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My guide for new users of Logseq
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Posted by Amontillado
Aug 16, 2022 at 07:18 PM
I haven’t CRIMP’d as much as I should have. I installed Obsidian on a little Windows box I have. In principle Obsidian seems awesome, but it doesn’t quite suit my fancy.
I don’t think proves a case one way or the other, though. There is probably more value in a reasonably flexible tool that responds well to peculiarities in workflow than in a specific app for a specific way of note-taking, or planning.
Posted by Dormouse
Aug 17, 2022 at 12:19 PM
satis wrote:
>that Logseq has some privacy and other advantages (eg Markdown as
>default) over similar apps like Obsidian
I’m not sure about the privacy (Obsidian is entirely local unless you choose to put it online) or the markdown (Obsidian only works on markdown).
Logseq has the advantage, for some people, of being open source and a block-based outlining database whereas Obsidian only works with markdown files.
Obsidian has the advantage, for some people, of very active plugin development thorough its API (despite being open source and heavily funded, Logseq is nowhere near as vibrant)
Posted by Dormouse
Aug 17, 2022 at 12:42 PM
satis wrote:
>It seems to me that giong forward the most popular apps will end up
>being notes/writing apps which add linking while focusing on simplicity
>and WYSIWYG.
I’ve switched to writing all my notes in Tangent Notes. It’s relatively early stage but performance is very solid.
Uses Obsidian syntax, and like Obsidian, it works with folders (workspaces/vaults) of .md files. It doesn’t have a fraction of the features of Obsidian, but they are all available by using Obsidian on the same folders. I actually use Obsidian more since using Tangent (I’d been switching away toward rich text apps because they suited my required workflows better).
It has a nice (optional) card presentation of the files in a folder (it’s my preferred view) a simple, straightforward and usable(!) graph and has a different underlying editor (Typewriter as in Dabble instead of Codemirror). Also has an option for word processor Enter behaviour (Enter=New paragraph; shift-Enter= new line).
Also, unlike Obsidian, you can select and open a file directly using file explorer and it will open it in the relevant workspace or, if one does not yet exist, make a workspace out of the folder. I have switched from using the program’s file explorer 99% of the time and work from my preferred explorers (XYplorer, Directory Opus, One Commander and Q-Dir) together with my indexed search programs. This has the advantage of being both faster and more powerful than Obsidian’s equivalent (even with added plugins) and also enabling me to work seamlessly with other file formats (eg docx and pdf) as the search programs and explorers work with those too.
I find it much nicer to write in than Obsidian (less distracting, less to maintain and update) and it seems to encourage thoughtful note-taking and linking instead of the automation regarded as desirable in the Obsidian community.
Posted by satis
Aug 17, 2022 at 10:22 PM
Dormouse wrote:
>I’m not sure about the privacy (Obsidian is entirely local unless you
>choose to put it online) or the markdown (Obsidian only works on
>markdown).
I take your point about privacy. I thought there was more of a difference but apparently not.
Obsidian uses Markdown but the files themselves are not .md. What’s interesting about LogSeq is that the app design gives you the flexibility of Roam (essentially a monolithic databse/ writing app) when linking between individual blocks but also doesn’t function as an online database but as a folder full of Markdown files. And Logseq will show you live Markdown rendering while Obsidian makes you switch between edit and preview modes, and offers live editable block embeddings (obsidian embeddings can only serve as a reference). It’s like the best of both Roam/Obsidian worlds.
Logseq is also open source (a difference for some folks, though not necessarily an advantage to me).
Most importantly for those of us in this forum Logseq’s experience (like Roam’s) is that at heart it’s an outliner app, with a block-based paradigm, while Obsidian is a page-based writing app. (Obsidian can use block headings but you can’t edit them in other files - you can embed them with ![[..^..] but it’s just the reference.) For people who live inside outliners or think in outliner form I think Logseq is generally more appealing.
Tangent Notes seems neat but I’m not trusting an app that’s at v0.34beta.
Posted by Dormouse
Aug 17, 2022 at 10:53 PM
satis wrote:
>Obsidian uses Markdown but the files themselves are not .md.
??? - Obsidian works on .md files