knows to link to a page without any mention of that page (linked or unlinked)?

Luhmann wrote:

With auto wiki links I can go from page a to pages b, c or d even if
they don’t mention page a.

Please explain. This doesn't make sense to me. Aliases I understand, and
both Roam and Obsidian seem to plan to implement this in some form in
the future, but I don't understand how a page knows to link to a page
without any mention of that page (linked or unlinked)?

Page a:
```
# Ilias

The Iliad begins with the wrath of Achilles.
```

Page b:
```
# Wrath
A boiling of the blood around the heart...
```

In DT3 and VP:
Whilst reading page A, I can go to b (Wrath).

In Roam:
There is no link to page B, since Page B never mentions the "Iliad". While reading page A, I can only see what other pages mention it. I can't simply go to every other possible location I would in other systems.


I hope this makes sense.

On what basis does it make this connection? I personally would worry that such a system would make a lot of useless connections. I would prefer to have some degree of manual control over it.

Luhmann wrote:

On what basis does it make this connection? I personally would worry
that such a system would make a lot of useless connections. I would
prefer to have some degree of manual control over it.

Based on the record name/filename. That is, if I have a file called Plato, every occurrence of the word "Plato" elsewhere is a link to this file.

I personally would worry
that such a system would make a lot of useless connections. I would
prefer to have some degree of manual control over it.

It can actually be quite useful. Here is a use case to illustrate: https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/how-i-use-wiki-links-and-aliases/47846

bvasconcelos wrote:

I find it astonishing that automatic wiki linking is so
underrated as a feature and how poorly disseminated it is. Apart from
DT3, only VoodooPad has it. And this last one is not even worth
considering at this point.

I think ConnectedText can do this as well, the auto link function, though I've never actually tried it.

The help file says "Auto link is especially useful when text is pasted into a topic. It avoids adding links manually, an operation that can be time-consuming if the projects contains hundreds of topics."

There is an option to only link to the first occurrence of each topic name found, to avoid having too many links that are the same.

This is exactly how the unmatched link/reference feature in Roam/Obsidian I described earlier works. Unless I’m still not understanding something?

bvasconcelos wrote:

Based on the record name/filename. That is, if I have a file called
Plato, every occurrence of the word "Plato" elsewhere is a link to this
file.

Dr Andus wrote:

bvasconcelos wrote:
> I find it astonishing that automatic wiki linking is so
>underrated as a feature and how poorly disseminated it is. Apart from
>DT3, only VoodooPad has it. And this last one is not even worth
>considering at this point.

I think ConnectedText can do this as well, the auto link function,
though I've never actually tried it.

The help file says "Auto link is especially useful when text is pasted
into a topic. It avoids adding links manually, an operation that can be
time-consuming if the projects contains hundreds of topics."

There is an option to only link to the first occurrence of each topic
name found, to avoid having too many links that are the same.

Indeed, it has a similar feature to the one I am describing. But it is not exactly the same, since it doesn't allow for the use of aliases (as far as I know/remember).

Dr Andus wrote:

bvasconcelos wrote:
> I find it astonishing that automatic wiki linking is so
>underrated as a feature and how poorly disseminated it is. Apart from
>DT3, only VoodooPad has it. And this last one is not even worth
>considering at this point.

I think ConnectedText can do this as well, the auto link function,
though I've never actually tried it.

The help file says "Auto link is especially useful when text is pasted
into a topic. It avoids adding links manually, an operation that can be
time-consuming if the projects contains hundreds of topics."

There is an option to only link to the first occurrence of each topic
name found, to avoid having too many links that are the same.

Indeed, it has a similar feature to the one I am describing. But it is not exactly the same, since it doesn't allow for the use of aliases (as far as I know/remember).


Luhmann wrote:

This is exactly how the unmatched link/reference feature in
Roam/Obsidian I described earlier works. Unless I’m still not
understanding something?

If you are on a mac, you could try and see for your self.
I have both DEVONthink and Obsidian open right now in front of me and I can assure that they do not share the same capabilities in this regard.

I'm confused. If a feature wasn't there before but is not, then it's new (in most universes) -- "should have been there" is not relevant.

I think you're confusing Tinderbox with something else. There was never a tick box in Tinderbox for [[wiki links]]. There has been a setting like this in DEVONthink preferences since at least the early days of v2.

Ziplinks work in Tinderbox regardless of style applied to the note. Tinderbox does not edit external files -- RTF or plain text or anything else. Maybe you're thinking of DEVONthink in this case also?

bvasconcelos wrote:

The "new" Tinderbox features aren't new at all, they are just stuff that
should have been there already a long time ago. For a long time, there
was a tick box in the preferences to allow [[wiki links]], but it did
absolutely nothing. It is also worth pointing out that the so-called
"zip links" do not work with markdown or plaint text, only with rtf
(which renders it without much worth or use to me).

I believe you are talking about something completely different. DevonThink uses AI to analyze your entire document and looks for similar documents. This is similar to Google's "page rank." I don't recall voodoo pad having this feature.

bvasconcelos wrote:

If you are on a mac, you could try and see for your self.
I have both DEVONthink and Obsidian open right now in front of me and I
can assure that they do not share the same capabilities in this regard.