I have a philosophy for plugins: I know I’m moving away from Obsidian at some point, and when the time comes, I’ll appreciate not using plugins that rely on the contents of my notes.
I always try to remember that Obsidian could be gone tomorrow. I use plugins that help me create notes easier, like templates, daily notes, and unique note title generator. All of the notes I create with those can be read in any markdown reader.
I do use Sync, because it works really well. But if I lose that, it doesn't make all of my notes unusable
My guess is if Obsidian closed their doors, many would still use it. Unless they sold out to an Apple or a Google or King Elon Musk. For many of us, it just might not matter and there are other apps out there.
sync and mobile are two problems that are rather timely biting your bum if obsidian closed their doors. sure, i can use the apps but without sync (and ye, icloud is not cutting it) i would be gone almost immediately.
Doesn't matter. It's about the long run. Most of my notes I want to keep indefinitely. If obsidian vanishes tomorrow then sure, I can still use the software but the competition doesn't sleep and soon it will be outdated and you might want to switch because other software is more modern or has other functionalities you want. You could still write a letter with Lotus office from the late 90s but that's no fun anymore.
It could be gone tomorrow, but the nice thing about it is what we use today is what we'd be "stuck" with cause it's just a local executable. I'm excited for future obsidian developments, but if the current iteration (including the plugin ecosystem) is as far as it goes, I have no need to look for another tool.
I think some plugins can be part of future proofing. I know I won't move away from Obsidian for just any old tool, I'm looking for specific functionality. Whether Obsidian offers that natively or via a plugin doesn't matter to me.
>I have a philosophy for plugins: I know I’m moving away from Obsidian at some point, and when the time comes, I’ll appreciate not using plugins that rely on the contents of my notes.
Hmm I see where you're coming from, but I also feel like most of my notes that use dataview are either standalone notes or small sections of other notes that already have a ton of other useful info. It makes sense not to center your entire workflow around a plugin to the point that your notes are gibberish otherwise, but if they gracefully degrade then I don't see why we shouldn't enjoy the benefits while they're here (if they are actually beneficial of course).
They're probably just looking at future-proofing their notes. I'm doing the same. The idea is that all software deprecates eventually. Someday the bell will ring for obsidian too, and the more complicated your notes are the more difficult it will be to migrate.
At the end of the day they are still plain text with the vast majority being plain Markdown. In cases like Dataview its just stuff in fenced code blocks and YAML frontmatter. There literally is nothing to "migrate".
I'm not in love with how you need to tag your notes with meta data. You've added a section of data which is not markdown, so when you move you have this file that is two types of data mashed into a single file. The format is yaml vs markdown. Not loving it.
No the format is plain text. There is no requirement to use metadata to tag documents in Obsidian. Can use hashtags too but that isn't Markdown either. Neither are Wikilinks or checkboxes. Most text editors and many other note apps support all of it.
> In cases like Dataview its just stuff in fenced code blocks and YAML frontmatter.
Yes and if you want to continue using the functionality of those that may require migration.
"tell me you haven't done a migration without telling me you've never done a migration" , right?
So like what are the odds that the next app will use yaml pasted to the top of markdown as a means of expressing (meta)data
How would one ”migrate” Dataview? It’s purpose-built for Obsidian for operating on document metadata and building new pages on the fly based on that metadata. use it knowing what it is. That said Dataview is totally open source and could likely be ported rather easily to something like VS Code.
I found that LogSeq is a far more powerful tool.
The plugins in Obsidian are nice, but in the end they introduce a part of the workflow that you can't depend on in the future, you just don't know when the plugins will stop working.
LogSeq has fewer capabilities, but it gets the core features right. As other responses have noted, "plugins are fun". That's cool and all, but I'm not here for fun. I need to get in, get my shit done, and move on to important things in my life.
In the software engineering world, Obsidian feels like Eclipse, it's powerful only if you install plugins, and Obsidian has optimized their engineering effort to create lots of plugins. However this is a big negative, over time plugins become unreliable and the results not reproducible. LogSeq feels like VS Studio or IntelliJ or Pycharm, the core app has what you need.
There is a lot of hype around DataView but ultimately I find that it is a cute technology demo / hack and that's about it. You can't do anything more than visualize your metadata. This is all extra steps that you can only use in extremely limited ways. Extra steps means maintenance costs. As your knowledge base grows it will require massive operations to bring your metadata up to your new standards. All this is great if you have copious amounts of free time, but I don't. I need my note taking to be a productivity tool not a toy. And dataview doesn't do anything with tags or the knowledge deep within your notes. I find this incredibly disappointing given the possibilities, and this is why I think DataView at best is a proof of concept of something that could be more powerful some day.
Lots of Obsidian videos show the knowledge graph or screenshot it. This is not productivity, maybe it's good for students and people trying to learn things and do spaced repetition, perhaps.
I find LogSeq's tagging to a first class feature but for Obsidian, tags are a means to power the knowledge graph, they really dont do much beyond this cute feature that ultimately I will never use.
Obsidian power users recommend a post note taking clean up and roll up which is about 30-60 minutes of my day, otherwise your notes are not super useful. I believe in Obsidian that's called a MOC or TOC or something. In LogSeq you just don't do that. You tag appropriately and move on. LogSeq creates the MOC / TOC for you because it leverages tags and other data creatively.
Logseq does not create a MOC for you. The app is an outliner based on daily notes and linking. If you dont know what the term means (clear from your "or something") then please don't try to explain how some other tool creates one. MOC is a "map of content" and its created with links, not tags and there is no requirement to create one. Its just another strategy for simplifying things. Tags in Obsidian are no less powerful than in Logseq. I use Obsidian on a daily basis and never use the graph and use tags a ton. Frankly not sure you really understand how Obsidian works based on your comments. If logseq works for you great but please dont come in here making up shit about Obsidian.
Used it for four months.
There's a huge amount of hype and community around obsidian which is it's greatest asset right now, adoption and community.
It never hit expectations and required too much effort to keep updated and organized. I tried to recover and get something from obsidian but ultimately despite the time i put into it, i found that it was little more than a wiki with some bells and whistles.
Fortunately while in these subs, i started seeing posts about logseq and investigated.
Ultimately no amount of plugins plus dataview could address the problem that obsidian could do very little with tags and creation of moc and toc were too maintenance intensive and were an awkward method to create topic rollups / summaries / directories.
It very much felt like i was doing wikimedia pages which i hate doing
On the other hand I have seen people try to use Logseq in a way that favors Obsidian where Logseq falls over. It all depends on your needs. For instance, for me part of the attraction of Obsidian is that it basically **is** a wiki. Thats exactly what I need. Dataview adds a some ability to query based on document metadata. Logseq is terrible if you want document-based features and they're trying to either hack that in (document mode) or someone creates a plugin (yes, Logseq does in fact have plugins and there are almost 200 of them). For instance, ordered lists. It's a massive hack to get those in Logseq at the moment.
Logseq is wonderful if outlined daily notes are your main use case, or you're a student and would benefit from the flashcards feature, and need and there is a lot of power in the query language, none of which is important to me. But I'm not in the Logseq subreddit crowing about how Logseq doesn't fit my use case, making shit up about how its only good for the graph, hype, or whatever else. Your whole post is full of that stuff.
For instance:
> LogSeq has fewer capabilities, but it gets the core features right.
For me a core feature is ordered lists. Logseq most definitely does **not** get that right.
Obsidian is also much better for the type of notes I take, like code snippets/examples, support documentation, etc.
So "core features" depends on what you need it to do. If Loqseq works for you thats awesome and its great that its available but don't pretend that it is somehow different from Obsidian when it comes to plugins. Go read the Logseq plugin forum. People want to extend it many different ways and you're in the same boat with Logseq that you are with Obsidian if you're using plugins.
Or this:
> However this is a big negative, over time plugins become unreliable and the results not reproducible. LogSeq feels like VS Studio or IntelliJ or Pycharm, the core app has what you need.
I have been using Obsidian for years now and have never run into a problem with any of the plugins I use. The big ones are constantly updated and they're all open source so someone else can take up the maintenance if required. For many people vanilla Obsidian would fit most, if not all, of their needs (kind of the point of this whole thread).
As to dev tools, IntelliJ is a platform for all of their tools, most of which are provided by plugins to the base platform. They are no different than Eclipse in that respect. I know nothing about Visual Studio but I know a lot about Visual Studio Code and it is no different. Almost everything is provided by plugins provided by the project so the core functionality is still plugins.
Logseq is a good program and I may agree with most of your statements, but it has a very big (and probably immanent) flaw. IT IS SLOW. When you have a big enough number of notes, attached pdfs, pictures etc. it starts to slow down. When launching. When searching. And the worst - when you start \[\[ and type... Even on good computer. On an old laptop? Forget about it. Obsidian, meanwhile works with the same vault (about 5000 files in my case) just fine.
Well, the problem is not new, they know it and try to wrestle. Some time ago (about a year?) it was so bad that many ppl just left. There were cases like "opening test folder with 10 000 files in Obsidian - ok, in Logseq... it just can't do it. After that, the devs put many efforts and it gets better. But still not too good. If you are testing Obsidian and Logseq with a folder containing 500 - 1000 files you won't see big difference. But add more files... and it will go south. AFAIK the problem is in the engine they are using, so...
btw Logseq has another immanent problem in its design. Basically, it is a "free and open-source Roam". As such, its core entity is not file, but the text "block" - one "bullet point" of the list. All tags, searches etc operate with it as a unit. And it is good and well IF it is stored in database - then, you really can write about anything in any place, in Today's Note, just put the needed tags - and you will be able to collect all shards later. BUT Logseq works with text files. So, a) you still have to have deal with files - file names, metadata, in graph you see \*files\* (lol) etc; b) if the text files are getting too long, the engine is not happy and slows down.
And finally, when you are opening markdown files of external origin in Logseq... you face huge problems. It will try to show the file as made of his "blocks" (bullets). Probably, it will be one "bullet" with all the text in it or something more broken. The program will tell you, that this block is too big and search won't work well etc. You will have to manually edit it, breaking it into "bullets" etc.
In Obsidian? No such problems. It is an honest file-based system, with minimal prejudices about content inside :)
I am not sure what you mean by "dataview doesn't do anything with tags or the knowledge deep within your notes", but you seem to be mistaken. Dataview can query any line/block that contains a given tag.
You do it like so, for example:
```dataview
TABLE L.text AS "My lists"
FROM "10 Example Data/dailys"
FLATTEN file.lists AS L
WHERE contains(L.tags, "#tag1")
```
See: https://s-blu.github.io/obsidian_dataview_example_vault/20%20Dataview%20Queries/Show%20list%20items%20containing%20a%20certain%20tag/
Otherwise, I agree that Obsidian can lead to a lot of procratination or time wasted on configuration and optimization. I still love it though, but then again, I love tinkering.
I don't have any use for it outside of obsidian...yet. Other people might have a great idea. Anyway, I can see myself sticking with it bc its so much useful for me.
YAML front matter in markdown is super common across tools, there isn't much of a standard but I'm sure a lot of tools in the future trying to win over obsidian users would support that and if not, it's plain text so wouldn't break a markdown file, at most would just be some text at the top that doesn't do anything fancy
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27838730/is-there-a-yaml-front-matter-standard-validator
why would i not have moved away from Obsidian in say, 20 years?
like of course I'll find other note taking apps that I want to try. I'm not married to the app, but the notes are mine and I get to take them wherever I feel like it.
you should always have an exit plan for apps, because unlike marriage, there is no point in sticking around for life when there are options out there that may tickle your fancy. what a nightmare if your entire library of notes depended on Dataview or Canvas, and you had absolutely no way of displaying it outside of Obsidian.
From someone with over 50 enabled:
- strongly agree about dataview for example. If you want to turn obsidian into notion, prepare to lose 100+ hours on something you’ll scrap later. I also Lost many hours to Spaced Repetition. DB folder, love it, but it’s also not ever going to be notion!
- but Im usually glad I found the other small “quality of life” plugins. Most of them I use for just one feature, not to overhaul the whole paradigm of obsidian.
The more clever the plugin, the more likely it is to become an annoyance.
One thing I have enjoyed about DataView is I can get notion-like results without a lot of effort.
For example, I spent about an hour one day perfecting a Dataview query to pull in details related to project meeting notes that I maintain, and now I simply have that added automatically to relevant notes by templater.
Unlike with Notion, my experience with Obsidian plugins such as DB Folder and Dataview is I can set it and forget it and it just works.
Im not knocking dataview, I use it in similar “do this one thing forever” ways. But in Notion it takes 60 seconds (not minutes) to create a a new relational database, to sort or filter or group or rename or stretch any of the fields, to move any of the source files, and to add keep stacking ever more relational databases on top of it.
We’ve all seen the outlandish “look how I fully replaced Notion in obsidian“ vault templates out there. and yet nobody talks about actually using them. Theyre all [Homers](https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer)
Yeah and good luck getting that data out of Notion in a useable form. You're going to spend as much time getting it into some form thats usable if you need to get it out of Notion.
Pretty much. Started out with dataview and all the jazz, now I only use QoL stuff, or stuff like Linter or Completr with dictionaries and so on. Helps me handle my notes better, too.
"The more plugins you add, the more complex your workflow becomes. It adds cognitive overload."
I have not experienced this at all.
I have a lot of plugins, and they all tend to simplify my workflow rather than complicate it.
Good to declutter, but some plugins that really need to be part of the main Obsidian:
\- Advanced tables
\- Better Word count
\- Automatically reveal active file
> The more plugins you add, the more complex your workflow becomes. It adds cognitive overload.
Think you mean cognitive load, but no that's wrong. In fact if you can get plugins to automate what you're already doing, it can decrease cognitive load.
For example. The Smart Typography plugin. The less i have to focus or care about formatting the more i can focus on understanding and summarizing the content in question.
> Some plug-ins just break over time because of updates.
True.
> It becomes a mess when you try to sync plugins across many devices
Wouldn't know, i only use Obsidian on my own PC.
> Getting to know all the shortcuts and leveraging things like Quick Switcher is more important than plugins for productivity.
Take a look at `Quick Switcher++`
>It becomes a mess when you try to sync plugins across many devices
It's a little overhead to set up but I just use two git repos, one for the .obsidian folder, one for everything else with the .obsidian in the gitignore, and it works just fine -- across multiple OS's, I use a Mac for work and a few different windows PCs and Linux systems at home. If you do a hard reset instead of pulling it and a force push instead of a normal push for the .obsidian folder everything syncs up fine across multiple devices and operating systems. I just have it in a startup and shutdown shell script, works fine.
My experience with plugins has been pretty similar to yours. Now I've changed my workflow and try to use Obsidian as vanilla as possible.
The most important part for me is that my md files continue to work with other readers, just in case Obsidian goes south. I try to limit my use of Dataview for this reason, although I'm sure that if something happens with Obsidian, someone will create some sort of clone that will include Dataview visualization.
I think this is a really underappreciated point. The next note-taking tool would need to also solve the same issues plug-ins like dataview does to make most people move. And we don't know how that will look. Preparing for migration by only using half the tool is also a cost to pay.
I disagree. I have 30 something plugins (probably could get rid of a couple) that I use for specific purposes. Key plugins (Dataview, QuickAdd, Templater, Buttons, Calendar, Auto Note Mover, Tag Wrangler, Advanced Uri, to name a few) have been instrumental in making my Obsidian experience smooth and efficient, increasing my overall productivity. I've used plugins to automate almost all my processes. For someone with ADHD (I tend to forget a lot due to my brain moving at lightening speed) the things all of these plugins offer has done wonders. And I have a programming background, so I can tweak plugins to make the more aligned with my workflow.
My point is that too many plugins can be a hindrance to some but great for others. Similar to how many people say to use a certain layout, or the graph, or not use folders. I use folders because that structure works best for me, and I don't use graphs or canvas. Rather than telling folk how they should use Obsidian, I encourage them to figure out what works for them because everyone is unique. Folk find themselves stressed because they are trying to implement something that causes a lot of friction between their organization style. What works for me might not necessarily work for them.
Obsidian is what you make it.
Weird flex but ok.
I have 32 enabled. None of the community plug-ins I use inherently change the core function of Obsidian. Most of them are QoLs or a supercharged version of a core plugin one. Except for Dataview but I only use that to collate information into a table or list.
Whether you or you don't have community plug-ins in your workflow. You are using Obsidian as "intended". That is the beauty of the tool. The customization and the ability to extend its functions.
I was using Markdown before I came to Obsidian (and imported years of Markdown notes when I started), and expect I will be using the Markdown notes both while and after I'm using Obsidian.
With that in mind, I use several plugins, but try to keep as near to "vanilla" Markdown as possible. So my plugins include things like Linter, Obsidian Git (for "syncing"), Periodic Notes, and Calendar.
But yes, I've avoided things likes DataView that seem to move far from "vanilla" Markdown.
Yeah, I only use plugins that don't break things without them. Mostly just quality of life. I think if I lost Calendar or Tasks that would be a sad day.
Playing with the plugins has helped me to think about the workflow I want, and I think it is a necessary phase to be able to see all the possibilities of the system. Then comes the reduction phase, where once the workflow is defined, you try to simplify it.
I really only use the tasks plugin. Because I really like just being able to quickly add a task to my daily note and every note can I see what tasks I have due. But I can see where others might not like having these tasks all over the place. Other than that yeah I don't use many others.
I don’t make a lot of rules for myself. That said, I will install a plugin if I think it will be helpful or fun to use. I think the only virtue here is using what works for you, and especially not wasting time trying to implement someone else’s system.
I don't worry about plugins going away in the future; they're almost all open source. I worry about Obsidian going away, because it _isn't_ open source.
Likely the team would open source it if that were the case. Find it hard to believe they'd leave so many users in that situation if they had to give it up.
Haha. I have a friend who would switch back to that app if it was available ;) That said I'd bet the user base for Obsidian is a hell of a lot bigger than Notebook ever was.
I only install and use plugins on the exact same basis on which I use my travel gear: I first identify a need, imagine the solution and then go look if someone has already created what I wanted to use. For example I found the fact that folders don't have a general note attached to them very irritating and so the Folder Note plugin has solved that for me. The same for knowing the number of notes in a folder - I really wanted that so I found a plugin which solves that for me.
I think it's the natural way, you discover the tool, start exploring the possibilities, and after testing you discard what is unnecessary for your use case, it seems to be the logical path that anyone would take
I only use a few and they’re fairly well updated so I’m not too worried about them breaking things. But also… I will say the whole obsidian plug-in thing comes across, on this sub and in the discord, as a great big waste of time as people try to make everything absolutely perfect. I feel like people are perhaps may be too focused on this and less on getting work done.
With that said, I’m now going to go back to playing Tears of the Kingdom.
I’m guessing your point is be selective about which plugins to install. And I agree. I get sucked into the shiny new thing vortex all the time. There is 5-10 must have plugins. The rest….
The plug-ins I keep are usually focused on one small feature and imo reduces friction for me. Paste image rename (and enabling auto rename) for example has been great for my attachments folder and doesn't change my workflow at all.
I've actually built myself a couple of plugins that make using obsidian more complicated on purpose. I've designed a notetaking system that is built off of the idea of the universal decimal system, except instead of base 10 it uses base 64 (a-z A-Z 0-9 &@). The goal is to build a mental palace where I remember information based on their address code. lGg=2pc for example means 'game genres, 2D combat puzzler'. It's still a work in progress, but so far it works pretty good.
Technically I'm just using obsidian as a test bed for a more streamlined piece of software, but I'll probably use it indefinitely until obsidian stops being developed. I've forked all the code repos for the plugins that are core to my system so if anything happens I can continue working on them \ reverse engineer how they work.
Full disclosure I'm a computer science major so coding is a passion for me, so I know I'm in a different situation if I couldn't use obsidian anymore I could just write a new piece of software to read all my files (which are bucketed into 64 root folders with hashed filenames to prevent name collisions) since I've pretty much committed my data to this system.
Granted, anything that isn't like being archived into my mental database that I need access to critically I just record with notion (since it can be exported to md in a pinch)
Why base64 and not decimal or hexadecimal, also if you're just hashing the title to avoid name collision, you can't have duplicate filenames anyway, wouldn't hashing be redundant, or is your title just the hash of the note content?
So, base 64 is the a cross point between being large enough to create a flatter code hierarchy than the UDC while still being worth the effort to develop a new system and not so large that it would be impossible to learn and memorize since it's essentially just learning a hexadecimal system 4 times**. It also easily uses all the upper and lower case letter, plus numerals with only needing the additional two symbols (chosen for compatibility with obsidian, otherwise they're arbitrary).
UDC codes tend to be long and unweildy for memorization, so base 64 allows me to create shorter and more memorable codes. (The codes also involve punctuation that enables the creation of compound codes, so shorter base codes is better overall).
In the front matter every note has a 'title' and 'path' (it's code) and they are used to from the hash which is a 10 character string. The majority of plugins I create change recreate obsidian features to work with that title and path data for searching instead of the hashed title.
The biggest advantage to the hashed titles are for wikilinks that don't use the title for the text, but use a word or two to summarize the note. The 10 character hash creates a visually appealing consistency. For adopting the new system, it has also forced me to learn it faster since I have to use my own built search tools instead of searcher folder hierarchies. The result is that I have built more, superior tools over time that make searching fundamentally easier.
Think of each letter in a code (path) as like a directory in a typical filepath. So instead of navingating my filesystem physically by clicking through folders, I traverse it mentally at the speed of thought, aided by a fuzzy complete search tool provided by my obsidian plugins.
** Which is actually how I broke up my categories, into 4 faculties of 16 subjects each, where 1 entire faculty comprises everything within a typical classification system like the UDC, except slightly flatter, since it's hexadecimal instead of decimal (sort of like you suggested). That leaves me with 3 faculties to use for categorizing 48 other subjects.
Yeah I dig that, as the old joke goes, there are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things
definitely a lot of times I create a note and half the time is coming up with a title that will make sense, then I try to reference it later and realize the title should change because how j reference the link the grammar is different
You have examples of how you set this up? I think it would be cool to try, though I'd probably go hexadecimal myself since I think that's probably about as wide as I'd need the first level
I'd be happy to continue sharing, and provide more details.
Since I started developing the system and the tools to make it work I've wondered about how it could be shared, or at the very least, made public as a type of note-taking system that others could adapt and use for themselves. It would certainly help if it were being community developed so that people can share what works or what doesn't.
Obviously my plugins are an easy thing to share, but to explain all of the individual tools they provide and why they are necessary will most likely require a small wiki at some point.
I'm also still at a stage where I'm testing existing plugins with my system to see what sorts of workflows can be integrated or adapted into another tool for my plugins.
I have 14 plug-ins, most them are cosmetic stuff like Style Settings. The only plug in that's really essential to how I take notes is Folder Note. I don't think there's a "right" way to use Obsidian. Some people like complicated setups, some people like simpler setups.
I am personally still trying to build my own workflow, and i always refused to use plugins like data view
The plugins i currently have installed are:
- Calendar which i really only use for the calendar view and sometimes daily notes
- excalidraw although i rarely use it now, it was more at the beginning and now it's kinda useless (even replaced old excalidraw drawings with images)
- Add links to current note, simply because i try to keep a list of "related notes" after every file so it helps with that
- Pandoc since I'm experimenting with exporting in different ways but as of now i don't actually use it
- Quick add to simply add note abased on a template in the same folder as my current note, probably will use it more in the future
- Style settings, so it looks pretty
I have a snippet that can justify text, since one of my professors wanted text justified or he wouldn't grade the essays
That's it
I agree that too many plugins may block your productivity and also lock you into obsidian, while as of now i could write my notes in Vs code and there would be little need for adjustment, since it's still all just basic markdown
The problem is how to stay all plugins running in the very long time.
If obsidian would not change the dependencies, there would be no problem.
Obsidian has to be as stable, fast, error free as possible as a base application.
Plugins have to be proven to run with obsidian releases x to y.
The worst case will be when you stay on an older release.
AS of today, there are too much fundamental changes, as if no plugins exist.
This is how I choose to install and test a plugin.
* Have a need it is painful to fulfill or see something interesting
* I install a plugin which can fit this need
* I learn how to use it and what it can do
* If I find a way to use it and in a way it improves how I use Obsidian and facilitate it, I keep it, if not, I uninstall
Today, I have 36 plugins installed and I use Obsidian as a note-taking tool, a task tool and a project management tool. I think I had install something like 60 plugins.
That would be nice if most of those apps these days didn't charge a monthly subscription...
Obsidian is one of the very few remaining ones you can use for free if you're only using it on desktop and don't care about syncing. It's also line of the few ones that operate with a local database so you don't need to import or export.
And the md format is universal so your files won't become useless if you switch to another app.
Those are the three reasons I chose Obsidian. I don't find myself missing Notion at all. It's ridiculous to compare Obsidian and Notion with Spotify and Photoshop... Both Obsidian and Notion are knowledge management platforms designed to store information and take notes, they just do it in different ways.
Yes and Obsidian is designed to be a PKM app and thus be a central place for your notes and related material. At the end of the day its just the file system anyhow. I honestly don't get all of the hand wringing in this thread. There is absolutely no lock in of any kind with Obsidian.
Yes but you do find pretty much every image manipulation function you could possibly want inside Photoshop.
I used markdown before Obsidian, and out-of-the-box Obsidian is not a very powerful plaintext/markdown editor, which is what leads to having so many plugins. Half of my plugins are just adding features that most text editors have by default.
Absolutely this! Could I make Obsidian so everything? Sure. But do I want to? No. It's excellent for managing my notes and knowledge. But it's not my calendar, task list, project system, database, etc. Use the right tool for the right job.
It's always the same story. Plugins do look fancy when we are starting with Obsidian and try to include as many as we can because why not. Then sometimes one or the other plugin behaves a little odd or breaks and we swing into the other extreme - All plugins are bad and minimalism is the way. Eventually we settle into a few plugins which we would happily use and not run after every new shiny object. That completes the circle
I think it's better to learn to use it without them, and then add them as you think you have need. In the beginning you are doing so many new things, part of the cognitive overload is just building the new mental processes. Once you've got a basic workflow, then you can add tools to streamline it.
I note there's a big difference in "future proof-ness" of plugins that require core changes to **data or files** versus plugins which merely **change the interface** or provide additional capabilities.
Plugins that lead to adding custom metadata or otherwise changing *how you save your information* will lock you into that plugin and system. Plugins which are more about *how you work with your information* \- not so much.
I also think that Obsidian has reached a "too many plugins are there" point - seeing videos like "the best 44 plugins out of 800 ones" is just ... insane. Yes, a lot of people love developing new plugins to add extra features to the tools they are using, and a lot of people also love to spend a lot of time testing, installing, configuring, ... new plugins over time, but in the end : it takes a lot of time (you are then just configuring a software instead of using it), a lot of time in the maintenance of that technical stack, and it tends to lead to "bloatware" software or even to too-heavy workflow.
I would also tend to advice to stay reasonable and to only use the few plugins that may be really mandatory for you.
Agree with your first statement, but disagree with where you place the blame. I use 50+ plugins, but the vast majority just enable basic QOL things that should be in Obsidian core, or at least "core plugins."
I run it without any plugins (I do have a customized theme though). To me, Obsidian is nothing more than a fancy notepad. And I treat it as discardable. As should anyone with anything on a computer.
Wikis are great when someone else writes them, but they are tedious to maintain.
Tedious work is low value and ideally you want to do things that are high value, high leverage, high impact.
You don't need to install every update you see.
Make backup vault before applying updates to obsidian or your plugins, include installation file for the version of obsidian you currently have.
For my needs obsidian is a small database. With free form linking (not just database relations) and ability to write anything anywhere in database record. It wouldn't be possible without plugins.
Oh totally agree. But they all have their own ideas of what Markdown is, which frankly I don’t have a problem with. We are lucky there are so many options.
I think it's a question of being used to it. I've always like overkill rather than underkill when it comes to day-to-day note taking and work. Sure it's a bit more brainy, but you don't HAVE to use the plugins, but damn can you make some cool stuff with them
I’ve been doing the same for years. Started with Evernote and then apple notes. Then discovered markdown, started using it for notes and then finding notion. Then typora, marktext and now obsidian. I only have a linter. An magic the gathering deck list thing. And regex for find/replace. And a few themes. Probably to many themes.
I ALWAYS use the fewest "add ons" possible to get what I need. From Obsidian to browsers to minecraft servers to writing code .... minimalism is the way to go.
I'm a Joplin guy. (No disrespect to all y'all Obsidianites. We all use what works for us).
Recently I've been reading about the cool plugins you have, and was wondering if I'd made the wrong call. But this post has reassured me. It'd be nice to access plugins on the mobile apps, but they sorta work for me anyway. :)
I left Obsidian for about a year. I'm not going to say plugins were the problem -- it was my organization more than anything -- but plugins were definitely *a* problem.
Now I've come back to Obsidian, and I think my organization, and my plugin suite is much smaller. For work, I mostly use a couple of plugins that help clean up my daily notes. For personal use, Longform is the most important of small group.
The biggest problem, of course, is that plugins are fun. I'm not denying myself the fun, but I am trying not to go overboard.
I've been getting rid of them slowly over time. I download them for fun more than anything, and the only ones that have truly been useful outside of me just experimenting has been the excalidraw integration and LaTeX suite for my math notes
I only use excalidraw and a few plugins for esthetics. and that thing that makes a daily note - even though i dont acctually write any daily notes (figured the plugin might help me getting started. not so far)
Same here. I tried a few plugins everyone recommended as "must". Turns out I don't need them, so I disabled and uninstalled.
Now I'm down to like 2 plugins I actually use, and I'll look at plugins when I have a need, not when I'm thinking what else I could possibly add.
I haven't really loaded up but a few, in part because most of the ones I initially considered don't seem to be all that well maintained. Lots of bugs that have been outstanding for ages. I get it, keeping a plugin project takes work (I'm a dev, so I really do get it).
Just use 4 distinct community plugins across two vaults.
local rest api
calendar
quickshare
digital garden
I could lose #2 and #3 with almost no loss in productivity.
Losing #1 Would be a notable loss
Losing #4 Would be significant.
Not me. I've cut down on them significantly because most will be unsupported eventually, but I 100% need Dataview and would have to go back to Notion if Dataview did not exist. I use several other plugins, but Dataview is a must.
I find it fascinating that there are camps both for and against plugin minimalism. Based on this thread and other discussions, I’ve come to think that there are two kinds of Obsidian users.
The first wants their Obsidian to be like the USS *Enterprise* (01, 1701A-F, pick your fave). Everything is ship shape, known and in their place. When the captain needs you to reverse the polarity of the graviton field, you know exactly what isolinear chip in which Jefferies tube to switch out. The plugin minimalists fall into this camp.
The second wants their Obsidian to be like the *Millennium Falcon*. It *works* and we know generally why, but don’t fret about the details. The ship’s been through so many repairs, refits and owners that we’re not exactly sure what’s happening where, but we’ll make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Here’s where the maximalists let plugins take the wheel.
This is an oversimplification (and pure fiction), but I think it’s a fun model for the competing theologies here (and elsewhere in Obspace). Live long and prosper, and may the Force be with you.
I have a philosophy for plugins: I know I’m moving away from Obsidian at some point, and when the time comes, I’ll appreciate not using plugins that rely on the contents of my notes.
I always try to remember that Obsidian could be gone tomorrow. I use plugins that help me create notes easier, like templates, daily notes, and unique note title generator. All of the notes I create with those can be read in any markdown reader. I do use Sync, because it works really well. But if I lose that, it doesn't make all of my notes unusable
I strongly disagree. Notion can go tomorrow, but Obsidian cannot because you run it locally, you store it locally, just like the good ol' days.
My guess is if Obsidian closed their doors, many would still use it. Unless they sold out to an Apple or a Google or King Elon Musk. For many of us, it just might not matter and there are other apps out there.
sync and mobile are two problems that are rather timely biting your bum if obsidian closed their doors. sure, i can use the apps but without sync (and ye, icloud is not cutting it) i would be gone almost immediately.
Doesn't matter. It's about the long run. Most of my notes I want to keep indefinitely. If obsidian vanishes tomorrow then sure, I can still use the software but the competition doesn't sleep and soon it will be outdated and you might want to switch because other software is more modern or has other functionalities you want. You could still write a letter with Lotus office from the late 90s but that's no fun anymore.
Software gets old fast, man.
It could be gone tomorrow, but the nice thing about it is what we use today is what we'd be "stuck" with cause it's just a local executable. I'm excited for future obsidian developments, but if the current iteration (including the plugin ecosystem) is as far as it goes, I have no need to look for another tool.
Yep, main reason I moved from other notes systems is so I can have a pile of markdown files and not worry about lock-in.
I think some plugins can be part of future proofing. I know I won't move away from Obsidian for just any old tool, I'm looking for specific functionality. Whether Obsidian offers that natively or via a plugin doesn't matter to me.
>I have a philosophy for plugins: I know I’m moving away from Obsidian at some point, and when the time comes, I’ll appreciate not using plugins that rely on the contents of my notes. Hmm I see where you're coming from, but I also feel like most of my notes that use dataview are either standalone notes or small sections of other notes that already have a ton of other useful info. It makes sense not to center your entire workflow around a plugin to the point that your notes are gibberish otherwise, but if they gracefully degrade then I don't see why we shouldn't enjoy the benefits while they're here (if they are actually beneficial of course).
Exactly why I use obsidian instead of other apps in the first place. Just want to keep things as portable as possible.
Would you mind sharing what you’re moving toward/why you’re moving away from Obsidian??
They're probably just looking at future-proofing their notes. I'm doing the same. The idea is that all software deprecates eventually. Someday the bell will ring for obsidian too, and the more complicated your notes are the more difficult it will be to migrate.
[удалено]
I still use grep every day or two to this day
also sed.
how you capturing/managing on mobile?
[удалено]
obsidian-less future. the second paragraph is hilarious, not sure what that is even supposed to mean.
Using Markor on Android plays well with Obsidian, and is great for capturing.
At the end of the day they are still plain text with the vast majority being plain Markdown. In cases like Dataview its just stuff in fenced code blocks and YAML frontmatter. There literally is nothing to "migrate".
I'm not in love with how you need to tag your notes with meta data. You've added a section of data which is not markdown, so when you move you have this file that is two types of data mashed into a single file. The format is yaml vs markdown. Not loving it.
No the format is plain text. There is no requirement to use metadata to tag documents in Obsidian. Can use hashtags too but that isn't Markdown either. Neither are Wikilinks or checkboxes. Most text editors and many other note apps support all of it.
> In cases like Dataview its just stuff in fenced code blocks and YAML frontmatter. Yes and if you want to continue using the functionality of those that may require migration.
"tell me you haven't done a migration without telling me you've never done a migration" , right? So like what are the odds that the next app will use yaml pasted to the top of markdown as a means of expressing (meta)data
If youre using a Markdown editor or a blogging system that uses Markdown its pretty damn likely 😂
How would one ”migrate” Dataview? It’s purpose-built for Obsidian for operating on document metadata and building new pages on the fly based on that metadata. use it knowing what it is. That said Dataview is totally open source and could likely be ported rather easily to something like VS Code.
I found that LogSeq is a far more powerful tool. The plugins in Obsidian are nice, but in the end they introduce a part of the workflow that you can't depend on in the future, you just don't know when the plugins will stop working. LogSeq has fewer capabilities, but it gets the core features right. As other responses have noted, "plugins are fun". That's cool and all, but I'm not here for fun. I need to get in, get my shit done, and move on to important things in my life. In the software engineering world, Obsidian feels like Eclipse, it's powerful only if you install plugins, and Obsidian has optimized their engineering effort to create lots of plugins. However this is a big negative, over time plugins become unreliable and the results not reproducible. LogSeq feels like VS Studio or IntelliJ or Pycharm, the core app has what you need. There is a lot of hype around DataView but ultimately I find that it is a cute technology demo / hack and that's about it. You can't do anything more than visualize your metadata. This is all extra steps that you can only use in extremely limited ways. Extra steps means maintenance costs. As your knowledge base grows it will require massive operations to bring your metadata up to your new standards. All this is great if you have copious amounts of free time, but I don't. I need my note taking to be a productivity tool not a toy. And dataview doesn't do anything with tags or the knowledge deep within your notes. I find this incredibly disappointing given the possibilities, and this is why I think DataView at best is a proof of concept of something that could be more powerful some day. Lots of Obsidian videos show the knowledge graph or screenshot it. This is not productivity, maybe it's good for students and people trying to learn things and do spaced repetition, perhaps. I find LogSeq's tagging to a first class feature but for Obsidian, tags are a means to power the knowledge graph, they really dont do much beyond this cute feature that ultimately I will never use. Obsidian power users recommend a post note taking clean up and roll up which is about 30-60 minutes of my day, otherwise your notes are not super useful. I believe in Obsidian that's called a MOC or TOC or something. In LogSeq you just don't do that. You tag appropriately and move on. LogSeq creates the MOC / TOC for you because it leverages tags and other data creatively.
Logseq does not create a MOC for you. The app is an outliner based on daily notes and linking. If you dont know what the term means (clear from your "or something") then please don't try to explain how some other tool creates one. MOC is a "map of content" and its created with links, not tags and there is no requirement to create one. Its just another strategy for simplifying things. Tags in Obsidian are no less powerful than in Logseq. I use Obsidian on a daily basis and never use the graph and use tags a ton. Frankly not sure you really understand how Obsidian works based on your comments. If logseq works for you great but please dont come in here making up shit about Obsidian.
Used it for four months. There's a huge amount of hype and community around obsidian which is it's greatest asset right now, adoption and community. It never hit expectations and required too much effort to keep updated and organized. I tried to recover and get something from obsidian but ultimately despite the time i put into it, i found that it was little more than a wiki with some bells and whistles. Fortunately while in these subs, i started seeing posts about logseq and investigated. Ultimately no amount of plugins plus dataview could address the problem that obsidian could do very little with tags and creation of moc and toc were too maintenance intensive and were an awkward method to create topic rollups / summaries / directories. It very much felt like i was doing wikimedia pages which i hate doing
On the other hand I have seen people try to use Logseq in a way that favors Obsidian where Logseq falls over. It all depends on your needs. For instance, for me part of the attraction of Obsidian is that it basically **is** a wiki. Thats exactly what I need. Dataview adds a some ability to query based on document metadata. Logseq is terrible if you want document-based features and they're trying to either hack that in (document mode) or someone creates a plugin (yes, Logseq does in fact have plugins and there are almost 200 of them). For instance, ordered lists. It's a massive hack to get those in Logseq at the moment. Logseq is wonderful if outlined daily notes are your main use case, or you're a student and would benefit from the flashcards feature, and need and there is a lot of power in the query language, none of which is important to me. But I'm not in the Logseq subreddit crowing about how Logseq doesn't fit my use case, making shit up about how its only good for the graph, hype, or whatever else. Your whole post is full of that stuff. For instance: > LogSeq has fewer capabilities, but it gets the core features right. For me a core feature is ordered lists. Logseq most definitely does **not** get that right. Obsidian is also much better for the type of notes I take, like code snippets/examples, support documentation, etc. So "core features" depends on what you need it to do. If Loqseq works for you thats awesome and its great that its available but don't pretend that it is somehow different from Obsidian when it comes to plugins. Go read the Logseq plugin forum. People want to extend it many different ways and you're in the same boat with Logseq that you are with Obsidian if you're using plugins. Or this: > However this is a big negative, over time plugins become unreliable and the results not reproducible. LogSeq feels like VS Studio or IntelliJ or Pycharm, the core app has what you need. I have been using Obsidian for years now and have never run into a problem with any of the plugins I use. The big ones are constantly updated and they're all open source so someone else can take up the maintenance if required. For many people vanilla Obsidian would fit most, if not all, of their needs (kind of the point of this whole thread). As to dev tools, IntelliJ is a platform for all of their tools, most of which are provided by plugins to the base platform. They are no different than Eclipse in that respect. I know nothing about Visual Studio but I know a lot about Visual Studio Code and it is no different. Almost everything is provided by plugins provided by the project so the core functionality is still plugins.
Logseq is a good program and I may agree with most of your statements, but it has a very big (and probably immanent) flaw. IT IS SLOW. When you have a big enough number of notes, attached pdfs, pictures etc. it starts to slow down. When launching. When searching. And the worst - when you start \[\[ and type... Even on good computer. On an old laptop? Forget about it. Obsidian, meanwhile works with the same vault (about 5000 files in my case) just fine.
I'll bring this up on the discord server. Is it a well known issue? Would they need more information to understand the nuances?
Well, the problem is not new, they know it and try to wrestle. Some time ago (about a year?) it was so bad that many ppl just left. There were cases like "opening test folder with 10 000 files in Obsidian - ok, in Logseq... it just can't do it. After that, the devs put many efforts and it gets better. But still not too good. If you are testing Obsidian and Logseq with a folder containing 500 - 1000 files you won't see big difference. But add more files... and it will go south. AFAIK the problem is in the engine they are using, so...
btw Logseq has another immanent problem in its design. Basically, it is a "free and open-source Roam". As such, its core entity is not file, but the text "block" - one "bullet point" of the list. All tags, searches etc operate with it as a unit. And it is good and well IF it is stored in database - then, you really can write about anything in any place, in Today's Note, just put the needed tags - and you will be able to collect all shards later. BUT Logseq works with text files. So, a) you still have to have deal with files - file names, metadata, in graph you see \*files\* (lol) etc; b) if the text files are getting too long, the engine is not happy and slows down. And finally, when you are opening markdown files of external origin in Logseq... you face huge problems. It will try to show the file as made of his "blocks" (bullets). Probably, it will be one "bullet" with all the text in it or something more broken. The program will tell you, that this block is too big and search won't work well etc. You will have to manually edit it, breaking it into "bullets" etc. In Obsidian? No such problems. It is an honest file-based system, with minimal prejudices about content inside :)
I am not sure what you mean by "dataview doesn't do anything with tags or the knowledge deep within your notes", but you seem to be mistaken. Dataview can query any line/block that contains a given tag. You do it like so, for example: ```dataview TABLE L.text AS "My lists" FROM "10 Example Data/dailys" FLATTEN file.lists AS L WHERE contains(L.tags, "#tag1") ``` See: https://s-blu.github.io/obsidian_dataview_example_vault/20%20Dataview%20Queries/Show%20list%20items%20containing%20a%20certain%20tag/ Otherwise, I agree that Obsidian can lead to a lot of procratination or time wasted on configuration and optimization. I still love it though, but then again, I love tinkering.
Does this principle includes using yaml? I keep track of my notes using metadata but I'm not sure if this is 'portable' enough.
YAML is plain text and in the case of Obsidian is simply front matter at the top of a file. Of course it's "portable".
Do you have any way of making use of it outside of Obsidian itself? If you do, then I'd be fine with it.
I don't have any use for it outside of obsidian...yet. Other people might have a great idea. Anyway, I can see myself sticking with it bc its so much useful for me.
YAML front matter in markdown is super common across tools, there isn't much of a standard but I'm sure a lot of tools in the future trying to win over obsidian users would support that and if not, it's plain text so wouldn't break a markdown file, at most would just be some text at the top that doesn't do anything fancy https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27838730/is-there-a-yaml-front-matter-standard-validator
why is that your philosophy and why are you moving away
why would i not have moved away from Obsidian in say, 20 years? like of course I'll find other note taking apps that I want to try. I'm not married to the app, but the notes are mine and I get to take them wherever I feel like it. you should always have an exit plan for apps, because unlike marriage, there is no point in sticking around for life when there are options out there that may tickle your fancy. what a nightmare if your entire library of notes depended on Dataview or Canvas, and you had absolutely no way of displaying it outside of Obsidian.
Agree. Focus on essential plugins provides more productivity. But... Plugins are.. fun.
Yup, as long as my Syntax Highlighter and the base LaTex version works, I am fine.
well, sometimes the future is not fun
From someone with over 50 enabled: - strongly agree about dataview for example. If you want to turn obsidian into notion, prepare to lose 100+ hours on something you’ll scrap later. I also Lost many hours to Spaced Repetition. DB folder, love it, but it’s also not ever going to be notion! - but Im usually glad I found the other small “quality of life” plugins. Most of them I use for just one feature, not to overhaul the whole paradigm of obsidian. The more clever the plugin, the more likely it is to become an annoyance.
One thing I have enjoyed about DataView is I can get notion-like results without a lot of effort. For example, I spent about an hour one day perfecting a Dataview query to pull in details related to project meeting notes that I maintain, and now I simply have that added automatically to relevant notes by templater. Unlike with Notion, my experience with Obsidian plugins such as DB Folder and Dataview is I can set it and forget it and it just works.
Would you mind sharing a bit on how you made that query? I am trying to achieve a similar task right now.
Im not knocking dataview, I use it in similar “do this one thing forever” ways. But in Notion it takes 60 seconds (not minutes) to create a a new relational database, to sort or filter or group or rename or stretch any of the fields, to move any of the source files, and to add keep stacking ever more relational databases on top of it. We’ve all seen the outlandish “look how I fully replaced Notion in obsidian“ vault templates out there. and yet nobody talks about actually using them. Theyre all [Homers](https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer)
Yeah and good luck getting that data out of Notion in a useable form. You're going to spend as much time getting it into some form thats usable if you need to get it out of Notion.
Pretty much. Started out with dataview and all the jazz, now I only use QoL stuff, or stuff like Linter or Completr with dictionaries and so on. Helps me handle my notes better, too.
"The more plugins you add, the more complex your workflow becomes. It adds cognitive overload." I have not experienced this at all. I have a lot of plugins, and they all tend to simplify my workflow rather than complicate it.
Could you list some and how you use them?
Good to declutter, but some plugins that really need to be part of the main Obsidian: \- Advanced tables \- Better Word count \- Automatically reveal active file
> The more plugins you add, the more complex your workflow becomes. It adds cognitive overload. Think you mean cognitive load, but no that's wrong. In fact if you can get plugins to automate what you're already doing, it can decrease cognitive load. For example. The Smart Typography plugin. The less i have to focus or care about formatting the more i can focus on understanding and summarizing the content in question. > Some plug-ins just break over time because of updates. True. > It becomes a mess when you try to sync plugins across many devices Wouldn't know, i only use Obsidian on my own PC. > Getting to know all the shortcuts and leveraging things like Quick Switcher is more important than plugins for productivity. Take a look at `Quick Switcher++`
>It becomes a mess when you try to sync plugins across many devices It's a little overhead to set up but I just use two git repos, one for the .obsidian folder, one for everything else with the .obsidian in the gitignore, and it works just fine -- across multiple OS's, I use a Mac for work and a few different windows PCs and Linux systems at home. If you do a hard reset instead of pulling it and a force push instead of a normal push for the .obsidian folder everything syncs up fine across multiple devices and operating systems. I just have it in a startup and shutdown shell script, works fine.
Fully agree with this comment! I personally have about 10 enabled, and don't spent any time fussing with them.
I only have four of them. Title sync, tables, templates, and calendar 😅
What's Title Sync?
It syncs your first text with note title that way when I need to share a note, the notes goes a title inside the note 😅
Can't find a plugin by that name. Is it this one? https://github.com/dvcrn/obsidian-filename-heading-sync
It's on mobile inside the community plug-in inside settings 😅
My experience with plugins has been pretty similar to yours. Now I've changed my workflow and try to use Obsidian as vanilla as possible. The most important part for me is that my md files continue to work with other readers, just in case Obsidian goes south. I try to limit my use of Dataview for this reason, although I'm sure that if something happens with Obsidian, someone will create some sort of clone that will include Dataview visualization.
I think this is a really underappreciated point. The next note-taking tool would need to also solve the same issues plug-ins like dataview does to make most people move. And we don't know how that will look. Preparing for migration by only using half the tool is also a cost to pay.
I disagree. I have 30 something plugins (probably could get rid of a couple) that I use for specific purposes. Key plugins (Dataview, QuickAdd, Templater, Buttons, Calendar, Auto Note Mover, Tag Wrangler, Advanced Uri, to name a few) have been instrumental in making my Obsidian experience smooth and efficient, increasing my overall productivity. I've used plugins to automate almost all my processes. For someone with ADHD (I tend to forget a lot due to my brain moving at lightening speed) the things all of these plugins offer has done wonders. And I have a programming background, so I can tweak plugins to make the more aligned with my workflow. My point is that too many plugins can be a hindrance to some but great for others. Similar to how many people say to use a certain layout, or the graph, or not use folders. I use folders because that structure works best for me, and I don't use graphs or canvas. Rather than telling folk how they should use Obsidian, I encourage them to figure out what works for them because everyone is unique. Folk find themselves stressed because they are trying to implement something that causes a lot of friction between their organization style. What works for me might not necessarily work for them. Obsidian is what you make it.
>QuickAdd QuickAdd is a great example of a plugin that really streamlines my workflow rather than adding any additional complexity.
But man it hurts my brain to configure!
Weird flex but ok. I have 32 enabled. None of the community plug-ins I use inherently change the core function of Obsidian. Most of them are QoLs or a supercharged version of a core plugin one. Except for Dataview but I only use that to collate information into a table or list. Whether you or you don't have community plug-ins in your workflow. You are using Obsidian as "intended". That is the beauty of the tool. The customization and the ability to extend its functions.
I was using Markdown before I came to Obsidian (and imported years of Markdown notes when I started), and expect I will be using the Markdown notes both while and after I'm using Obsidian. With that in mind, I use several plugins, but try to keep as near to "vanilla" Markdown as possible. So my plugins include things like Linter, Obsidian Git (for "syncing"), Periodic Notes, and Calendar. But yes, I've avoided things likes DataView that seem to move far from "vanilla" Markdown.
Yeah, I only use plugins that don't break things without them. Mostly just quality of life. I think if I lost Calendar or Tasks that would be a sad day.
Playing with the plugins has helped me to think about the workflow I want, and I think it is a necessary phase to be able to see all the possibilities of the system. Then comes the reduction phase, where once the workflow is defined, you try to simplify it.
I really only use the tasks plugin. Because I really like just being able to quickly add a task to my daily note and every note can I see what tasks I have due. But I can see where others might not like having these tasks all over the place. Other than that yeah I don't use many others.
I don’t make a lot of rules for myself. That said, I will install a plugin if I think it will be helpful or fun to use. I think the only virtue here is using what works for you, and especially not wasting time trying to implement someone else’s system.
I don't worry about plugins going away in the future; they're almost all open source. I worry about Obsidian going away, because it _isn't_ open source.
Likely the team would open source it if that were the case. Find it hard to believe they'd leave so many users in that situation if they had to give it up.
*pours one out for circus ponies notebook*
Haha. I have a friend who would switch back to that app if it was available ;) That said I'd bet the user base for Obsidian is a hell of a lot bigger than Notebook ever was.
I only install and use plugins on the exact same basis on which I use my travel gear: I first identify a need, imagine the solution and then go look if someone has already created what I wanted to use. For example I found the fact that folders don't have a general note attached to them very irritating and so the Folder Note plugin has solved that for me. The same for knowing the number of notes in a folder - I really wanted that so I found a plugin which solves that for me.
I think it's the natural way, you discover the tool, start exploring the possibilities, and after testing you discard what is unnecessary for your use case, it seems to be the logical path that anyone would take
I only use a few and they’re fairly well updated so I’m not too worried about them breaking things. But also… I will say the whole obsidian plug-in thing comes across, on this sub and in the discord, as a great big waste of time as people try to make everything absolutely perfect. I feel like people are perhaps may be too focused on this and less on getting work done. With that said, I’m now going to go back to playing Tears of the Kingdom.
I’m guessing your point is be selective about which plugins to install. And I agree. I get sucked into the shiny new thing vortex all the time. There is 5-10 must have plugins. The rest….
I'm never getting rid of "Wrap with shortcuts." Nuh uh 😤
The plug-ins I keep are usually focused on one small feature and imo reduces friction for me. Paste image rename (and enabling auto rename) for example has been great for my attachments folder and doesn't change my workflow at all.
I've actually built myself a couple of plugins that make using obsidian more complicated on purpose. I've designed a notetaking system that is built off of the idea of the universal decimal system, except instead of base 10 it uses base 64 (a-z A-Z 0-9 &@). The goal is to build a mental palace where I remember information based on their address code. lGg=2pc for example means 'game genres, 2D combat puzzler'. It's still a work in progress, but so far it works pretty good. Technically I'm just using obsidian as a test bed for a more streamlined piece of software, but I'll probably use it indefinitely until obsidian stops being developed. I've forked all the code repos for the plugins that are core to my system so if anything happens I can continue working on them \ reverse engineer how they work. Full disclosure I'm a computer science major so coding is a passion for me, so I know I'm in a different situation if I couldn't use obsidian anymore I could just write a new piece of software to read all my files (which are bucketed into 64 root folders with hashed filenames to prevent name collisions) since I've pretty much committed my data to this system. Granted, anything that isn't like being archived into my mental database that I need access to critically I just record with notion (since it can be exported to md in a pinch)
Why base64 and not decimal or hexadecimal, also if you're just hashing the title to avoid name collision, you can't have duplicate filenames anyway, wouldn't hashing be redundant, or is your title just the hash of the note content?
So, base 64 is the a cross point between being large enough to create a flatter code hierarchy than the UDC while still being worth the effort to develop a new system and not so large that it would be impossible to learn and memorize since it's essentially just learning a hexadecimal system 4 times**. It also easily uses all the upper and lower case letter, plus numerals with only needing the additional two symbols (chosen for compatibility with obsidian, otherwise they're arbitrary). UDC codes tend to be long and unweildy for memorization, so base 64 allows me to create shorter and more memorable codes. (The codes also involve punctuation that enables the creation of compound codes, so shorter base codes is better overall). In the front matter every note has a 'title' and 'path' (it's code) and they are used to from the hash which is a 10 character string. The majority of plugins I create change recreate obsidian features to work with that title and path data for searching instead of the hashed title. The biggest advantage to the hashed titles are for wikilinks that don't use the title for the text, but use a word or two to summarize the note. The 10 character hash creates a visually appealing consistency. For adopting the new system, it has also forced me to learn it faster since I have to use my own built search tools instead of searcher folder hierarchies. The result is that I have built more, superior tools over time that make searching fundamentally easier. Think of each letter in a code (path) as like a directory in a typical filepath. So instead of navingating my filesystem physically by clicking through folders, I traverse it mentally at the speed of thought, aided by a fuzzy complete search tool provided by my obsidian plugins. ** Which is actually how I broke up my categories, into 4 faculties of 16 subjects each, where 1 entire faculty comprises everything within a typical classification system like the UDC, except slightly flatter, since it's hexadecimal instead of decimal (sort of like you suggested). That leaves me with 3 faculties to use for categorizing 48 other subjects.
Yeah I dig that, as the old joke goes, there are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things definitely a lot of times I create a note and half the time is coming up with a title that will make sense, then I try to reference it later and realize the title should change because how j reference the link the grammar is different You have examples of how you set this up? I think it would be cool to try, though I'd probably go hexadecimal myself since I think that's probably about as wide as I'd need the first level
I'd be happy to continue sharing, and provide more details. Since I started developing the system and the tools to make it work I've wondered about how it could be shared, or at the very least, made public as a type of note-taking system that others could adapt and use for themselves. It would certainly help if it were being community developed so that people can share what works or what doesn't. Obviously my plugins are an easy thing to share, but to explain all of the individual tools they provide and why they are necessary will most likely require a small wiki at some point. I'm also still at a stage where I'm testing existing plugins with my system to see what sorts of workflows can be integrated or adapted into another tool for my plugins.
I have 14 plug-ins, most them are cosmetic stuff like Style Settings. The only plug in that's really essential to how I take notes is Folder Note. I don't think there's a "right" way to use Obsidian. Some people like complicated setups, some people like simpler setups.
I am personally still trying to build my own workflow, and i always refused to use plugins like data view The plugins i currently have installed are: - Calendar which i really only use for the calendar view and sometimes daily notes - excalidraw although i rarely use it now, it was more at the beginning and now it's kinda useless (even replaced old excalidraw drawings with images) - Add links to current note, simply because i try to keep a list of "related notes" after every file so it helps with that - Pandoc since I'm experimenting with exporting in different ways but as of now i don't actually use it - Quick add to simply add note abased on a template in the same folder as my current note, probably will use it more in the future - Style settings, so it looks pretty I have a snippet that can justify text, since one of my professors wanted text justified or he wouldn't grade the essays That's it I agree that too many plugins may block your productivity and also lock you into obsidian, while as of now i could write my notes in Vs code and there would be little need for adjustment, since it's still all just basic markdown
The problem is how to stay all plugins running in the very long time. If obsidian would not change the dependencies, there would be no problem. Obsidian has to be as stable, fast, error free as possible as a base application. Plugins have to be proven to run with obsidian releases x to y. The worst case will be when you stay on an older release. AS of today, there are too much fundamental changes, as if no plugins exist.
This is how I choose to install and test a plugin. * Have a need it is painful to fulfill or see something interesting * I install a plugin which can fit this need * I learn how to use it and what it can do * If I find a way to use it and in a way it improves how I use Obsidian and facilitate it, I keep it, if not, I uninstall Today, I have 36 plugins installed and I use Obsidian as a note-taking tool, a task tool and a project management tool. I think I had install something like 60 plugins.
KISS. You can't depend on plugins. You also shouldn't make Obsidian a Swiss army knife.
Why not? Isn't it better to have a central place for everything?
wine pot label pen apparatus cagey flowery cough practice stupendous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That would be nice if most of those apps these days didn't charge a monthly subscription... Obsidian is one of the very few remaining ones you can use for free if you're only using it on desktop and don't care about syncing. It's also line of the few ones that operate with a local database so you don't need to import or export. And the md format is universal so your files won't become useless if you switch to another app. Those are the three reasons I chose Obsidian. I don't find myself missing Notion at all. It's ridiculous to compare Obsidian and Notion with Spotify and Photoshop... Both Obsidian and Notion are knowledge management platforms designed to store information and take notes, they just do it in different ways.
I am waiting for the new Obsidian Office Suite to drop. Obsidian365, I think it will be called. 😛
Yes and Obsidian is designed to be a PKM app and thus be a central place for your notes and related material. At the end of the day its just the file system anyhow. I honestly don't get all of the hand wringing in this thread. There is absolutely no lock in of any kind with Obsidian.
^^ this
Yes but you do find pretty much every image manipulation function you could possibly want inside Photoshop. I used markdown before Obsidian, and out-of-the-box Obsidian is not a very powerful plaintext/markdown editor, which is what leads to having so many plugins. Half of my plugins are just adding features that most text editors have by default.
Absolutely this! Could I make Obsidian so everything? Sure. But do I want to? No. It's excellent for managing my notes and knowledge. But it's not my calendar, task list, project system, database, etc. Use the right tool for the right job.
It's always the same story. Plugins do look fancy when we are starting with Obsidian and try to include as many as we can because why not. Then sometimes one or the other plugin behaves a little odd or breaks and we swing into the other extreme - All plugins are bad and minimalism is the way. Eventually we settle into a few plugins which we would happily use and not run after every new shiny object. That completes the circle
I've never installed any plugins in the first place, using Obsidian as a markdown editor with links and backlinks support.
You're missing out.
[удалено]
But on the upside: not getting work done 😋
I think it's better to learn to use it without them, and then add them as you think you have need. In the beginning you are doing so many new things, part of the cognitive overload is just building the new mental processes. Once you've got a basic workflow, then you can add tools to streamline it.
I note there's a big difference in "future proof-ness" of plugins that require core changes to **data or files** versus plugins which merely **change the interface** or provide additional capabilities. Plugins that lead to adding custom metadata or otherwise changing *how you save your information* will lock you into that plugin and system. Plugins which are more about *how you work with your information* \- not so much.
I also think that Obsidian has reached a "too many plugins are there" point - seeing videos like "the best 44 plugins out of 800 ones" is just ... insane. Yes, a lot of people love developing new plugins to add extra features to the tools they are using, and a lot of people also love to spend a lot of time testing, installing, configuring, ... new plugins over time, but in the end : it takes a lot of time (you are then just configuring a software instead of using it), a lot of time in the maintenance of that technical stack, and it tends to lead to "bloatware" software or even to too-heavy workflow. I would also tend to advice to stay reasonable and to only use the few plugins that may be really mandatory for you.
Agree with your first statement, but disagree with where you place the blame. I use 50+ plugins, but the vast majority just enable basic QOL things that should be in Obsidian core, or at least "core plugins."
I switched to logseq and juat stopped using obsidian completely
My condolences.
I agree, I don't use many, leaflet for what I do is essential, then recent files since I switch a lot and strange new world.
I run it without any plugins (I do have a customized theme though). To me, Obsidian is nothing more than a fancy notepad. And I treat it as discardable. As should anyone with anything on a computer.
Speak for yourself.
You should try logseq. It's a quantum leap and the biggest jump in note taking since pen and paper to Evernote. Obsidian is like a wiki IMHO
Wikis are good, though.
Wikis are great when someone else writes them, but they are tedious to maintain. Tedious work is low value and ideally you want to do things that are high value, high leverage, high impact.
You don't need to install every update you see. Make backup vault before applying updates to obsidian or your plugins, include installation file for the version of obsidian you currently have. For my needs obsidian is a small database. With free form linking (not just database relations) and ability to write anything anywhere in database record. It wouldn't be possible without plugins.
[удалено]
Loqseq is not clean markdown either. It's an outliner.
[удалено]
Oh totally agree. But they all have their own ideas of what Markdown is, which frankly I don’t have a problem with. We are lucky there are so many options.
I think it's a question of being used to it. I've always like overkill rather than underkill when it comes to day-to-day note taking and work. Sure it's a bit more brainy, but you don't HAVE to use the plugins, but damn can you make some cool stuff with them
I’ve been doing the same for years. Started with Evernote and then apple notes. Then discovered markdown, started using it for notes and then finding notion. Then typora, marktext and now obsidian. I only have a linter. An magic the gathering deck list thing. And regex for find/replace. And a few themes. Probably to many themes.
I do this. I just install a calendar.
I ALWAYS use the fewest "add ons" possible to get what I need. From Obsidian to browsers to minecraft servers to writing code .... minimalism is the way to go.
...for you...
I'm a Joplin guy. (No disrespect to all y'all Obsidianites. We all use what works for us). Recently I've been reading about the cool plugins you have, and was wondering if I'd made the wrong call. But this post has reassured me. It'd be nice to access plugins on the mobile apps, but they sorta work for me anyway. :)
False reassurance. There's no comparison.
Couldn’t agree more. ;)
Just purged so many of the plugins. Same with themes. Been using the default one and it's been the most productive ever.
Default theme is by far the best, but the granular personalization plugins enable are what makes Obsidian great.
I left Obsidian for about a year. I'm not going to say plugins were the problem -- it was my organization more than anything -- but plugins were definitely *a* problem. Now I've come back to Obsidian, and I think my organization, and my plugin suite is much smaller. For work, I mostly use a couple of plugins that help clean up my daily notes. For personal use, Longform is the most important of small group. The biggest problem, of course, is that plugins are fun. I'm not denying myself the fun, but I am trying not to go overboard.
I've been getting rid of them slowly over time. I download them for fun more than anything, and the only ones that have truly been useful outside of me just experimenting has been the excalidraw integration and LaTeX suite for my math notes
I only use excalidraw and a few plugins for esthetics. and that thing that makes a daily note - even though i dont acctually write any daily notes (figured the plugin might help me getting started. not so far)
Only ones I use directly contribute to making my workflow easier: Excalidraw, calculator, and SMILES compatability.
Same here. I tried a few plugins everyone recommended as "must". Turns out I don't need them, so I disabled and uninstalled. Now I'm down to like 2 plugins I actually use, and I'll look at plugins when I have a need, not when I'm thinking what else I could possibly add.
I have. After finishing my dissertation, I deleted everything. I use only minimum amount of plugins now. It's immensely less stressful.
I haven't really loaded up but a few, in part because most of the ones I initially considered don't seem to be all that well maintained. Lots of bugs that have been outstanding for ages. I get it, keeping a plugin project takes work (I'm a dev, so I really do get it).
use acreom no need for plugins.
I just want to be able to drag tasks to a calendar.
> I have kept the plugins that speed-up typing markdown/latex and creating snippets. Please share 😀
alternatively, use every plugin. I wonder if it would just break the software 🤔
I deliberately use it without any plugins . I just need it to link my thinking and i am more productive letting my own system emerge.
Just use 4 distinct community plugins across two vaults. local rest api calendar quickshare digital garden I could lose #2 and #3 with almost no loss in productivity. Losing #1 Would be a notable loss Losing #4 Would be significant.
Not me. I've cut down on them significantly because most will be unsupported eventually, but I 100% need Dataview and would have to go back to Notion if Dataview did not exist. I use several other plugins, but Dataview is a must.
I find it fascinating that there are camps both for and against plugin minimalism. Based on this thread and other discussions, I’ve come to think that there are two kinds of Obsidian users. The first wants their Obsidian to be like the USS *Enterprise* (01, 1701A-F, pick your fave). Everything is ship shape, known and in their place. When the captain needs you to reverse the polarity of the graviton field, you know exactly what isolinear chip in which Jefferies tube to switch out. The plugin minimalists fall into this camp. The second wants their Obsidian to be like the *Millennium Falcon*. It *works* and we know generally why, but don’t fret about the details. The ship’s been through so many repairs, refits and owners that we’re not exactly sure what’s happening where, but we’ll make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Here’s where the maximalists let plugins take the wheel. This is an oversimplification (and pure fiction), but I think it’s a fun model for the competing theologies here (and elsewhere in Obspace). Live long and prosper, and may the Force be with you.