I have been away for quite awhile so forgive exhuming any old commentary.

For my PKM needs, I need hub/spoke/node visualization. So for a long time I have used TheBrain (up to v.11)

V.12 seems to suggest that Harlan has "jumped the shark" (US media lingo) meaning TheBrain (application) has gone too far.

While some nice improvements made, it now feels "over-engineered" as if perfunctory features have been added to justify cost of an upgrade.

As such, this forum turned me on to OBSIDIAN which at first glance to offer great flexibility and modularity.

I have not tried *Roam*, (which also seems to be a popular at this dance).

But my key essentials are graph-visualization and local PC operation (don't trust my data easily to the cloud - absent encryption)

As it is now May 2021, I wonder if I may solicit comments - esp. from anyone who has used TheBrain in the past and may have changed to OBSIDIAN or another graphing PKM solution.

As we all know, changing is a big effort - and another reason why text/md based solutions are also essential.

Also, I am keen to be able to create a topic specific Project to publish to the web. TheBrain does this only via their own Cloud. Unattractive since in v.8 it was possible to publish to one's own servers.

Comments from this most August body is welcome.

-TF

I may have been unduly harsh on TB12.

Having road tested more this night, I can see where Harlan is going.

It is a material improvement.

If I could have edited the prior comment - would have.

Hereby amended. -TF

Seconding the notion - I tried Roam Research and Obsidian, now firmly back in the TheBrain camp (using the fairly stable v12 beta).

Numerous advantages of the decades of development work - e.g. there is no scalability and performance limitation (a "brain" will never grow too big); to-do's are aggregated automatically and elegantly in a side pane (which has full edit capabilities); iOS apps could be better but do the job; import/export sufficiently mature to use TB as a graph database: E.g. I imported the full APQC capability model as a graph, including KPIs translating into text, which is now available for cross-referencing in any value realization thoughts that I am adding.
If need be (corporate compliance) TheBrain works flawlessly in full offline mode (unlike Roam), while offering stable online sync where data is less sensitive.

I am gladly paying for my annual subscription to get both the cloud sync as well as steady stream of meaningful improvements (even TB12 beta has by now shipped 52 releases!).
Innovation is not small - Markdown is much improved, the automatic aggregation of related (not yet linked) topics mimics to some degree a key feature of Roam, etc. etc.

While I will not stop using the gazillion other tools (CRIMP), at least Roam and Obsidian will not be considered in the near future, based on my current success with Brain for a number of my use cases.

TempusFugit wrote:

I may have been unduly harsh on TB12.

Having road tested more this night, I can see where Harlan is going.

It is a material improvement.

If I could have edited the prior comment - would have.

Hereby amended. -TF

Some additional positive notes about TheBrain. The search is very fast. You can now also quickly create a new thought right from the search bar... it works like nvAlt and some other apps do, combining search with creation.

So navigating around a large Brain is fast and efficient.

Sounds like I need to look at The Brain again. I fell off the bandwagon at version 8, back in the old days of Java.

I'm afraid The Brain 12 is forcing me in the other direction - I'm currently moving all my data out of The Brain into other programs and will cancel my subscription.

The developers have never cared about backwards compatibility, are happy to drop one useful feature for every one the introduce, and don't care for users who don't work the way they think we should. They dropped export to a website around version 7; it took them a long time to get a usable notes editor after they dropped the html editor around version 9; and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few attachments to any note without the whole thing grinding to a virtual halt. If I were to continue using it I would have to run three versions (6, 11 and 12) in parallel, and, much as I admire the software, I'm getting weary of being surprised with each new release into changing procedures and moving data. And I'm paying a subscription to give myself that extra work.

Nope, enough it enough for me. I can see the attraction for most people, but for me it doesn't work any more.

Graham

Graham Rhind wrote:

and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few attachments to any
note without the whole thing grinding to a virtual halt.

I would personally attribute this to the beta state of the software. Is TheBrain perhaps indexing the content of the attachments? I would be very surprised for such a function to not be swift in the final version, as the developers seem to invest a lot on the software's scalability.

That said, I do miss the web publishing.

I reported this after the first beta release. It's still an issue in the release I tested today. They would have to change their strategy (of reading attachments into the notes, instead of just listing the directory, as with previous versions) with version 12 to resolve this and, given their history, I don't think that's going to happen. They seem determined to keep the attachments as part of the note even though many people have reported problems with this (and it is a real barrier to productivity to have to scroll though lists of attachments to see a note).

Frankly, I wasn't willing to wait and see because I have too much data that needs exporting.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Graham Rhind wrote:
>and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few attachments to
any
>note without the whole thing grinding to a virtual halt.

I would personally attribute this to the beta state of the software. Is
TheBrain perhaps indexing the content of the attachments? I would be
very surprised for such a function to not be swift in the final version,
as the developers seem to invest a lot on the software's scalability.

That said, I do miss the web publishing.

I have tried to move to Obsidian / Roam / Mem but then quickly decided to continue with TheBrain. I have been using it since 1999 and the main brain file has 13600 thoughts.
Files are not imported - I just add them as a link. This approach does not increase the size of a brain file and the tool is fast and runs without any issues.

You can change this under Preferences (TheBrain 12): Options -> Preferences -> Behavior (tab) -> Content (section) -> At "On drag and drop files:" choose "Link to dropped files".

Kind regards,
Dominik

Graham Rhind wrote:

(...) and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few attachments to any
note without the whole thing grinding to a virtual halt.

Yes, I stopped all Internalizing of files into "Thoughts" some time back in order to maximize options.

I keep only symlinks in a related "Thought". -TF

If it were an Open Source project this would not have been the case.

Web Services are a profit maximizer for TheBrain Technologies LP (But they are also a unknown security risk for us).

BTW, I just buy the app and don't pay a sub fee. ~ $220, good for about 2 version cycles.

TBT has admirable support, also.

I have not encountered issues with connected files yet. But I am only now immersing in v12.

░░░|| - TF - ||░░░

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Graham Rhind wrote:
>and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few attachments to

That said, I do miss the web publishing.

@Dominik Actually, that's a great example of what's frustrated me about The Brain for years.

I have good procedural reasons to choose to import files rather than linking to them, and for having large numbers of attachments in single thoughts. I've never had a problem with this approach before. In The Brain 11 I can have a thought with 280 internal attachments and it opens within 2 seconds. In The Brain 12 the same thought takes 35 seconds to open, every single time. It makes the software unusable for me. Each time something like this changes (which is with almost every major update) I have 4 options:

1) Abandon The Brain
2) Change the way I work and spend significant amounts of time altering existing Brains (which is as you suggest)
3) Run different versions of The Brain in parallel
4) Continue to pay the subscription but stick with the current version until The Brain has sorted out the issues (which can take several years and several updates, as with the notes editor debacle between versions 8/9 and 11)

Up to now I've usually adopted a combination of options 2 to 4, but this latest version is the last straw. The developers have always brushed off concerns from users about some updates. I'm putting in a lot of effort to make my work adapt to the software instead of the software adapting to my work. In the good old days, of course, I would have bought an update and could stick with it without extra costs until a later, better, version came along. Now, with a subscription, I'd be paying to use legacy software. It's time for me to walk away (for the time being) and vote with my wallet.

Sure, I shall miss The Brain more than they will miss my subscription money, but having my data in more boring but more stable (and, incidentally, very much cheaper) software is saving me time and money. I'm not saying I won't go back at some stage, but I shall be much more wary about putting any amounts of data back into it.

@TempusFugit I find the non-subscription version rather limited considering its cost, but that may be a way forward for me at some time in the future.

Graham

This is a good choice, but only if you do not intend to synchronize your brains across devices.

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

I have tried to move to Obsidian / Roam / Mem but then quickly decided
to continue with TheBrain. I have been using it since 1999 and the main
brain file has 13600 thoughts.
Files are not imported - I just add them as a link. This approach does
not increase the size of a brain file and the tool is fast and runs
without any issues.

You can change this under Preferences (TheBrain 12): Options ->
Preferences -> Behavior (tab) -> Content (section) -> At "On drag and
drop files:" choose "Link to dropped files".

Kind regards,
Dominik

Graham Rhind wrote:
>(...) and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few attachments
to any
>note without the whole thing grinding to a virtual halt.

What if the paths to external files remain the same across devices? I do this with Dropbox.


Stephen Zeoli wrote:

This is a good choice, but only if you do not intend to synchronize your
brains across devices.

Dominik Holenstein wrote:
I have tried to move to Obsidian / Roam / Mem but then quickly decided
>to continue with TheBrain. I have been using it since 1999 and the main
>brain file has 13600 thoughts.
>Files are not imported - I just add them as a link. This approach does
>not increase the size of a brain file and the tool is fast and runs
>without any issues.
>
>You can change this under Preferences (TheBrain 12): Options ->
>Preferences -> Behavior (tab) -> Content (section) -> At "On drag and
>drop files:" choose "Link to dropped files".
>
>Kind regards,
>Dominik
>
>Graham Rhind wrote:
>>(...) and now with version 12 I cannot have more than a few
attachments
>to any
>>note without the whole thing grinding to a virtual halt.

Graham Rhind wrote:

Sure, I shall miss The Brain more than they will miss my subscription
money, but having my data in more boring but more stable (and,
incidentally, very much cheaper) software is saving me time and money.

Have you already decided which software you will move your data to? If so: What's your choice?

@Franz

Yes, the move is in progress :-)

I've moved two projects to UltraRecall. They may stay there or be ported further to MyInfo or RightNote. I can never make up my mind which of these group I prefer to use.

One project (with the many attachments per note) I've moved to Zoot.

My family tree is moving to a specialist genealogist software. That's taking a while though - I never realised how extensive it had become - The Brain hides that very well!

Franz Grieser wrote:

Graham Rhind wrote:
>Sure, I shall miss The Brain more than they will miss my subscription
>money, but having my data in more boring but more stable (and,
>incidentally, very much cheaper) software is saving me time and money.

Have you already decided which software you will move your data to? If
so: What's your choice?

Thanks for the insight, Graham.
So you're going the more conservative road to proven workhorses. That, however, do not have the visual approach and the linking capabilities of TheBrain (I guess - I never really used TheBrain, just watched some videos) - or do I miss something?

@Franz

No, you're right. The idea behind The Brain is great and I've been using it (with some gaps) since its first version. But the amount of reworking I'm having to do with each recent new version simply hasn't proved worth it. The proven workhouses lack the spark and some of the capabilities, and I have to compromise a little on how I structure my data, but in the long run they're saving me time.

And money ...

Franz Grieser wrote:

Thanks for the insight, Graham.
So you're going the more conservative road to proven workhorses. That,
however, do not have the visual approach and the linking capabilities of
TheBrain (I guess - I never really used TheBrain, just watched some
videos) - or do I miss something?

@Graham: :-)

Obsidian is pretty cool. Markdown, YAML front matter on notes for things like aliases.

Here's something cool. A six part series on using Obsidian - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVLHty1-NuvPa9V0b0UwbzBd .

If I weren't so heavily invested - figuratively and literally - in Devonthink, I'd strongly consider Obsidian.

Devonthink does more, but Obsidian is very open in the way it builds vaults (folders). That's nice.

To reply to the original posters question...

I have used TheBrain for several years (version 8 the full version ... skipped 9 and 10 and then the free version with 11 and 12) and for a while it worked very well. Specially the full version with attachements ect., but I guess for me it is not worth the costs to keep paying for it. And there are lots of alternatives these days. That said the main reason I left TheBrain was the ongoing high CPU issue's (at least on a Mac). I have noticed this issue for several years and it's never fixed although there where many claims it was. Even today this issue is still open. Create an empty brain with 5 thoughts and browse from thought to thought and youre CPU will easily go to 100+ percent and after a while you fan will go crazy.

And I have found out that although I was very in favour of the plex with the brain (I still like the fact that you only see the directly related thoughts relative to the current one) I came to the conclusion that I do not need it as much. I now really like the workflow possibilities of Obsidian (I moved completely to Obsidian as of June 2020). Daily notes, dataview plugin, calendar plugin, kanban plugin give me a very nice tool which I use exclusively now.

Specially the fact that I can integrate my time management (previously done with outlook) with my knowledge management in 1 solution is priceless in my thoughts.

And the fact that it is all free is amazing. In my point of view only a mobile app (for me mainly as a reference / read only version) is missing, but it is on the way. Another plus for Obsidian is the fact that the development pace is unbelievable and there are also many great plugin developers that make amazing plugins. It can be rather overwhelming even.

Good luck with choosing you solution.

I am also much impressed with Obsidian and have made a donation accordingly.

For my workstyle, I discovered that the nature of "Zettelkasten" - i.e. need to type in an capture your thoughts and refine over time - represents a huge overhead for my primary Brain use case: Structuring "discovered" information (web pages, articles, concepts, people, projects, tasks, ...).
I have seen people showing a bookshelf full of paper notebooks and note cards, and hailing Obsidian (or Roam ...) as a good solution that allows them to go digital.
My PoV is different, in that I would have never done the paper thing to begin with ...
I am curating, editing, arranging, augmenting.
I am not writing books here (and don't have time to).

Re:previous poster integration with time management - possible on 2 levels: Tasks are globally aggregated, and links to timeline are also available to link thoughts to milestones.
The tasks aspect in particular interestingly has led to an almost symmetrical workflow between TB (one click to get there) and Obsidian (when I was trying to use it for the same purpose).

I hope that makes sense to show the kind of bias that might lead somebody to consider TheBrain in preference to "type it all yourself" Obsidian?

Does someone try to use theBrain and obsidian (as markdown redactor and external file-storage) ?
Just put in theBrain link (via "obsidian types" link) to your obsidian note and read it content via obsidian but use theBrain as graph/navigator for/trow thoughts ?