If you like that, I also recommend taking a look at Logseq[0].
I've previously been using Obsidian, and Bear before that, but always structured my notes as increasingly nested lists of bullet points.
Logseq is basically built around that abstraction, to make it very ergonomic (with each bullet point being a "block" - the smallest unit of text on which Logseq operates).
It also has querying built-in and the core is fully open source. So far very happy with it, and the new sync is great.
Besides, it's also written in ClojureScript, which makes my inner lisp nerd happy.
Agreed, Logseq has worked for me where no other note-taking system has (and I've tried a _lot_).
I believe it has spaced repetition cards built in, too.
It took me a day to grok the "structured" lack of structure, but once I did, it has become an invaluable tool. I just throw notes on my daily journal and add tags/links (same thing) liberally. The knowledge network is practically automatic and I don't fall into the trap of prescribing a hierarchical system. A massive boon for someone with clinically significant ADHD.
The only extensions I use are for cosmetics, all functionality I need is included out of the box.
My biggest complaints are the querying language (a form of datalog) and that macros don't replace the text but are rendered dynamically instead (limiting referential utility).
> I just throw notes on my daily journal and add tags/links (same thing) liberally. The knowledge network is practically automatic and I don't fall into the trap of prescribing a hierarchical system.
This is what I've started doing as well, and can confirm it's been working well so far. Logseq will automatically create pages made out of backlinks showing you all the blocks that contain the given tag.
If you want something self-hosted look into Foam[0]. You write your notes in VS Code with Markdown. Many web frameworks can then generate interactive sites from it.
Obsidian has been around for years at this point. It's completely free to use without limitations on functionality. They make money by charging for sync, but are happy to point out that there are free options to sync data.
So where are these anti-user features? Why does the business model lead to them? "Not open source" doesn't count.
My problem with obsidian is that I need a license to use it if I add something work related. I can not realy disentangle both. If Ilearn something new here on HN Iwm will propably use it later at work.
I am curious, is there any issue with just purchasing the license?
I started out using Obsidian just for university related stuff but found it incredibly useful, so I ended up purchasing the license myself. While I'm not a big fan of subscription software, 50$/year is extremely reasonable, especially considering that your data isn't trapped in someone's cloud.
I am extremly cautios with this small fees. They tend to add up. If I would use Obsidian, I sure would use it all my live. So 50$ * 45 years more to go: 2250$
Currently that's 10% of a month's income, not exactly trivial. They make an excellent products, but I probably will move to a FOSS solution if I find one so I can use it for work.
Same here, and honestly I suspect a lot of people probably don't know this and use Obsidian for work or include work-related notes in their free plan without realizing that it technically violates the license.
I hope that Obsidian extends the social network beyond Discord integration. Those digital gardens only grow on their own when others can enrich notes and annotate ideas.
Anyone looked at Tana? I'm really liking the concept they call super tags. Makes it easy to extract structure from what is just a giant document of nested lists.
I've been using Tana the past few weeks (after more than 2 years in Obsidian). I quite like it in general, but it's really a big step up for tracking the details of the fiction I'm working on right now.
Cool post. Definitely impressed with Obsidian. Not a huge fan of the UI on iOS. For some reason I keep getting drawn back to iOS Notes for ease of use.
iOS Notes should be enough for anyone, but I hate that you can't link between notes in any reasonable way (sharing the note to myself sucks and forcing the system to give you the note id and creating your own internal notes link is tedious).
I basically use iOS Notes as a dumping ground and then occasionally clean it out like an Inbox. Mostly deleting things, but sometimes moving it into my Obsidian vault.
In theory Drafts is even better for this because it supports Markdown and is designed to be a dumping ground and rapid processing of the notes.
Readit News
I've previously been using Obsidian, and Bear before that, but always structured my notes as increasingly nested lists of bullet points.
Logseq is basically built around that abstraction, to make it very ergonomic (with each bullet point being a "block" - the smallest unit of text on which Logseq operates).
It also has querying built-in and the core is fully open source. So far very happy with it, and the new sync is great.
Besides, it's also written in ClojureScript, which makes my inner lisp nerd happy.
[0]: https://logseq.com/
I believe it has spaced repetition cards built in, too.
It took me a day to grok the "structured" lack of structure, but once I did, it has become an invaluable tool. I just throw notes on my daily journal and add tags/links (same thing) liberally. The knowledge network is practically automatic and I don't fall into the trap of prescribing a hierarchical system. A massive boon for someone with clinically significant ADHD.
The only extensions I use are for cosmetics, all functionality I need is included out of the box.
My biggest complaints are the querying language (a form of datalog) and that macros don't replace the text but are rendered dynamically instead (limiting referential utility).
This is what I've started doing as well, and can confirm it's been working well so far. Logseq will automatically create pages made out of backlinks showing you all the blocks that contain the given tag.
Personally, I find it easier to initially think visually and then just later convert it to nested-bullet points.
[0] https://flowchart.fun/ [1] https://github.com/MarkMindCkm/obsidian-markmind
In a similar vein except for plotting events that I've been working on
Also he has some great intro videos on YouTube for the way he uses Logseq https://youtube.com/@OneStutteringMind
I prefer Logseq because Obsidian gets messy quickly with the structure for me. I end up having to use the OmniSearch plugin to find things quickly.
[0] https://foambubble.github.io/foam/
[0] https://csh.rit.edu/~rg/productivity/20221109203834/
This looks very hackable too (in the good way).
So where are these anti-user features? Why does the business model lead to them? "Not open source" doesn't count.
I started out using Obsidian just for university related stuff but found it incredibly useful, so I ended up purchasing the license myself. While I'm not a big fan of subscription software, 50$/year is extremely reasonable, especially considering that your data isn't trapped in someone's cloud.
Deleted Comment
https://medium.com/os-techblog/how-to-get-started-with-obsid...
I basically use iOS Notes as a dumping ground and then occasionally clean it out like an Inbox. Mostly deleting things, but sometimes moving it into my Obsidian vault.
In theory Drafts is even better for this because it supports Markdown and is designed to be a dumping ground and rapid processing of the notes.
.map(({ key, rows }) => ({ key, rows: rows.map(r => r[1]) }))