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Obsidian gets folding
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Posted by Luhmann
May 16, 2020 at 05:13 AM
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.
Posted by Paul Korm
May 16, 2020 at 10:39 AM
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.
Posted by Luhmann
May 17, 2020 at 09:54 AM
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.
Posted by bvasconcelos
May 18, 2020 at 03:03 AM
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.
Posted by Paul Korm
May 18, 2020 at 10:41 AM
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.