[muppetman]

There is so much wankery around Obsidian, it's so cringleworthty. Obsidian is a nice/fancy editor for markdown files. That's all it is really. People have created so many addons to bolt so much stuff onto it, but that's all it is at its core. You can search your notes, you can tag them.

Just use the _core_ addons of Obsidian. That's all you need. Then if you find you really are missing something, have a look in the community addons. You'll probably find what you want.

But don't install Obsidian and then spend hours adding addons. You'll get overwhelmed, confused and wondering why all the Influenzers are saying it's CHANGED THEIR LIFE. It hasn't.

[cloud_watching]

Obsidian is amazing because it is a notepad with pretty colors and the graph that gets everyone's attention. The graph is often the most overhyped and underused thing there. It looks complicated and that's the selling point of all that ecosystem around productivity systems and all that. The appearance of deep complexity and work.

I love how many just ended up here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44864134

[JonChesterfield]

It's _also_ a notepad that runs on android and synchronises mostly successfully with machines elsewhere. I'm ignoring the plugins entirely but getting lots of use out of the text synchronisation across multiple machines.

[muppetman]

This is one thing I love about it too, Obsidian Sync is very well done and great for moving text files around the place easily.

[dtkav]

Obsidian Sync is a really solid (and complementary) product.

[safety1st]

I just have a notes folder in Syncthing and it seems to accomplish the same thing. Or is there more to Obsidian Sync that I don't know about?

[zevon]

This kind of file sync works but you can run into problems. Switching from one device to the other too fast and editing the same file can get you into trouble, for example. And all the other tradition file sync and conflict resolution issues in general. Also: If one of your devices runs iOS, you will probably have a bad/annoying day with any "sync your files outside the app you edit them in" solution.

[dasil003]

The WYSIWYG markdown editor and wiki links are what I like about it. I’m not into the whole plugin lifestyle that seems to be a thing among the “productivity” crowd.

[omnibrain]

In the beginning I had my Obsidian folder in my iCloud, but had not so happy experiences regarding the conflict resolution.

[pgorczak]

It also syncs config and plugins

[matwood]

I know it’s not the best place to end up, but I always end up back on Apple Notes. It’s has enough features, syncs across my devices, and is simple to use.

[deafpolygon]

Same here... after years, I keep coming back to Apple Notes.

[UltraSane]

I really hate that article. Taskwarrior is infinitely better than a txt file. A txt file is the worst possible option for task management.

[pqs]

Now I'm using Emacs Howm for task management. It is based on text files and it is great. Org-mode is also great.

[aquariusDue]

Also for anyone interested in trying Howm the guide for it was recently updated.

https://github.com/Emacs101/howm-manual

The cool thing about Howm is that it's note-taking and task management for lazy people. It predates org-mode (but it also works with it nowadays) and has a distinct way of linking notes by way of go-to and come-from links, think saved search and automatic backlink respectively. Also the way tasks are displayed and surfaced is pretty neat too, the guide/manual goes more in-depth but if you find stuff like org-agenda too complex you'll appreciate Howm's way of tracking and managing tasks.

[UltraSane]

Looks a lot like taskwarrior.

[wkat4242]

> There is so much wankery around Obsidian, it's so cringleworthty. Obsidian is a nice/fancy editor for markdown files. That's all it is really. People have created so many addons to bolt so much stuff onto it, but that's all it is at its core. You can search your notes, you can tag them.

It is a simple markdown editor yes but it's the addons that make it so different. There's tons and tons of markdown notetaking apps, but this one just hit the right balance for me. End to End encryption, self-hosted livesync (I can see myself typing from another client), good mobile support, fast searching. Self-hosting is a must-have for me, even with end to end encryption.

The one thing I miss is a bit more security on Android (it would be great if the app offered an option to hide its files from other apps by locating them in the app's private storage area). And for it to start quicker, it has to load a whole browser on every open because it's an electron app even on mobile.

But overall it's great for me. Not earth-shattering but it just offers the right combination of features for me.

I don't really see what the 'wankery' is.

> Just use the _core_ addons of Obsidian. That's all you need. Then if you find you really are missing something, have a look in the community addons. You'll probably find what you want.

For me there are several third party addons that are invaluable. The livesync plugin first of all, it's really great sync and fully self-hosted. This is quite a complex thing to get working and one where so many other apps fall down.

ReadItLater for capturing websites is also pretty nice. And the copilot one for searching notes with RAG.

[direduck]

> it would be great if the app offered an option to hide its files from other apps by locating them in the app's private storage area

For what it's worth, you can do just that now. Not sure when it was introduced, but on the current Android version, you are prompted to select either "Device storage" or "App storage" when creating a new vault.

You can also change the location of existing vaults from app to device and vice-versa.

With that now available, the one thing missing for me is a biometric lock option. Or even any kind of locking at all. There's a community plugin for that, but it's quite unstable and no longer maintained.

[kepano]

On iOS any app can be set to a biometric lock by long-pressing the app icon. I believe some Android flavors have this feature, but not all. However I think it can also be done on Android using the "spaces" feature.

[direduck]

I use a Samsung device which unforunately doesn't have the app lock feature.

But it does have a "secure folder" which is more or less what you mean by "spaces", I guess.

The downside of the secure folder against normal app locking is that the apps are no longer seamlessly integrated with the launcher and other apps. It's definitely more secure but is ultimately overkill for my needs.

[wkat4242]

Yeah and for me it's no option because I have all the banking apps in my secure folder and as such I have a pretty long password on it. If you could have two secure folders then yeah maybe.

And I also have a work profile as well through "Island" :)

[wkat4242]

Oh great! I didn't know that was an option <3 I'll have a look. I originally installed it a couple years ago when I bought my phone.

[wkat4242]

Ps: Where do you see the feature to move an existing Vault? I don't see this option sadly

[direduck]

Sorry, I was mistaken about that aspect.

The option is available to move a vault from the app to the device storage, but not the other way around. At least not from within Obsidian.

But if you use a PC or a file manager that has full device access, you can manually copy the vault folder to the `/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/md.obsidian/files` directory.

I just tried that and Obsidian recognised it.

[HSO]

yea how about you do you, and live and let live

nobody cares what you think people "should" do