[HN Gopher] Show HN: Obsidian Canvas - An infinite space for you...
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Show HN: Obsidian Canvas - An infinite space for your ideas
Author : ericax
Score : 935 points
Date : 2022-12-20 15:04 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (obsidian.md)
(TXT) w3m dump (obsidian.md)
| reneberlin wrote:
| I was searching for something like this a few months ago, when i
| saw an srtist creating endless zoomable-art by using "infinte
| canvas".
|
| But this polished solution tops any of my expectations.
|
| You've put so much effort in it - just wow! And perfectly
| presented.
|
| We owe you something for this!
| bogwog wrote:
| This is awesome! I only recently started using Obsidian and have
| been liking it a lot, especially since there's even a (rough but
| usable) drawing/sketching plugin so I can kind of get the same
| experience as I used to have with One Note. This Canvas thing
| doesn't seem like it has stylus support or anything like that,
| but it's still super useful.
|
| Also, I noticed that the flatpak version is currently outdated.
| Anyone know when that will get updated?
| rcarmo wrote:
| OK, this is nice. I've tried (and failed) to use Obsidian in the
| past because I have 8000-9000 Markdown files with frontmatter
| metadata and nested folders that I just can't get it to work with
| (they are typically called index.md in a nested folder structure,
| with separate sections and media assets in the same folder), but
| I also use Xmind extensively for my personal projects, so this
| has tickled my fancy.
|
| As long as I don't end up with a single folder with hundreds of
| files, this seems interesting enough to check out.
| probablynish wrote:
| I just shifted from Logseq to Obsidian over the last couple of
| weeks. One of my reasons for doing so is that while Logseq does
| technically store your notes as local markdown files, there's so
| much added on top of that, that I can't really open my notes
| folder in Typora/[markdown editor of choice] and have a smooth
| experience reading my notes. The underlying format might be open,
| but there was still lock-in. Obsidian seems much better for that
| - there'll always be a tradeoff between features and portability,
| but I do prefer Obsidian's balance.
|
| I wrote a very rough Python script to help me move my graph over
| to Obsidian - if anyone else is in the same boat, feel free to
| try it out https://github.com/NishantTharani/LogSeqToObsidian
| egberts1 wrote:
| still no free search
| 323 wrote:
| What do you mean?
|
| It seems to do free text search over notes content just fine
| for me.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Obsidian iOS
|
| type in a paragraph in a doc, then hit search for a keyword.
| _cricket_
| brightball wrote:
| That is fantastic! I've never been satisfied with Draw.io at a
| cross platform option for this after getting so comfortable with
| OmniGraffle in my OSX days. Can't wait to take this for a spin.
| reneberlin wrote:
| How could you do this all this time, me not noticing?! THIS is
| the interconnected mapping for humans i had in my spare room of
| braincells, that were still alive at that time.
|
| It is okay because living in a sim brings peace to the NPCs. How
| can one or a group progress so smooth an idea.
|
| Just one thing: how fast this app starts is a less of a blink.
|
| Speechless. Congrats and i step down on my knees for this.
|
| When Sony says: it's not a game -then this is: not a app in the
| ordinary way. Needs no praise or downvote. This is something
| completly different.
|
| 'Got to remind myself: breathe in - and breathe out.
| chadlavi wrote:
| this is huge. Would also love the ability to draw on one of these
| (something like tldraw.com)
| robofanatic wrote:
| How is this different from Figma?
|
| my only issue with Figma is navigating through the screens once
| you create this gigantic canvas.
| weego wrote:
| It's in a completely different product space, so there's that
| to differentiate them as a start.
| dotBen wrote:
| Are you familiar with FigJams?
| ethanbond wrote:
| Still very different. Obsidian Canvas is about spatially
| organizing your already-existing knowledge base in
| Obsidian. Figjam is more like virtual whiteboarding. Big
| big fan of both Obsidian and Figma/Figjam, they don't
| really compete here though.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| They're building up to these features from plain text.
|
| Similarly, right now they're discussing how to contain a node-
| based database in human-readable markdown comments.
| kepano wrote:
| Obsidian is knowledge management tool, you can think of it like
| a personal wiki. So it gives you some different types of
| elements that you can place inside the Canvas, e.g. notes,
| PDFs, videos, audio, and even iframe web pages.
|
| For example you can embed embed Markdown notes inside a Canvas,
| and embed a Canvas inside a Markdown note.
| reneberlin wrote:
| even the sync feature is built in, which was a complaint of
| another poster (that might not have had the latest build)
| 2wrist wrote:
| To the obsidian folks, thanks for adding this feature. It is
| definitely interesting. Will be exploring this further.
| sureglymop wrote:
| The only thing I am missing from Obsidian is PDF annotating as
| Logseq has it. Basically, you open a pdf and whatever you
| highlight you can copy as a link and put on any page. Then,
| clicking the link opens the pdf back up at that spot.
| yangikan wrote:
| is there a video of this feature?
| kepano wrote:
| Not quite there yet, but there is an Obsidian plugin developing
| similar functionality: https://github.com/MohrJonas/obsidian-
| ocr
| kennedy wrote:
| its gotten too much love <3
|
| ``` ServerBusyEgress is over the account limit.
| RequestId:ce64eac5-e01e-0071-6897-14c44e000000
| Time:2022-12-20T17:22:50.8918472Z ```
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Can someone link a good Obsidian course?
| wojciechpolak wrote:
| A lot of interesting Obsidian videos both for beginners and
| more advanced users: https://www.youtube.com/@nicolevdh/videos
| FiReaNG3L wrote:
| Obsidian has given me everything I had dreamed of in terms of
| organizing tools, and now this is the cherry on top! I tried so
| many mindmap software (many paid!) and they all fell short 20
| different ways, this is great to see!
| reneberlin wrote:
| It's on all your devices and of course: mobile What a thing you
| did crate here is astonishing nad will make me think for a while.
| In the while i will make use of this. Thank you all <3
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Is there anyone else's brain doesn't work well with canvas like
| mine? It looks unorganized to me with "group" and "arrow". Unlike
| structural design like we are used to on daily basis like "order"
| (left-to-right + top-to-bottom), "index" (several kind of nav).
| When I look at this type of canvas my brain is confused where to
| start, what's the order because it looks like a mesh. I guess
| this is for popular brains?
| btbuildem wrote:
| I find it useful for some things and awkward for others.
|
| I've been using Gingko [1] for a long while now. The ever-
| expanding-but-hierarchical structure it uses hits a sweet spot
| for me.
|
| 1: https://gingkoapp.com/
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Yeah it's called "miller columns" which I tried (as a
| implementer) once. The width constraint per column is not
| quite nice, and when it has more than 3 columns, the
| horizontal scroll ux makes it worse (I think it's ok on
| mobile). I haven't found a good ux on tree structure in
| general, it's just suck.
| LunarAurora wrote:
| Coupled with a dynamic plugins ecosystem, this is going to be a
| game changer (even in an already somewhat crowded market [1])
|
| For example, (future) plugins for advanced filtering and
| automatic layouts [2] will certainly help manipulate very large
| canvases.
|
| [1] Most of it is online/collaborative
| (https://infinitecanvas.tools/gallery/) though so it is not
| exactly the same.
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbLZvHDPqI
| poszlem wrote:
| I honestly cannot grasp how is it possible for the Obsidian team
| to consistently release such high quality software on a regular
| basis, almost for free and with such a small team.
|
| Just incredible, and if anybody from Obsidian reads that, you
| have my utmost respect.
| criddell wrote:
| I kind of wish they would plant a stake in the ground and
| declare it feature complete and then go into maintenance mode.
| It's almost inevitable that they are going to keep adding
| features, give up control to VCs, and then fade away like
| Evernote.
|
| This feature is neat, but it feels like a turning point. I
| believe it's the first betrayal of the _it 's-just-a-folder-of-
| markdown-files_ principle.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| It's just a plugin i believe, you can choose to not use it.
| There are _many_ community plugins that go well beyond just-
| markdown, i don't feel this is any different.
|
| Remember, most of Obsidian is just plugins. Even core
| functionality. Which is a big reason i use Obsidian.
| meltyness wrote:
| You can represent a collection of nodes like that, but human
| readable/machine readable flow configuration, highlighting,
| plus composition seems like a tall ask, and JSON is a small
| extension that's mostly human-readable as it is.
|
| This is adhering to an obvious crack showing in Obsidian as
| it is: how do you store a graph view configuration? Right
| now, per vault, you get one slot unless you draw in something
| like Juggl, which is... well it raises serious usability
| concerns.
| kepano wrote:
| I agree that VC basically killed Evernote. Obsidian is
| completely user-supported, no investors, we're explicitly
| avoiding the VC route.
|
| As far as features go, we're continuing down the path of a
| modular architecture. The core will continue to be as
| streamlined as possible. Canvas is like any other plugin, you
| can disable it. We think that flexibility is important,
| because not everyone thinks the same way. You should be able
| to create an environment that fits your way of thinking.
| However not everyone needs every feature, thus the
| modularity/extensibility approach.
| criddell wrote:
| Did the core of Obsidian have to be changed at all to
| support Canvas? If so, then I don't think it is like any
| other plugin.
|
| If this were just another pluigin that you could download
| and use if you want, I really wouldn't care. It's the fact
| that it's considered part of the core product that gives me
| bad vibes. It feels like the project, even without VC
| money, is doing what almost every other successful project
| does - expand.
|
| Do you think Obsidian will ever be considered "done"?
| kepano wrote:
| We did make some API changes that would make it easier
| for a third party to create a plugin like Canvas. But
| there was nothing changed in the core solely to support
| Canvas.
|
| There were two under-the-hood changes required to
| properly facilitate Canvas:
|
| 1. Redoing "embeds." We decided it was important for
| cards to work the same way our inline embeds work. So we
| rewrote the embed system to be properly extensible and
| useable by plugins. Canvas is leveraging the same system
| that powers ![[embeds]]
|
| 2. Untangling our editor. Previously, editors were a
| construct constrained to a markdown view in Obsidian.
| We've also done some refactoring so that a "editor" can
| be used anywhere, and doesn't need to be backed by a
| file. We see this a another big win for plugins that want
| to build their own editing experience
|
| We want to keep pushing what third party plugins can do
| on top of Obsidian, so implementing a feature like Canvas
| forces us to find the limitations that exist in the API.
|
| The question of whether Obsidian will ever be "done" is a
| tough one because operating systems and user expectations
| are a shifting landscape. Our intention is that the
| writing and thinking you do inside of Obsidian can be
| future-proof for decades, even if Obsidian itself is no
| longer relevant. That's why we're focused on portable
| formats like Markdown. However we cannot know how
| operating systems will change, and what will be required
| for Obsidian to continue working well on macOS 30 or
| Windows 20. Similarly, we can't close ourself off to new
| UI paradigms like Canvas that open up new thinking
| modalities our users are asking for. We hope that the
| modular and flexible architecture of the app allows it to
| remain very performant regardless of what plugins a user
| has turned on.
| Dnguyen wrote:
| I've heard about Obsidian for a while but never got around to
| using it. Does anyone know if I can take notes and highlight on a
| web page and include that onto canvas? That's what I'm looking
| for, notes close to the source as possible.
| mknapper1 wrote:
| I'm not sure if that is available out of the box, I haven't
| seen it if it is. But the killer feature of Obsidian is the
| community plugin ecosystem. I would be surprised if a plugin
| isn't available soon so make this happen.
| Terretta wrote:
| Perhaps Readwise Reader with Obsidian exporter can do what you
| want.
|
| // I capture entire webpage into markdown then annotate
| markdown.
| 9erdelta wrote:
| hell yeah, I love you Obsidian.
| drawingthesun wrote:
| A lot of notes apps seem to be adding some type of visual note-
| taking (is that the right term?)
|
| Logseq now has a whiteboard feature that is similarly powerful.
| angelmm wrote:
| My new year resolution is to move from Notion to Obsidian. I
| found Notion unreliable in some situations and tbh, I'm not using
| the mobile application at all.
| kid64 wrote:
| Obsidian Team, help me out here. What are some actual use cases
| for canvas? Specifically, how does this enhance the user's
| ability to record, synthesize, and recall their ideas? I am a
| huge Obsidian fan, I fully understand what canvas does and how
| it's used. But I don't get the point. I see the team devoting
| lots of energy to this feature, so I assume I'm missing
| something.
| kepano wrote:
| Check out the #showcase-canvas channel in the Obsidian Discord
| group https://obsidian.md/community
|
| Use cases I have seen shared in the channel: family trees,
| storyboards, taxonomy, mind maps, workflow diagrams, roadmaps,
| research notes, project management, etc.
|
| In my personal use of Canvas, I have been using it for planning
| house renovation project, developing a new baking recipe (with
| images of the various iterations).
|
| It can also be used as a scratchpad alongside YouTube videos or
| web pages that you want to annotate.
| mpalmer wrote:
| It's another level of organization and visualization of
| Obsidian content, and is extensible just like Obsidian's other
| core features.
|
| But the spatial dimension really opens up other opportunities.
| For instance, I've been using the webviews to create workspaces
| for the various tasks I do - code review, writing/drafting
| documents.
|
| Being able to drag and drop content from various places
| (including webviews) into the canvas feels magic.
|
| With a few minor usability enhancements I'd probably be ready
| to call this my new favorite web browser!
|
| But generally, it's an interface for expressing relationships
| between pieces of Obsidian content. Absent additional plugins,
| these relationships are user-defined, but they could easily be
| generated since they're pure JSON. Sky's the limit if you ask
| me. I'm excited to start writing a plugin that enhances the
| webviews a bit.
| evnix wrote:
| I really wish the UI worked like excalidraw, the interface is
| seamless and something Obsidian could take ideas from. the end
| result could have been an SVG which makes it compatible with
| every other software out there.
| niels_bom wrote:
| I loved Excalidraw but I love tldraw even more.
| beta.tldraw.com. Also uses JSON as the data format btw.
| pps wrote:
| You can use Excalidraw in Obsidian, there is a plugin that uses
| it and extends it in many ways.
| ericax wrote:
| Canvas is less of a piece of drawing software and more of
| brainstorm/mindmapping/idea workbench software. Excalidraw will
| satisfy different use case than Canvas and you can definitely
| use both!
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I'm going off on a tangent, but while we have you markdown geeks
| here: does anyone have any experience editing it with Vim? Do you
| recommend any plugins or similar?
|
| The only real problem I have with markdown is that if I have
| editor soft-wraps, Vim doesn't work that well (I can't properly
| navigate soft-wrap lines, because there is a mismatch between
| what I see and what the editor understands as a line). If I do
| hard-wraps (new-lines), then the doc loses copy-paste portability
| to something like Docs.
|
| Anyone know how to solve this?
| potas wrote:
| You can always use `gj`/`gk` instead of `j`/`k` to move down/up
| a visual (soft-wrapped) line. If you find it inconvenient, you
| can always remap bindings to work however you like [0]. You can
| even limit the mapping to specific file type (e.g. markdown).
|
| As for copying to other formats, I stick to 80-character line
| length limit, so when I need to copy markdown text somewhere
| else I simply copy it from a rendered markdown document.
|
| [0]
| https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Move_cursor_by_display_lines_whe...
| rcarr wrote:
| I wonder if Apple will try and integrate Apple Notes (I know you
| can already add text but I mean existing notes in the other
| native app) in the new Freeform app to try and compete with this
| smusamashah wrote:
| This looks like finally an alternative to OneNote. Since every
| page in OneNote is like an infinite page or canvas, I use it at
| work to dump info freely anywhere.
|
| The tabs and folder interface helps organizing those notes. But
| now when my notes are increasing OneNote don't offer a lot to
| organize these. Its bad at linking the notes too.
|
| This looks a very good alternative with open specs. No other tool
| had this kind of canvas like OneNote before.
| sureglymop wrote:
| But still no note taking e.g. with an Apple Pen. Would be
| amazing if Obsidian Mobile added that.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| This kind of feature would obviously not be able to be
| implemented into a (easily readable) markdown file, so, as
| Obsidian is willing to go to the proprietary open format route,
| could someone please consider adding usable tables as a feature?
| Even simple stuff like multiline cells would greatly increase the
| usability of the tool. The current table experience even with the
| community plugins is... not ideal.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| I haven't tried any of the community plugins - if any of them
| come close to what you want, why not file issues outlining what
| needs improving? I've only used Obsidian tangentially, but from
| 10000ft it does look like the app tends to incorporate the best
| plugin ideas over time, so this route might get what you want
| into the app eventually.
|
| Emacs org-mode does demonstrate that it is possible to create a
| usable interface for text-mode tables.
| kepano wrote:
| I don't think we need to step out of Markdown to improve table
| editing. It could be solved by making a WYSIWYG table editor
| for Live Preview.
| folli wrote:
| I agree, I'm a big fan of tables when jotting down ideas to
| compare and contrast multiple aspects etc.
|
| But as much as I like markdown for its simplicity, tables are a
| major PITA, almost to the point of complete uselessness.
| low_tech_punk wrote:
| Any self-hosted sync options? i.e. Run my own service in docker
| container, and provide my own database, be it a blob storage like
| S3, R2, Backblaze or SQLite?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Anything you use to sync text files can work to sync an
| Obsidian vault. You don't need a database.
|
| The simplest thing for a HN audience is probably "put your
| vault in a git repo and push to github whenever you want to
| sync," though that isn't real-time.
| ubertaco wrote:
| I use Obsidian with my existing Syncthing installation
| (Syncthing being open-source file-syncing software that you run
| yourself), and it's great.
| folli wrote:
| The problem with Syncthing is that if you accidentally delete
| a file or part of you notes, your clumsiness will spread to
| all connected devices.
| schipplock wrote:
| use git+syncthing then :)
| lebaux wrote:
| Mark my words Obsidian will be the next unicorn.
| Obertr wrote:
| It is ideal. I love it!
| psychomugs wrote:
| Obsidian is the tool I wish I had during grad school. Thank you
| for the continued improvements and dedication to modularity.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| This is great, feels like Miro or Draw.io inside Obsidian. I've
| been a long time obsidian subscriber and really enjoy the
| software.
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| How does this fit into the existing Obsidian notes and ecosystem
| of plugins?
| retSava wrote:
| Looks like something I've looked for for a long time! Will def
| try it out.
|
| Can also recommend the excellent app Pureref, which is an
| infinite canvas for pictures. Does not compete with this though,
| different use cases.
|
| https://www.pureref.com
| mmastrac wrote:
| I would kill for some sort of integration between Remarkable and
| Obsidian. Both are excellent tools and the Remarkable is great
| for sketching on the go. I just wish I could keep both in sync
| somehow.
| azeirah wrote:
| I'm working on a sync tool specifically for ReMarkable to
| Obsidian.
|
| https://scrybble.ink
|
| It's still in beta for now, so it's definitely not flawless,
| but it does work! You can choose which files from your tree to
| sync, they will appear as pdf files in your vault.
| mmastrac wrote:
| The page isn't loading for me but I'll take a look later on
| as this could be super interesting!
| azeirah wrote:
| Fixed, I keep forgetting I got a novelty tld (.ink) rather
| than .com :p
| mmastrac wrote:
| Cool project! Note that if you want to support the
| Remarkable scribbles, there's a Python project that does
| that:
|
| https://github.com/rschroll/rmrl
| azeirah wrote:
| It's called scrybble because it already supports
| scribbles and highlights :p
| mmastrac wrote:
| The roadmap says it doesn't support notebooks or quick
| sheets though. Those are kind of the main feature of the
| remarkable.
|
| EDIT: Roadmap updated, so we're on the same page :)
| azeirah wrote:
| I'm not 100% certain about quick sheets just yet, I'm
| going to do a more thorough test soon, but notebooks
| _are_ supported as of last week, the Roadmap hadn't been
| updated yet.
|
| Good catch though! Thanks
|
| Edit: The roadmap has been updated:
| https://scrybble.ink/roadmap
| appletrotter wrote:
| Hey, I just paid for a subscription but I'm getting a 500
| on the manage membership page - any idea what's up with
| that?
| azeirah wrote:
| Page is fixed!
| azeirah wrote:
| Oh... I forgot to adjust that page with the recent full
| redesign. Will fix it this evening.
|
| The page is not important for anything however, it just
| says "thanks for your purchase, you can now make an
| account"
| mattivc wrote:
| Just purchased the "Early bird tier" to give it a try. I just
| get a "500 Server Error" when clicking the "View Content"
| link in gumroad.
| azeirah wrote:
| Just fixed the error, I was loading an old page
| MrDrone wrote:
| This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you! Very
| excited to use this.
| daviross wrote:
| When this gets to reasonable stability, this may be enough to
| get me to buy ReMarkable just for it. It might be worth
| seeing if they have any sort of referral program. "Buy
| ReMarkable through me & get X months syncing free!" type
| deal.
| azeirah wrote:
| A dream would be first-party integration. Syncing from one
| to the other is one thing, but a first-party obsidian
| application running on the ReMarkable? I'd let ReMarkable
| hire me to make this happen if this is something they'd be
| interested in
|
| (I love my current job though!)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| It appears to be convoluted but Remarkable -> Rextract ->
| Readwise -> Obsidian looks like a path.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/zachwick/rextract
| sofixa wrote:
| That's one of the reasons i went with an Onyx Boox tablet
| instead of a Remarkable - that way i have the Android Obsidian
| app, in sync, and i can sketch on it (with Excalidraw, i
| haven't tested Canvas yet).
| dhc02 wrote:
| Onyx + obsidian is such a great combo
| jghn wrote:
| With the caveat that I'm very far from a power user, I'm
| struggling to picture how I'd use this. Not as in I think it's a
| bad idea, but rather it looks cool but I believe I don't quite
| understand it.
|
| I think the following is an example of an intended use case? Can
| anyone confirm/deny?
|
| For my work related notes, there's some hierarchical structure to
| them even though it's hard to see that at the note level. There's
| all the projects for my work, and then for each project there are
| notes, and sometimes those notes have notes, etc. I think what
| Canvas would do here is let me create a visual board for all of
| the notes related to my work that'd make it easier for me to
| visualize the whole, drill in/out in particular areas, etc? Does
| that sound right?
| afterburner wrote:
| I consider myself a very visual person, and yet I never find
| any of these very overtly visual organization-type tools even
| remotely appealing. It seems to me there's... too much friction
| and fiddliness for something I can visualize myself after
| looking at a text list or folder structure?
|
| I guess maybe it would help as a presentation tool to show
| others how you visualize a project. I just hope it's worth the
| effort. Maybe the others you show it to will be impressed?
| Bluecobra wrote:
| I agree, don't underestimate the power of a piece of paper
| and a pencil. I'm a network engineer and and a very visual
| person. It's a heck of a lot easier to dump the contents of
| my head onto paper first than fiddling around with some app.
| If I need to make something professional to share with others
| (like a diagram) I always make a rough draft on paper first
| before using an application like Visio.
| v9v wrote:
| It's as you think it is, the main benefit is that it's like a
| notebook that you can zoom in/out of as you wish.
|
| Some of my more visually-inclined friends use a similar program
| called Miro to keep track of their projects. At the conception
| stage they collect links to similar projects, scribble notes
| and draw sketches to create a moodboard. As the design takes
| form, they create some subsections in the canvas dedicated to
| certain details of the project and collect related notes there.
| Images or links of the work-in-progress are also pasted to
| track progress and to point out what needs to be changed. Each
| stage and each part of the project gets its own space with its
| own notes and when you zoom out you get a nice overview of the
| whole thing.
|
| Miro can also be used collaboratively, so with groups you can
| also add in a Gantt chart and whatnot to organize.
|
| My friends were in search of offline alternatives to Miro, so I
| think there is a group of people who will find this new feature
| very useful.
| burkaman wrote:
| There are some examples at the bottom of the page. I think this
| biology taxonomy one is pretty cool:
| https://obsidian.md/images/canvas/canvas-lunaris13-full.png
| jghn wrote:
| Yeah I saw those. It's what made me think of my hierarchical
| structure for my work stuff. But not sure that I'm really
| understanding or just pattern matching to something similar
| but different.
| SamBam wrote:
| You won't necessarily find an example that matches your
| use-case. I wouldn't assume that this was made with a
| regular note-taker or GTD-style productivity person in
| mins. Not every tool needs to work for everyone.
|
| I think if your work already involves drawing flowcharts or
| diagrams of connected nodes, like in the biologist in the
| example, them it will make sense. If not, it will probably
| not be useful.
| juliushuijnk wrote:
| if you want try something for capturing your ideas on mobile, you
| can try TinyUX.
|
| https://www.tinyux.app
|
| It's grid based, low-fi, for visual ideas like wireframes.
| garganzol wrote:
| One thing that bugs me with Obsidian: I cannot create a link to a
| specific obsidian vault on desktop (Windows). The thing is I
| often take small notes and opening an Obsidian (or any other app)
| is usually too much work for me. Instead, I prefer to create file
| shortcuts on desktop to just double-click them later when I want
| to access the data.
|
| The thing is Obsidian vault is not represented by a recognizable
| file; it's a folder. So there is nothing to click at to
| automatically open it in Obsidian and consequently there is no
| way to create a shortcut on desktop that would open the specific
| Obsidian vault.
|
| Yes, I know, I can launch Obsidian app and start from there but
| it is too much hustle when you have several frequently used
| vaults.
|
| Also, the standard F2 shortcut for the usual item renaming does
| not work and it adds friction.
| Terretta wrote:
| Remember Obsidian is fine with files coming in from outside.
| You can just write text into its folders, using anything.
|
| Not sure how to do this on Windows any more, but on MacOS the
| trick is to use a Shortcut that captures your whatever (text
| input, image, web page converted to Markdown, file) and writes
| it into the appropriate vault and optional subfolder.
|
| Can also capture to, e.g., Downloads folder, and have a cron
| move it to the vault. (I do this when capturing web pages so
| Browser can't write outside Downloads.)
|
| Anything that can capture to a file path, can capture to
| Obsidian.
| kepano wrote:
| Have you looked at Obsidian URIs? It has a vault parameter:
|
| https://help.obsidian.md/Advanced+topics/Using+obsidian+URI
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| I tried using the URI-scheme and vault-parameter some time
| ago on linux, to open specific vaults via script.
| Surprisingly, this did not worked at all. Even worse, the
| whole scripting of obsidian is horrible even on the
| fundamental levels, and it failed on pretty much any normal
| job. Though, this is not such a surprise, considering that
| it's complete foreign to linux any kind of integration. At
| the end, it's a closed space, not like an editor, open to the
| rest of the system.
| garganzol wrote:
| Thank you. But it does not solve the issue. The custom URI
| concept is too complex and alien in the Windows world.
|
| A Windows user would much better prefer to have a special
| anchor file in Obsidian vault folder that could be double-
| clicked and treated by the standard and observable means.
|
| This is why .txt files are so popular. A double-click and
| they work. The specialized tools may be 100 times better, but
| they often miss one important detail: frictionless entry. If
| something causes friction, especially at the start, then it
| gradually becomes a burden a user doesn't want to deal with.
|
| However, you advice solves the issue for me because I'm a
| technical user and you have kindly presented the information.
| But just imagine how many of those who would totally miss
| that.
| criddell wrote:
| This is a great opportunity for you! This is a problem you
| know lots of people have and since you are a technical
| user, you could probably solve this for yourself and others
| in the same situation. Write a small application and
| register a file extension for it (maybe .obsidian). When
| you double click on sql.obsidian (for example), your app
| would launch read that file then launch Obsidian via the
| obsidian:\\\ protocol.
|
| Your launcher app could also handle the creating of
| .obsidian files or (even better), write a plugin for
| obsidian to export a .obsidian file.
| xyos wrote:
| you can do that using uris:
|
| https://help.obsidian.md/Advanced+topics/Using+obsidian+URI
|
| there is also a plugin for having advanced uris if you want to
| be more specific:
|
| https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-advanced-uri
| i-am-grout wrote:
| Ruq wrote:
| I'll have to see how much this affects or benefits my workflow,
| but I'm testing it against my Bachelors Capstone Project, and it
| seems really cool to be able to create an Overview that visually
| creates relations between my various notes relating to the
| project.
|
| Very cool! I love Obsidian more every day.
| stayux wrote:
| Dear Obsidian team.
|
| Thank you from my heart. As a designer, I have visual thinking,
| which requires clear representation of relationships between
| information objects.
|
| No more fiddling with mind-map apps which cannot offer this level
| of integration with my vault.
|
| Now I finally have focused workflow.
|
| Thank you again.
| _def wrote:
| Cool, can't wait to try it out. Would love to move to obsidian
| fully, as of now I'm also using Joplin for my main set of notes.
|
| btw this plugin really reminds me of a piece of software that I
| had seen here sometime. An infinite zooming/nesting of notes was
| the main concept of it, does that ring a bell for anyone?
| mackrevinack wrote:
| kind of sounds like workflowy, or dynalist (which is made by
| the same people who make obsidian!)
| danbruc wrote:
| Marginally related rant.
|
| Why on earth is the macOS download a 153 MiB ZIP file that
| expands into 363 MiB of stuff? Why does every Electron app have
| to come with its own copy of Electron? I miss the times when
| Windows came on seven 1.44 MB floppies and you did not even need
| all of them because they mostly contain drivers for hardware you
| didn't have. Actually I don't miss the time, swapping floppies
| was annoying.
|
| But really, is the amount of space, bandwidth and clock cycles we
| carelessly waste really justified by the gain in productivity and
| achievable complexity?
| niels_bom wrote:
| Tauri seems like a low to the ground competitor to Electron.
| Binaries start at a couple MB. Completely cross platform. Rust.
| slymon99 wrote:
| > But really, is the amount of space, bandwidth and clock
| cycles we carelessly waste really justified by the gain in
| productivity and achievable complexity?
|
| Yes. Space, bandwidth, CPU cycles are cheap, especially for
| this sort of application. Developers are expensive.
| awill wrote:
| Sure, as a smaller company, this makes sense. And if they
| stay small, and want to minimize cost, fine. If they target
| tech-people, again, fine. But in my view, mass adoption
| really requires better UX/perf.
| danbruc wrote:
| Sure, that is the standard response, but multiply the waste
| by the number of users, the costs that you externalize by
| making them pay for faster hardware and more storage and
| bandwidth.
| malfist wrote:
| Is it though? You're probably running on something with
| plenty of spare clock cycles and extra RAM. It's not like
| end users are suddenly paying a real cost for extra ram
| usage when the next electron app comes along.
|
| A couple hundred megabytes on a terabyte or larger
| harddrive? Who cares.
| danbruc wrote:
| But why do I have those? My notebook could cost $10 if
| 640 kiB of RAM and 1 GB of storage were enough. I am of
| course not expecting that everything should work on a
| system from 30 years ago, we really made use of more
| powerful systems to do things that were impossible
| before, but I think we could still do a lot better.
| s1mon wrote:
| As evidenced by a link to AlternativeTo on their own site, this
| space has a lot (145+) of competition [0]. At some level, I worry
| about using things much more complex than a text file, because of
| portability and longevity. It's enough of a pain transitioning
| between Google and Microsoft (and back) every few years based on
| various jobs.
|
| I have files from the late 1980's that I can still read, but only
| with Libre Office because Apple's supplied apps can't read old
| MacWrite files.
|
| Some people swear by OneNote or Notion or Keep or various mind
| mapping software, but keeping things cross platform and simple is
| a challenge. I was never an Evernote person, but it sounds like
| that turned into a bit of a debacle. These tools work for now,
| but will they work 5 or 10 years from now?
|
| [0] https://alternativeto.net/software/obsidian/
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I'm also worried by this, which is _precisely_ why I 'm
| considering a move to Obsidian from Notion. I'm pretty much
| writing everything in Markdown by now, including my personal
| blog.
| joemi wrote:
| How is moving from Obsidian to Notion relevant? They're
| basically the same thing?
| arcturus17 wrote:
| I keep losing my files with cloud-first systems. I had a
| trove of notes in Evernote and I don't even remember which
| email I used to open it, nor if they are there anymore. I'm
| pretty sure I wouldn't lose local-first markdown files, as
| I could do the same thing I do with code: keep them in git,
| and then have a cloud backup for good measure.
| joemi wrote:
| Ah, i didn't realize you said TO obsidian. For some
| reason I read it as the other way around, which is why it
| really confused me.
| infinityio wrote:
| The difference is with a local-first editor (like Obsidian)
| you hopefully get to keep your files if the company stops
| being nice
| xiande04 wrote:
| That's kinda the biggest selling point of Obsidian...? It's all
| just markdown files. Markdown is a standard format, so you can
| open it in many other apps as well.
| kepano wrote:
| On the other hand, the fact that there are so many Markdown-
| based editors that can read the files you create in Obsidian
| gives plain text format more resilience over time. Even if
| Obsidian were to disappear, your writing and ideas will still
| be accessible in the future.
| randomluck040 wrote:
| Also I would argue that you can rather simply write a parser
| for the basic markdown syntax and convert it to e.g. HTML or
| plain text if necessary by getting rid of markdown specific
| syntax.
| jay3ss wrote:
| Or use pandoc[0] to convert a markdown file to an HTML file
| (and many other file types)
|
| [0]: https://pandoc.org/
| spiderice wrote:
| Maybe many people on HN can do this. A lot fewer people
| than that on HN want to do it. And many people who use
| Markdown outside of HN can't do it.
| randomluck040 wrote:
| Realistically, only a few people have to do it and open
| source a toolkit. Also I don't really think that we'll
| have that issue with markdown because it's widespread and
| rather well established. This doesn't invalidate your
| point, which I absolutely agree with.
| randomluck040 wrote:
| Also it's not true for the file format for canvas which
| is probably way harder to parse correctly.
| skilled wrote:
| If I may interject, AlternativeTo is a pretty shallow platform
| for finding alternatives (I do wonder if you even checked their
| listings), and it's also biased - run by a moderator team that
| can deny/approve listings as they please.
| sph wrote:
| Well, what's the alternative to AlternativeTo then?
| NAR8789 wrote:
| https://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/
| pantulis wrote:
| This made me laugh.
| abraxas wrote:
| Not everything needs to live for decades. Sometimes the
| ephemeral capture is just as important in sorting out your
| ideas.
|
| What doesn't work for me with these tools is that once I've
| gone deep I still need a tool that offers the absolute MINIMUM
| friction in its interface and for me nothing has conquered an
| A3 sheet and a box of coloured pencils.
|
| Perhaps I should invest my time in really learning one of these
| tools but they never seem to be seamless enough to pose a real
| challenge to a pen and paper. Maybe if I had a Wacom tablet...?
| JellyBeanThief wrote:
| A drawing tablet helped me some, when I paired it with
| Xournal++. I think there are apps for iOS and Android tablets
| with nicer and faster interfaces, but I don't use tablets, so
| they didn't help. But the ability to quickly select a group
| of pen strokes and just move them around to make new room, as
| well as the ability to quickly paste screenshots of anything
| I was doing anywhere else on my computer made a big
| difference.
| ptato wrote:
| That looks great. I had no idea this was coming. Now I wonder
| which other ideas the Obsidian team has.
| input_sh wrote:
| FYI there's a public roadmap:
| https://trello.com/b/Psqfqp7I/obsidian-roadmap
|
| Tasks are usually not very descriptive, but you get a sense of
| what's to come.
| rcarr wrote:
| I'm looking forward to seeing what their implementation of
| tasks looks like and how it stacks up next to org mode and
| its agenda. The user implemented task plugins aren't up to
| job I don't think. If it's mega then I might switch to using
| it for task management but I am finding the combination of
| taskpaper and OmniFocus to be awesome at the minute
| kbd wrote:
| Hey, cool, thanks for pointing out they're working on task
| management. I currently use the Tasks plugin and it works
| ok, but it took some fiddling with queries to get the right
| display, it's a little flaky (doesn't update results all
| the time), and there's no concept of subtasks. I still
| haven't found my perfect task management system... really
| interested to see how Obsidian folks tackle this as a core
| plugin.
| ynab4 wrote:
| No thanks. I'll use a pen and paper for note taking.
| sarmasamosarma wrote:
| andreygrehov wrote:
| Is there a way to access other people's spaces? This would be a
| fantastic journey across the universe of these graphs.
| alexandargyurov wrote:
| Similar to Scapple
| https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview
| surfsvammel wrote:
| Obsidian ticked all the boxes for me. Used it since when there
| were more bugs than features and always knew it would be my go to
| tool.
| mknapper1 wrote:
| This looks like Obsidian's first move away from using some
| dialect of markdown? The .canvas files appear to be human
| readable json, but certainly not as readable as markdown. I'm
| excited to try this out, but I hope this isn't a trend towards
| using proprietary formats.
| chrisdhal wrote:
| And there's nothing saying you have to use it, this doesn't
| remove the regular notes.
| ericax wrote:
| We considered many options to use Markdown but came to the
| conclusion that Canvas is not something that can fit into a
| readable Markdown file. Either the Markdown file would so messy
| that it becomes pointless (i.e. you would never open it in
| Typora to edit), or it would severely limit the power of
| Canvas.
|
| After much internal debate we chose the JSON format. We stay
| committed to keep it as open and easy to work with as possible.
| Plugin developers are already parsing and modifying the JSON
| file to programmatically change a Canvas view, and I think
| that's a fantastic start!
| LunarAurora wrote:
| IMO it is the best compromise.
|
| Now that you crossed that line, I hope the next "custom
| format" will be a "real" outliner. You are surely familiar
| with outliners ;-) It is about full block-level support
| really, and all what that allows (API, backlinks, query,
| aliases...)
|
| Anyway, Canvas Rocks! Thanks!
| threesmegiste wrote:
| Opportunity cost. I wrote on your forums about the decioson
| of using plain markdown. Consider other formats to stop
| bloating(yaml and dataview variables) markdown files. Now you
| have bloated md files and another format. Now i am saying you
| will add sqlite after one or two years. Waiting for extra
| file formats making existing files ugly. Also obsidian needs
| multi user vaults. Start to think what extra file format
| needed for this.
| kepano wrote:
| The .canvas files are a JSON-based file format that we open-
| sourced under MIT license. Just like everything else in
| Obsidian, it's still all local files on your device.
|
| You can see the spec for .canvas here:
| https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-api/blob/master/canva...
| seanw444 wrote:
| Or even harder-to-parse _open_ formats. Doesn 't have to be
| proprietary to be a pain.
| rchaud wrote:
| The linked documents are still Markdown.
|
| If I understand it correctly, the use case is to link existing
| MD notes visually. That's a different way of looking at the
| data than the two-way backlink approach that was the foundation
| of Obsidian (and other personal wiki tools).
|
| I'm interested in this, as I currently use a combination of
| Obsidian + SimpleMind, but currently SimpleMind has more
| features (full fledged mindmapping app), and I like having two
| separate spaces to sketch out ideas.
| steveylang wrote:
| I also use both, Simplemind is a fantastic mind mapping app.
|
| For smaller scale mindmapping though, I am finding Canvas
| very usable already for such an early release. The ability to
| easily link or embed to markdown files (or create new ones)
| is really nice, and I like having all my work in a common
| area. Community created plugins will also dramatically expand
| the app.
|
| There will always be advantages for the dedicated apps as
| well, but this is going to be a great option for many.
| raybb wrote:
| One thing that's really missing for me from Obsidian is a view
| similar to that of Google Keep. Like sometimes I want to drop a
| small note "my stuff is in locker 2130" or "Look into Open
| Library <> WikiData linking percentage" and then easily be able
| to see it again in a few of all notes most recent.
|
| A thread on Reddit give me a small hope this update may do that
| but I don't think so.
|
| PS: I'm aware of the daily notes viewer, and that's what I
| currently use for most of these situations. But it doesn't help
| with having a simple way to see contents of all recently created
| notes.
|
| Edit: this is something I mostly want for mobile
| eblanshey wrote:
| Drop these quick notes into a folder (can be automated with
| Templater). Create another note that uses the DataView plugin
| to show you a table of all the files in this folder sorted by
| the creation date.
| ngrilly wrote:
| I'm using both Obsidian and Apple Notes, both on my iPhone and
| MacBook, and that's also the main thing I'm missing in Obsidian
| and keeps me partly on Apple Notes: it's faster and easier to
| create a note in Apple Notes, retrieve it (as they as are
| sorted from most recent by default, and also I can pin some
| notes), search, and navigate in folders (especially on mobile,
| navigating across folders is so much better with Apple Notes
| than Obsidian). I'd really like to see Obsidian takes some
| inspiration from Apple Notes there and improve his. Otherwise,
| it is fantastic tool and it's really good to know that
| everything is stored locally in plain text.
| rcarr wrote:
| Preface: I am a massive Obsidian fan and use it everyday.
|
| The problem is they wanted it multi platform on iOS, Android,
| Mac, Windows and Linux so they made it using electron. Unless
| they either do native versions for each platform (5 apps!) or
| rewrite the entire application in something quicker like
| Tauri it's never going to be as fast as apple notes, and will
| only get worse every time you add a new plugin.
| jackcviers3 wrote:
| Huh. It's almost like writing native guis with cross-
| platform bindings was a thing for a reason.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| They could consider rewriting it in Flutter/Dart. My
| understanding is that Flutter is faster than Electron.
| rcarr wrote:
| Dart/flutter sound good and I have heard good things. The
| downside is you're rolling the dice on whether it will
| still exist in five years because it's a Google project.
| skybrian wrote:
| It's open source, so it will likely exist in some form.
|
| GWT still exists and had a release last year. It's been 9
| years since it fully transitioned to an open source
| project. I'm not sure at what point Google stopped
| contributing since I see old team members in the commit
| history.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| A lot of companies would be really upset at Google if
| this happened.
|
| Besides Google, who re-wrote several of their own apps
| with Flutter, like Pay and their Home devices (which some
| are apparently running fuchsia now?), there's BMW, eBay,
| STAIR (US Department of Veteran Affairs), Nubank, and
| plenty more.
| misnome wrote:
| My interpretation of their word "faster" was in terms of UI
| design, not physical app speed.
|
| Please, we don't need to have the electron rant every
| single time an app that uses it is discussed.
| rcarr wrote:
| You can't just declare your interpretation of faster to
| be correct and then denigrate someone else's
| interpretation by classifying it as a rant. The comment:
|
| > it's faster and easier to create a note in Apple Notes,
| retrieve it (as they as are sorted from most recent by
| default, and also I can pin some notes), search, and
| navigate in folders (especially on mobile, navigating
| across folders is so much better with Apple Notes than
| Obsidian).
|
| Yes there are UI elements at play here. But even UI
| elements are dependent on the language and framework you
| have decided to use. For example, it is common on Android
| to use an expanding sidebar whereas on iOS it is more
| common to use a dropdown menu. If you are developing a
| one size fits all app then design choices that feel
| native on one platform are going to feel non-native on
| another.
|
| And in addition, physical app speed matters. If you want
| to create a brand new note and you're not already in the
| app it takes significantly more time until you can start
| typing with Obsidian than if you use Apple Notes, 1Writer
| etc. If you're doing it multiple times a day this time
| adds up.
|
| If you don't think physical app speed matters then why do
| you think big companies spend thousands optimising
| webpages to reduce latency? It is because the consumer
| gets bored of waiting and goes elsewhere. If another app
| comes along that offers the same functionality of
| Obsidian but is noticeably faster, people will migrate to
| it. Everything is a tradeoff, but pretending framework
| performance isn't a relevant factor does not help
| anybody.
| ngrilly wrote:
| Your interpretation is correct: I meant "faster" (and
| easier) in terms of UI/UX, not app speed. I'm confident
| the problem I'm experiencing can be fixed only by
| improving the UI/UX within the current technical stack.
| No need for a rewrite or a port to native apps, Tauri or
| Flutter.
| dmje wrote:
| I use Craft for this. Short term notes or stuff like receipt
| scans. Then (where relevant) I copy paste into Obsidian for
| longer term linking or whatever
| imdvayn wrote:
| If you look at the Quick Switch view on desktop or mobile it
| will show you most recent.
|
| Also, if you use a 3rd party storage solution instead of
| Obsidian Sync, you can view recently modified/created notes in
| the Recents on there.
|
| If you wanted to see the content of all recent notes, you can
| write a custom query for the dataview extension that attempts
| it.
| [deleted]
| essive wrote:
| Agreed - I have the very same issue as well. Google Keep is my
| goto mobile app for most of my note capture just due to its
| speed and ease of use. Now I have a few github utilities to
| download my Keep notes to markdown for Obsidian use later - but
| that isn't really ideal yet.
|
| PS - all I can say about Canvas is 'wow'!!! Awesome feature!
| para_parolu wrote:
| I had the exact same problem. I ended up writing a small ios
| app. It only contains one textarea and sync text between
| devices.
|
| It was rejected by appstore for simplicity. But works well for
| me.
| gat1 wrote:
| Seems interesting ! What did you use to sync the text between
| devices please ?
| TYMorningCoffee wrote:
| Would adding a setting for the backend server sufficiently
| increase the complexity to get it published?
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| There are community-extensions for this. "Vault
| Changelog"recently edited files, and "Recent Files" recently
| opened files. Not sure how well they work on mobile.
|
| But true, a google keep like tile-view with auto-layout and
| filters would be a useful enhancement for obsidian.
| Macha wrote:
| Could probably do it with obsidian dataview + embeds which
| would work on android at least. Not sure how they deal with
| community plugins + app store policy though on iOS.
| keybits wrote:
| I search for 'path:/' and sort by 'Modified time (new to old)'
| which isn't quite what you want, but improved things for me.
| sleight42 wrote:
| I've been concerned about Obsidian sync. IIRC, data goes to AWS
| servers but where does it go from there?
|
| From reading the Obsidian website, they seem a tiny company.
| However, it is unclear where they are based and, therefore, what
| legal obligations they are operating under. What more, Obsidian
| has so far avoided the levels of compliance that allows for
| adoption by big businesses.
|
| I love me some Obsidian but I'm mindful that, using their
| services, I just don't know how my data is being treated.
|
| I realize vaults are encrypted locally. However, do we know that
| our vault secret isn't shared with Obsidian? Sure, it's (mostly?)
| an Electron app. But just how transparent and accountable is
| Obsidian about their operations?
| operator-name wrote:
| You don't have to use obsidian sync. Workspaces are just
| markdown files in your prefered folder structure, with some
| obsidian metadata (plugins, recently opened, etc). You can back
| them up in the same way as any files/folders.
| Royaljj wrote:
| I can't answer any of your other questions but Obsidian is
| owned by Dynalist, which is based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
| Their OCN number is 2538019 if you want to search them up,
| they're also on CrunchBase
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dynalist
| bovermyer wrote:
| I just have Obsidian save locally, and I use Sync to sync those
| files between machines.
| kepano wrote:
| Obsidian is based in Canada. Obsidian Sync is E2E encrypted so
| the company has no way of accessing your files. The privacy
| policy is here https://obsidian.md/privacy
|
| You also do not need to trust Obsidian with any of your data.
| The files are local to your device so you can sync them however
| you want. If you don't want to use Obsidian Sync you can use
| Git, Dropbox, Syncthing, etc.
| joethei wrote:
| No, we do not use AWS. The Sync and Publish servers are running
| in Digital Ocean datacenters in the US. How sync encrypts the
| data is documented here:
| https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Security+and+privacy
|
| As others have already pointed out, Sync is not the only option
| to synchronize notes, Obsidian sync is just a convenience
| option.
|
| For compliance, I am guessing you mean certs like SOC 2 / ISO
| 27001?, or what are you referencing? As we are a tiny company
| (6 people, not all full time) we just can't expense the time
| needed to get such a certificate.
| pjdkoch wrote:
| https://syncthing.net/ is your friend, too.
| reneberlin wrote:
| A true gamechanger for me. The way you all did thing - it drives
| me speechless. I need my time to step up to it. Thank you,
| brothers and sisters of mercy!
| martini333 wrote:
| So many here complaining it's not simple enough, and that they
| prefer markdown... My brain hurts
| Kunix wrote:
| Very nice! Happy to see this evolution coming from Obsidian, it
| seems like a more natural way to organize concepts and ideas.
|
| One question: It seems it could be troublesome to have to move /
| resize everything when adding a new card once a canvas is already
| quite busy. Is there something like auto-layout in the work, to
| handle these situations? (like to automatically re-layout cards
| and groups once adding a new item in between)
| kepano wrote:
| There are several layout options you can use to easily align
| and rearrange cards on the canvas. We have considered a "clean
| up" shortcut to reorganize the whole canvas at once but haven't
| gotten there yet.
| tianqi wrote:
| While the feature itself was interesting, adding such a feature
| made alarm in my head. I don't think this is necessarily a good
| trend. Please Obsidian needs to be very, very cautious about
| adding such large features.
|
| I won't forget why I, and many others, gave up Evernote. It did
| too much, not too little.
| huecow wrote:
| Hmm, not sure what you talking about (and I also never use
| Evernote), because I always see Obsidian as a Toolbox that you
| could customize personally to your own taste.
|
| But I do understand why you came up with that thinking, can't
| denied that a lot of us did fall into that pitfall of
| overcomplicating stuff.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| this feature is actually related to note taking though. its not
| like evernote where they were off making nonsense contacts or
| food rating apps instead of improving their core note taking
| app
| mpalmer wrote:
| Did it do too much, or was it too opinionated and bloated?
| Obsidian is neither!
|
| Obsidian devs have shown repeatedly that they understand why
| Obsidian is successful - just look at how they released this.
| No canvas-specific core software changes, just a new plugin
| that can be disabled.
| codalan wrote:
| It wasn't the feature-bloat that made me give up on EN. It was
| the broken sync, the difficulty getting an export of my notes
| from their server, the brutally sluggish mobile and desktop
| apps, etc.
|
| Obsidian doesn't seem to be going down that road. Using another
| provider to store the notes (Dropbox, S3, Blob, self-hosted
| disk space, etc.) takes care of issues #1 and #2. Making this
| an optional plugin answer #3.
| kepano wrote:
| Obsidian is built on a modular architecture. Canvas view is a
| plugin so you can turn it off if you don't want to use it. Not
| much is changing with the core. You can still run Obsidian as a
| very lightweight app with most plugins disabled.
| tianqi wrote:
| Thanks. That's what I like about Obsidian, a flexible tool
| kit, instead of KFC party bucket. I just wanted to (self-
| servingly) remind Obsidian to keep in mind not to go down
| that road.
| localhost wrote:
| I've taken to calling Obsidian "The VS Code of Text" for this
| very reason. Thanks for all you do for building a fantastic
| tool that I use every day!
| niels_bom wrote:
| It's in that direction, but I also think VS Code offers
| more and more flexible extension points.
|
| I was reading the plug-in development documentation [0]
| this morning and the ways in which you can extend Obsidian
| feels relatively limited. I hope they'll add more things to
| hook into.
|
| 0: https://marcus.se.net/obsidian-plugin-docs/user-
| interface
| input_sh wrote:
| Like any core plugin, you can just disable it if you don't need
| it.
| folli wrote:
| Awesome! Is there an easy and quick way to convert the canvas
| into a shareable format, i.e. into HTML or PDF?
| kepano wrote:
| You can use "Export to image" which saves the canvas to PNG.
| We're looking to add more formats in the future.
| y-curious wrote:
| Miro is in shambles looking at this! Good stuff.
| crucialfelix wrote:
| Feels nice and solid!
|
| One thing I immediately wanted was key commands and fast clicking
| to create cards like FigJam https://www.figma.com/figjam/ This is
| an amazing tool for brainstorming and collaborating during
| meetings.
|
| It looks like we can't assign key commands for the canvas actions
| yet. That will make it much faster to work with.
|
| Imagine: - C then click to place a card. This would go into text
| edit mode inside the card right away. (currently it gets snaggled
| up with VIM mode requiring me to go into insert) - I then click
| to place an image, then the asset search dialog opens - N then
| click to place a Note, then note search dialog opens
|
| When you are brainstorming you want to add cards really quick.
| Deleting, moving, cloning should all be really immediate. I'm
| sure this can be easily achieved.
|
| Thank you so much for Obsidian!
| whalesalad wrote:
| I've been wanting a tool like this forever - ideally you can
| enter/exit these scopes/contexts so that everything above fades
| away. I like to think about problems in these scopes and then
| have the ability to "zoom out" to collect/link things, without
| disturbing the internal contents. Kinda like the C4/icepanel
| stuff but without so much pomp and circumstance.
| pps wrote:
| museapp.com works like that. Also heptabase.com and many others
| https://infinitecanvas.tools/
| codalan wrote:
| This is pretty amazing. They've basically implemented some of the
| best features of old Evernote, w/o fng it up like Evernote.
| pesnk wrote:
| Obsidian is by far my favorite note taking app of all time. I
| always try new ones for specific stuff to see how each can
| improve my productivity daily, but I always stick with it for all
| my most important things. This canvas product being opensourced
| and migrateable is great specially for users that try different
| things like me.
| desireco42 wrote:
| This is fantastic development, something that really makes a
| difference in how you can use Obsidian. I got notified from
| LogSeq group that they are also introducing whiteboard, so
| clearly innovation is happening at really good pace.
|
| There is more room for innovation, as these "thinking spaces" are
| still inflexible and I expect to see more good things. Obsidian
| has huge advantage that is open and you are never scared to lose
| your work in somebody's walled garden.
|
| To me, this is more important then any VR or anything like this
| as it helps us use computers to think and collaborate, augment
| our abilities. What were original reason for making computers,
| not just enslaving our attention in dopamine loop.
| MattyRad wrote:
| This is cool, but the killer feature I'm looking for is a UI that
| matches the functionality of grit
| https://github.com/climech/grit. Grit itself isn't particularly
| functional for every-day use, but its write-up in the readme is
| excellent and the DAG hasn't been realized by any existing task
| tracking software (as far as I'm aware).
| hadlock wrote:
| Is there support planned for Graphviz? Would love to be able to
| import/export Graphviz files
| caligarn wrote:
| Just in time to compete with Freeform?
| madrox wrote:
| This is something I'd love to see built into the OS. I don't want
| multiple desktops as much as I want the ability to zoom around a
| giant desktop.
| system2 wrote:
| Haha, no thanks. Imagine microsoft doing this. The windows
| would BSOD every 5 minutes.
| Mockapapella wrote:
| Just got the stupidest excited grin on my face from seeing this.
| Looking forward to trying it!
| kwerk wrote:
| Anyone have a video on this? I'm not quite getting it.
| ericax wrote:
| We have a bunch of short clips that show how to do various
| things, not sure if they are helpful to you:
|
| https://obsidian.md/canvas#protips
| kuu wrote:
| There are some videos on the site but it's taking time to load,
| I think the site is under HN hug.
| kepano wrote:
| Here are a couple short examples
|
| https://twitter.com/kepano/status/1601664161360261120
|
| https://twitter.com/kepano/status/1601664161360261120
|
| And some longer walkthrough videos:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLBd_ADeKIw
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3DJKk4ivq4
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPescoJzcFA
| aryamaan wrote:
| I really like https://kinopio.club/. This canvas is definitely a
| step in that direction. I hope they (or a plugin) support a
| feature parity too
| dhruval wrote:
| I tried Obsidian last year but wasn't enough of a value add for
| me to make the switch from my normal note taking program.
|
| Now I have to give it another go. This looks amazing.
| martini333 wrote:
| What a stange comment. Could you at least provide some context?
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I am amazed how Obsidian adds new features that are exactly what
| I was looking for. I already liked using it with the Kanban
| plugin, and I think adding such support for graph/diagram-like
| notes is the last piece of the puzzle for many users.
| tommica wrote:
| Amazing! Great job
| kepano wrote:
| Obsidian Canvas uses a new JSON-based file format that we have
| open-sourced under MIT license. You can see the spec here:
|
| https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-api/blob/master/canva...
|
| Just like all other files in Obsidian, canvas files are your own
| and local to your device. You're still linking to your own
| Markdown files which are just as future-proof as ever.
|
| We decided to create the .canvas format because there wasn't any
| pre-existing canvas-type format we could find that fit our
| priorities around longevity, readability, interoperability and
| extensibility.
|
| The .canvas format is designed to be as easy to parse as
| possible. We've already seen a few plugins take advantage of it,
| and we hope that more tools will become available that can use
| the .canvas format.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| small thing but downloading and installing the obsidian snap
| package requires the `--dangerous --classic` arguments with
| snap (since it's not coming from a repository); may want to add
| that to the instructions
| afturner wrote:
| The local first approach is the primary reason I use Obsidian.
| I trust that I can _depend_ on Obsidian because of this.
|
| On the other hand, this has also caused some headaches around
| using it on mobile.. but so far this has been a worthwhile
| tradeoff. Thanks for all the hard work!
| hyperific wrote:
| I just use DropSync and put all my Vaults in one synced
| Dropbox folder (to get around DropSync's folder limit). Works
| like a charm.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Some options for syncing on mobile:
|
| Obsidian sells a first party syncing solution, which I hear
| works well:
|
| https://obsidian.md/sync
|
| I do git syncing on Android via termux (It works most of the
| time, except when git decides to shit itself every now and
| then on my tablet):
|
| https://forum.obsidian.md/t/guide-using-git-to-sync-your-
| obs...
|
| I can't vouch for it because I don't have any iOS devices new
| enough to support it, but supposedly you can use Working Copy
| to sync via git on iOS:
|
| https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-
| based-...
| blensor wrote:
| I went for the paid syncing because I want it to "just
| work" while still having the futureproof way of storing the
| data locally in an accessible way.
|
| So far it has worked absolutely flawless. If I change a
| file it's changing on my connected device in seconds. Not
| exactly like working on a shared google doc but close
| enough that I would even use it as a hack to quickly share
| links between my mobile and my desktop
| kevingyori wrote:
| I'm using Working Copy on iOS with the setup described in
| the post. It's working like a charm for me
| bachmeier wrote:
| Obsidian Sync is by no means cheap, but I've never used a
| better syncing service. I'm on my second year and can't think
| of a single issue I've had across laptops, desktops, an
| Android phone, and a Chromebook.
| xmprt wrote:
| I love Obsidian Sync as well but to be devil's advocate, it
| doesn't "just work" as a lot of people claim. It's still a
| bit rough around the edges. For example, it doesn't sync
| settings or starred files immediately. I've also noticed it
| dropping some text if I edit the same file on multiple
| devices simultaneously (or even in quick succession before
| sync is able to catch up). I'm sure these issues and more
| would exist with a 3rd party syncing solution but Obsidian
| sync still needs some work before it's perfect.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > I've also noticed it dropping some text if I edit the
| same file on multiple devices simultaneously
|
| I don't think that's the intended use case of Sync or
| anything they've ever said it could be used for.
| runjake wrote:
| I can think of a number of other notes syncing that's
| better -- probably even Evernote's. As a happily paying
| Obsidian Sync customer, I'll drop some reality, so new
| people aren't caught off-guard.
|
| - Obsidian Sync is pretty slow.
|
| - Obsidian Sync doesn't happen in the background, at
| present. That means, if you just made a bunch of updates in
| Obsidian, or you haven't opened the Obsidian mobile app in
| a while, you're in for a wait.
|
| - Obsidian Sync occasionally has sync errors that involve
| manual interaction.
|
| That said, it's fine and the overall Obsidian experience
| makes it worth it (well, if you can swing a discounted
| price).
| AB1908 wrote:
| What's faster than Obs sync? Genuinely curious since I
| thought I tried most of the options out there apart from
| syncthing.
| selykg wrote:
| 1Password sync is definitely the fastest sync I've ever
| used.
| redrobein wrote:
| It depends on your workflow. I use git to sync my obsidian
| vault. There's plugins to automate this, but doing it
| manually isn't that bad either. I use mobile mostly to read
| notes, and occasionally I'll write down a short line or two
| which I can sync over and edit and organize on desktop.
| gocartStatue wrote:
| I use it with Working Copy git client, nice and properly
| nerdy setup. There are nice ready-made guides for this combo.
| gavi wrote:
| I use iCloud Drive as a vault location. The trick is to
| create it first on the Mobile app and then use the desktop
| app later to point to that vault.
|
| If you are transferring from desktop to mobile, make sure the
| .obsidian folder inside the vault is copied also
| reneberlin wrote:
| Syncthing comes to my mind for that specific need.
| https://syncthing.net/
| nine_k wrote:
| Syncing bytes is easy, many solutions exist (and syncthing
| / syncthing-fork is good at it).
|
| Syncing by merging _changes_ and resolving possible
| conflicts is a much harder task. Theoretically git has all
| the right bits, including the pluggable diffing and
| merging. In practice, I haven 't seen it seriously used in
| this capacity.
|
| This is to say nothing about files you only want on one
| node but not on another (heavy stuff lives on server and
| laptop, but not mobile, etc.)
|
| This is why special-case syncing tools that know how to
| sync semantically are indispensable.
| Macha wrote:
| Syncthing on mobile is a little clunky because of OS
| limitations on background processes. Basically the reason I
| pay for Obsidian's own sync addon
| rg111 wrote:
| You can always use Mega sync.
|
| And it has 15 GB free forever, just like Google Drive.
|
| Mega sync has native clients in MacOS, Linux, Windows,
| iOS, Android.
| Macha wrote:
| Does it not ultimately have the same problem? i.e. when
| you open obsidian, there's no guarantee the files are up
| to date as Android may have killed the third party sync
| program. And on iOS, there's no way for the sync program
| and obsidian to share the same filesystem short of the
| obsidian devs explicitly integrating
| jonas-w wrote:
| Android does have Content Providers [0], basically apps
| can provide a "filesystem" which isn't locally stored on
| your phone and act like Network Shares. Caveat is that
| you need an internet connection.
|
| [0] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/
| content...
| ljw1004 wrote:
| What does it mean to open-source or MIT-license a "file
| format"?
|
| The MIT license is a license about copyrighted software,
| allowing people to use/modify/publish that software. But a file
| format isn't a piece of software.
|
| Are you open-sourcing the specification document for the file
| format? (people are still free to write software that
| reads+writes the file format even if the specification document
| isn't open-sourced).
|
| Are you open-sourcing your particular library for reading the
| file format? (I'm confused here, because you stressed that the
| file format was so simple, so I'd have expected it easy and
| maybe even desirable for many people to come up with libraries
| for reading+writing the file foramt?)
| cwilby wrote:
| ~Can't wait to try this out~ just installed, thank you!
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| We're using whatboard.app for this at present. A bit different
| in approach, but a more more manageable and less infinite
| canvas. That said, this looks really cool and may be worth the
| desktop-app install.
| sneak wrote:
| This isn't what "open sourced" means.
|
| Photoshop is proprietary software with a well documented file
| format anyone can read and write.
|
| So is this software. "Open source" is not branding, it means
| something.
|
| It's okay to make and promote and sell proprietary commercial
| software. That's what you are doing, be proud and clear about
| it. Pretending your efforts have anything to do with free
| software is deceptive.
| talkin wrote:
| You're focusing on a single word in a sentence which was just
| about the format.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| kepano wrote:
| You are confusing two different ideas here. The Canvas format
| is MIT licensed in the same way that Markdown uses a BSD-type
| license. That means we are giving explicit permission for
| anyone to use the format and build apps, scripts, plugins on
| top of it.
|
| Photoshop/PSD on the other hand is a closed proprietary
| format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_file_format
| cxr wrote:
| This is a pretty grating response, given how pointed it is.
| It's not made any better by the first sentence; it seems
| that you are the one confusing two different (types of)
| things:
|
| > The Canvas format is MIT licensed in the same way that
| Markdown uses a BSD-type license.
|
| In no sense are these two things comparable. "Markdown uses
| a BSD-type license" is a true statement because "Markdown",
| in the context where it makes sense to say this, is a Perl
| script--a program, licensed in a way that is not uncommon
| for open source programs to be licensed. Your canvas format
| is not a program. It's a 70-line TypeScript interface
| definition, going by your own link:
|
| <https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-
| api/blob/master/canva...>
|
| To call this "open source" (let alone open source "in the
| same way that Markdown" is) is a very odd choice. It's less
| odd for anyone who recognizes that it follows a common
| pattern, where folks with something to sell often openwash
| what it is that they're selling based on the (not
| unfounded) perception that having it be thought of as more
| open than it really is tends to confer certain positive
| benefits. It's why Steve Jobs lied about FaceTime being an
| open standard, for example.
|
| Whether or not you're giving any explicit permission to
| build apps, scripts, plugins, etc. is largely moot--to be
| frank, you don't have the power to dictate otherwise. On
| the other hand, if you're saying that you're aiming to
| steward and participate in a (hopefully) vibrant ecosystem
| built on a common format, then that's cool. But say what
| you mean, though. Calling it an open format or an open
| standard would be fine; "open source", however, this is
| not.
| kepano wrote:
| I appreciate the distinction you're making. I could have
| been more accurate in my description. Markdown states in
| its own documentation that the name refers to two things,
| and "Canvas" _to date_ fits mostly in (1)
|
| > Thus, "Markdown" is two things: (1) a plain text
| formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool, written in
| Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML.
|
| What we have done so far is shared an open spec for the
| .canvas file format, with a type definition that helps
| developers understand how to create properly formed
| Canvas files. We also are giving permission to
| people/companies to use this format with the freedoms
| that come with the MIT license. In addition we're also
| putting forward the intention that there should be a free
| and open format for this type of canvas data, with some
| similar properties to Markdown. Perhaps in the future
| there will be more open source tooling fitting into
| definition (2).
|
| The goal here is simply to help people feel more
| comfortable that the canvas files they create are their
| own, and can eventually accrue longevity as more tools
| get built around the format. I hope this will lead to a
| rich ecosystem outside of Obsidian. We're committing to
| keeping it an open format, and hope to collaborate with
| other people who might want to adopt it.
| smusamashah wrote:
| This is great. Just testing it out with a goal to switch from
| OneNote to canvas.
|
| It can borrow a few things from OneNote e.g.
|
| - cards resize automatically with text.
|
| - OneNote starts with a cursor, clicking anywhere on canvas and
| writing is a single click operation.
|
| - There are no hard borders around cards in OneNote.
|
| - OneNote is WYSIWYG which this canvas isn't currently.
|
| This is not a definitive list and I know its too early to ask
| for new features and stuff. Good things to consider IMO.
| CuriousSkeptic wrote:
| Just as a data point. This feature of one-note (text boxes
| where you click) is the single reason I'm looking for
| something else. I absolutely hate any interface that has me
| fiddle with layout when I'm trying to focus on semantics.
|
| Not that this should impact Obsidian much, since I assume the
| canvas thing is optional there, just a data point.
|
| Related to infinite canvas _do_ checkout "The Humane
| Environment" [1] it has a few interesting takes
|
| As for a more semantic approach to layouting, I think Flying
| Logic[2] makes a decent job of it
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/344726.The_Humane_
| Int...
|
| [2] https://flyinglogic.com/
| smusamashah wrote:
| I use OneNote extensively and as I understand each page is
| like a white board where you can write anything anywhere.
| If I wanted a linear interface I would be using Word
| instead.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Markdown was never intended for data with a graph structure, so
| I think it's the right decision to use a different simple
| format instead of creating yet another bloated non-standard
| Markdown variant.
| erksa wrote:
| Yes! Compliment the standard, don't obfuscate it even more.
| As someone who mostly write org rather than md, but sometime
| have to write md in various places, it's confusing that
| they're not all the same.
| helloguillecl wrote:
| Great! I love the philosophy around open and clear formats.
| Like I have said before, a second brain should be as open and
| reliable as possible.
| imperfect_blue wrote:
| Trello boards export to JSON, would you consider it open?
| OneNote notebooks are also an open and well-documented
| specification, as well as local first and backed by a very
| reliable company, which makes them just as open as Obsidian
| by those standards.
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/openspecs/office_file_form...
| Macha wrote:
| OneNote and this canvas format might be equally open and
| interoperable, but it's a hard claim to justify that
| onenote notebooks are as open as a folder of mostly
| standard markdown (the two exceptions being wikilinks and
| embeds)
| generalizations wrote:
| I peeked at the onenote format standard [1] and the
| obsidian canvas standard. The difference is hilarious.
| The onenote standard is painfully complex, provided as a
| .pdf, and binary to boot. Compare to an example obsidian
| canvas - this is obvious, text-based (I could read it
| with notepad++) and easy to understand just by reading
| it: { "nodes":[ {"id":"6c7
| 11bf8c24c4f5b","x":-226,"y":-62,"width":400,"height":400,
| "type":"file","file":"testin/2022-10-14.md"}, {"i
| d":"4dd7d04cdd0b379c","x":-530,"y":-209,"width":250,"heig
| ht":60,"type":"text","text":"this is a note"} ],
| "edges":[ {"id":"0c589a4d6bbb06aa","fromNode":"4d
| d7d04cdd0b379c","fromSide":"bottom","toNode":"6c711bf8c24
| c4f5b","toSide":"left"}, {"id":"eda9f3edb3ec232a"
| ,"fromNode":"6c711bf8c24c4f5b","fromSide":"top","toNode":
| "4dd7d04cdd0b379c","toSide":"right"}, {"id":"abf4
| 04722ba48c3b","fromNode":"4dd7d04cdd0b379c","fromSide":"t
| op","toNode":"6c711bf8c24c4f5b","toSide":"right"}
| ] }
|
| [1]
| https://interoperability.blob.core.windows.net/files/MS-
| ONE/...
| kepano wrote:
| The Canvas JSON is not an export format, it is the file
| that the app actually reads and edits. Being explicitly MIT
| licensed also gives permission to other people/companies to
| build their own tools using that format.
| helloguillecl wrote:
| Exporting is different than "being stored in". Since it
| does not represent the full state of the data, no.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Yes, I much prefer local and do my own backups (rclone to
| backblaze) on just about everything. I only drop stuff on
| iCloud when I need to share it and a couple of ongoing
| spreadsheets I use to track stuff.
| easybake wrote:
| Thank you.
| gareth_untether wrote:
| Long time user. It's so fast and fantastic to have full
| control.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I can't use this for work unless I pay $50 per year, is that
| right?
|
| If I sign up for the Sync or Publish plans, do I still need to
| pay $50 per year to use it at work? Or is that included?
| arwineap wrote:
| I don't think you would need either sync or publish at work.
| I haven't used canvas yet, as it's a new feature, but
| obsidian is a key app at work for me. Up to this point at
| least, it's been free :)
|
| Make a private repo, and git commit / push / pull your
| obsidian notes and canvases just like you would any other
| shared repo
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > but obsidian is a key app at work for me. Up to this
| point at least, it's been free
|
| That's against their license. You're essentially pirating
| it.
|
| https://obsidian.md/eula
| arwineap wrote:
| I didn't know that actually, I will re-evaluate my usage
| luismedel wrote:
| A few days ago I wrote a small utility to setup cron-like
| timers to pull/push my Obsidian notes :-)
|
| https://pypi.org/project/grony/
| kobaltauge wrote:
| Love when someone find a solution for his issue. For your
| convenience try the Git Plugin in Obsidian. Probably it
| will help you.
| luismedel wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I know the plugin, but it seems to work only for Github
| hosted repos. I want my notes to be elsewhere.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| If you want to use it for work, you need a commercial
| license. That's $50/month, yes.
|
| https://obsidian.md/eula
| hgomersall wrote:
| Per year AFAICT: https://obsidian.md/pricing
| jclem wrote:
| It's $50/year.
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