Messages

51

General Software Discussion / Web clipping

« on: July 24, 2022, 07:03 PM »

It's not been a priority for me, but I've not been completely happy with my web clippers for a while. The Tiago Forte emphasis on capture (him being a longtime Evernote user) made me look at it afresh. I'd already concluded that much of my web clipping fell into a selected/curated/unprocessed category and that I didn't need to bring most of them into my own formal note system. Historically Evernote was the web clipper I was happiest with.

But, like many other web clippers, it does not save images from web pages that require a password. That's a problem for me because I need the images (often articles make poor sense without them) and I visit many sites that require a password. I do have ways of dealing with it. I can do complete markdown downloads including images (although I don't usually want that). I can save the whole page in a number of ways. Vivaldi offers a range of options. There's OneNote too - it seems to have overcome the problem with images on password protected webpages (although I've thought that before with various programs, including Evernote and OneNote only to find out that the images themselves were not saved only the weblink). And I've just looked at Nimbus notes, which seemed to work.

So, I was just wondering which solutions were most popular here. Apart from the need to actually clip pages including images from any site I have open, password protected or not, my own preference is for quick, simple, multiplatform, webstored but easily downloaded. Ability to highlight, annotate and edit is desirable but only used sometimes, so not actually a requirement.

20220725
And some web clippers - like Pocket - just fail disgracefully acting as nothing better than a bookmark. Not even saving the text.
I realise the problem is that their bot visits the page independently and is refused entry, but that's no use to me if it has said that it has clipped the page. I need a process that captures the page while I have it open.

Nimbus is better, but it is far from perfect on all pages. Sometimes it appears to cutoff half way. I wonder if that is a size limit in the free version? But Evernote works on the page where Nimbus cuts off.

It feels as if I need to check the quality of the clip directly in tha app ost clipping before moving on.

52

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: July 21, 2022, 07:53 AM »

Tiago Forte

-Dormouse (July 19, 2022, 06:47 AM)

I've not paid much attention to anything he has produced - it's mostly youtubes, and he's known for the PARA system which is orientated to business and actions - but I thought I would have a listen while I was doing other things. One of his interviewees (known I think for her expertise with Notion) talked about collecting stuff and doing nothing with it because it is better than Google be a curated set of articles (I think I mentioned this earlier in this thread), but it has made me think again about how to use Evernote and Pocket. It's what I have defaulted to doing, and I suspect it is a better methodology than downloading and saving webpages as markdown.

I was rather surprised to see no mention of a reduction in Evernote's quality and usability over the last few years, because the internet is full of ex-users who noticed that.

My original interest was sparked by Tangent Notes being one of the 68 which astonished me as it must have a tiny userbase and is a long way from being feature complete as a standalone solution. Turned out that it was mentioned, but nothing said - as with most of the 68.

53

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: July 19, 2022, 06:47 AM »

I don't know if *Notion* has yet died from this thread, but I'm giving it a good try.  Is this a good thread to talk about how well I like Notion, or should we start a new one?

-BGM (July 18, 2022, 04:37 PM)

I'd put it where you think it fits best. Notion is one of the numerous options available. It's useful to know how and why people use each of them.

One of Tiago Forte's latest videos mentions 68 apps, which he has split into 4 categories (and there's a separate video on the categories). He's also done a survey of students' note-taking looking at market shares where iirc Notion usually comes 2nd (and Evernote 1st). He doesn't mention that they are all student samples in the video titles. I'd expect Notion to be one of those with a higher percentage of users in post-student days; maybe even No 1 (I've not searched for any surveys on this).

I'm not convinced that his categories make a great deal of sense. But certainly there is a newer category of whiteboard style apps (such as Heptabase, Scrintal, Kinopio etc). I see the promise, I've played with a few. But I'm not convinced of their utility yet, though I'd generally describe myself as visual. Maybe I haven't researched enough. I'd expect to see multiple layers with the asbility to change order and turn on or off (could, for instance, be tag=layer). But this is where the new excitement seems to be.

54

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 25, 2022, 12:41 PM »

I was attracted to Obsidian originally because it worked with files. Plaintext files which are easily read by, it feels, nearly all programs. That attraction was undermined when I understood that Obsidian meant only .md files as most of the programs that I used preferred .txt. More recently, my preference for files has expanded to word processor files - .docx, .odt, .rtf; despite the claims from markdown activists about plaintext being the only eternal format, I have found word processor formats to be robust and widely interpretable in use - even files that originated decades ago. And these formats have the advantage over markdown in that they are *complete* - they contain their own images, have colour and instructions for printing; markdown needs multiple files, CSS and HTML to achieve the same capability.

Be that as it may, the first, greatest idea I learned with Obsidian was Nested Vaults. I happened on the idea very early, realised the benefits, tested out the risks (because the developer warnings were so strong and stridently repeated), and have used them ever since. In practice the risks are minor and small - far lower than the sync risks that most Obsidian users run regularly - and easily managed by those with a modicum of sense. I soon learned to add all files to a vault, not only those that Obsidian could read; this is great for file and project management because everything required is always contained within a specific folder.

The major advantage of nested vaults is essentially focus. There is some similar advantage to nested folders, but it is slight so I'm not surprised that I hadn't really taken to it. But within a program like Obsidian, the advantage is supercharged because the vault system restricts every action to files that are available in the vault. That includes linking, search, tags &etc &etc. Which then means that tags, star files, links can be constructed with just that vault in mind.

I tend to set up a vault for each project. As I develop and then home in on a project, there might be progressively more restricted vaults. Because it is a single system of nested vaults, it is easy to switch focus to a different area or to a much wider area of interest. I suppose it is, in effect, an indexed filter system.

As I shift towards predominantly using Tangent Notes, I am very pleased to see that its architectural similarities to Obsidian include the possibility of nested vaults (nested workspaces in Tangent language). In some ways, it takes the idea further by having a card view of the files within a folder - so I am structuring my vaults/workspaces now to take advantage of this functionality. There are many features still to be added to Tangent Notes, but it is easy to switch to Obsidian or other programs for those.

At some point I will write a review of Tangent Notes. Though I'm not sure where I will post it (my reviews here are intended for donationcoder rather than a wider audience), since I might want it to publicise it a little if my views on TN turn out to be as positive as I believe they will. I will at least post a summary review here. But this will be at least a month or two away. Might only be a first look, but I'm pretty slow even with those.

55

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 21, 2022, 06:04 PM »

Still too early for me to use regularly

-Dormouse (June 21, 2022, 08:52 AM)

I've changed my mind on this.

Working on folders of markdown notes, just as iA Writer, Inspire Writer, Obsidian etc do means that there are no disadvantages to using it. The major features it lacks (eg export/convert/publish) can easily be provided by those other programs.
And, in any case, it's easy to have the folders and files open in more than one program at the same time, for easy switching.

What it offers instead is a genuine writing environment. The focus features are well selected. The card view for a folder is instantly useful. The Andy sliding panes and a usable mapview (though that still wouldn't be enough to tempt me) are all good extras.
Vis à vis Obsidian, it doesn't have the range of themes (which I sometimes need because of my eyes), it doesn't have a novel word count plugin equivalent, it's not designed to handle long markdown files with headings (neither really is Obsidian, but it does have  a heading outline view that can be manipulated and navigated). And a whole slew of other features. Including folding, which I use a lot. So there is a lot missing.
But it is a very easy environment to write in and its combination of features makes it much easier to focus on the writing.

56

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 21, 2022, 08:52 AM »

Tangent

-urlwolf (May 30, 2022, 06:40 AM)

(A file based PKM program like Obsidian.)

I find it slow to start up, especially moving to a new workspace. And it effectively freezes on very large files (and maybe folders). Maybe I ought to revert to a stable release.

I think it's fundamentally a better design for zettelkasten, and possibly most notewriting, for those without special requirements (eg those who need code, maths, formulae, latex etc). The map views are simple and useful, but outlining is not a strength. It's not as good for structured writing as programs designed for that purpose (but most PKM programs aren't good for this either). Documentation and context sensitive help is a weakness (but again no worse than most PKM apps in rapid development). Far less noise and distraction than is found in Logseq, Obsidian etc, but able to share the same folders/vaults.

Still too early for me to use regularly - and I need to spend much of my time in structured programs anyway.

57

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 18, 2022, 06:22 PM »

interoperability and primitive won.
... observed how easily I fall into 'better' solutions that ... potentially store up problems or limitations in the future.

-Dormouse (June 17, 2022, 04:15 PM)

I've learned that the actuality of markdown falls far short of the promises of its evangelists. However you look at it, the interoperability of markdown programs is limited unless they restrict themselves to very basic functions. And adding the extra functionality required for many purposes today, creates the same conversion lock-in as databases. I'm not sure there is a good answer to this for Notes programs (PKM| & research). afaics, all programs either use a database or their own version of markdown (with wikilinks pretty much a standard now); other variants of plaintext might be better, but none are sufficient. The database programs are free to use rich text or markdown syntax, but the latter confer a marketing advantage for the moment. The small number of programs based around files (Obsidian probably the most prominent) also use databases (O uses indexedDB & json files); I can live with that, but feel most comfortable keeping my notes as clean and easily readable as possible (and by 'easily' I imply ability to read at speed). Looking at the conversion difficulties suffered by Roam, Logseq, Dendron users in switching to another program, I suspect they all fail the 'forever test', but there's slightly more protection using programs based on files rather than having everything in a database that requires exporting. And there's definitely more protection from structural simplicity.

So, for the moment, I write all notes/research in simple markdown using Obsidian syntax. I do that whatever program I write the notes in. And whether the file is a .md or .txt. I might write those notes as a a docx, but will also save them as .txt.

Writing is a completely different thing. Forever is unnecessary, long-term likely to be unnecessary. Writing is either published or it is worthless. I retain my preference for files, but have no problem in using databases short-term. I am unwilling to incur an extra cognitive load simply to reduce computing complexity or longevity. If I could do all writing effectively in docx or other form of rich text, then I would. The programs tend to be more robust and reliable than the markdown equivalent. But much of my writing involves complex notes, which tips me to using programs that can easily access my notes for the first draft. So these workflows are unsettled (as yet) and very depending on what I am writing. Variability in what my eyes need adding to that lack of stability.

Comments and manuscript notes are a major source of frustration. There is very little syntax of display consistency in markdown programs - or between word processors if it comes to that. The Obsidian %% works, to an extent, in a number of other editors. This lack of compatibility is a major restriction once comments become part of an active process - converting to another format once is practicable, but going backwards and forwards isn't.

58

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 17, 2022, 04:15 PM »

i use yaml and slugs to solve this issue.

-superboyac (June 16, 2022, 10:12 PM)

I gave up yaml a few years ago. Knowing that I could hide it (in some programs) and could delete it wasn't enough. I want my visible file to contain what I want, not a load of extra clutter. I'd rather have that in a database or a json (Bartender takes the json approach) - and did consider doing exactly that. But it would have been extra work and reduce interoperability.

Also had a good look at the linked embed options (the only reasonable way to export multiple files into one document from Obsidian or iA Writer). Could have made it very mouse-friendly if I attached it to an outline format (at the minor cost of removing the outline before exxport). But interoperability wasn't great and it it didn't allow the simple system of selecting all the files using a file manager.

In the end, interoperability and primitive won.

Also observed how easily I fall into 'better' solutions that improve life for now, but potentially store up problems or limitations in the future.

59

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 16, 2022, 04:23 PM »

I was checking out the details of the breaks in the Bartender plugin since the Obsidian update to 0.15 (now 0.15.1)
Editing the json works, but mouse doesn't work when moving folders.

It then occurred to me that I was wasting my time. I shouldn't be using this plugin (which allows a custom sort order for files/folders) anyway! Reason being that it's an Obsidian only solution to a problem that exists for all programs. XYplorer has this function, but again it only works in that program.

I mulled a number of solutions, which all appeared to be based on links and concluded that the simplest solution would be the best - ie adding numbers and letters before the file name. Oh so Luhmann! That give a consistent sort sequence (assuming alphabetical sort) for all programs and all OSs. It's pretty flexible too, but just doesn't allow sorting by mouse which is my preferred system when I'm changing the sequence.

60

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: June 16, 2022, 03:34 AM »

So iA Writer (Mac/iOS) now has wikilinks.

61

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive- Obsidian update 0.15

« on: June 14, 2022, 07:29 PM »

There has been a new Insider update 0.15 tonight. I'm sure that many of the bugs will be caught while it stays inside, but I'd warn that it's a major change that breaks quite a few workflows (and I'm sure themes and plugins) with more UI changes to come. So, if you like the workflow you have, its worth turning automatic updates off until everything is ironed out (at least once you have moved onto 0.14.15).

It incorporates a major update in Codemirror and effectively gives warning that the legacy (non-Live Preview) editor is entering its final weeks/months.

62

General Software Discussion / Re: Operating multiple devices - easy solution for cables?

« on: June 09, 2022, 06:33 PM »

I'm not sure how many cables you are trying to use.
There will be power cables, but laptops have a batery so all the power cables could go to one position and laptops in other positions work from their batteries.
External keyboards and mice could be wireless.

63

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 27, 2022, 05:45 AM »

I'd have to add an extra process (double spacing lines in text editor) if I wanted genuine paragraphs without adjusting keyboard behaviour to double Enter every time I pressed Enter should I type in Obsidian or iA Writer and export through iA Writer, Writage or Typora. Writing in Typora always exports as I want, as does writing in Inspire Writer. And writing directly into docx obviously works perfectly

-Dormouse (May 12, 2022, 06:09 PM)

I've decided, for now, that I need to use the text editor more - as a final process before my daily commit. That allows me to be agnostic about the programs I write in. And I have even realised that there can be compositional advantages from writing in bullets. Sometimes.

64

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive; Summertime - all change

« on: May 27, 2022, 05:41 AM »

Nothing quite works as well as it did. My eyes have reacted to the higher light levels (or just decided to have a change), and most of the dark modes are too stark, and the light modes too light. I can manage with them, but it's harder.

And that's one advantage of Obsidian. There are so many themes and colour settings and the Style Settings plugin that switching from one to the other - even multiple times a day - is pretty easy. So I will use it more. Back to the Boox too.

65

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 22, 2022, 01:44 PM »

Video of a plugin being developed for Obsidian
From the Obsidian discord.

66

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 19, 2022, 06:41 PM »

Also saw this one: https://app.flowtelic.com. Haven't tried it at all. If I can't immediately see what I'd get out of it, I tend to make a note and pass on, maybe to revisit later. But I'm not keen on web apps and rather dubious about PWA for anything important, which has put me off wavemaker.

Glad to hear you are getting something out of Tangent. I'm content to use the tools I have for now (they're working well enough to be productive and I need to spend some time actually doing rather than constantly exploring new), but I like to keep my eyes open. Your comment about the graph is interesting - I've not found them useful previously and tbh never really tried them seriously as I wasn't clear what I'd get from using them. Makes sense that it's more useful if it's an active part of working.

One irritation I'm still having is the lack of hoisting in markdown programs. Folding appears to be standard, but hoisting much less so. And yet focus requires both.

67

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive: outlines, headings and folgezettel

« on: May 19, 2022, 05:30 PM »

I've noticed a little quirk in using outlines and headings.

Functionally they are the same, apart from heading levels being limited where outlines are not - and OPML translates them as if they are the same. But they don't ever feel the same, especially in markdown.

I've realised that's because my mind - and, I believe, most minds - pick up on the numbers in the headings and allocate some type of category. Outlines are just like folgezettel - they have parents, and maybe children, but no absolute number. Markdown headings are very fixed 1-6 and are usually directly written. Interestingly, headings in Word aren't quite like that - although they are 1-9, the most recommended workflow seems to manage them by increasing or decreasing their level rather than allocating one; and the number is rarely mentioned - it's all just styling. This make WP headings much more like an outline. Some markdown based programs also go for the increase/decrease workflow but the number always takes mental precedence over the hierarchical relationship.

I know better than to fight such embedded unconscious thought patterns and henceforth will stick to using outlines & WP headings, except where having an absolute level and number makes sense.

68

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 16, 2022, 10:44 AM »

Tangent is awesome

-urlwolf (May 14, 2022, 12:14 PM)

Once you have spent enough time with it, I'd be interested in your ideas of its strengths and weaknesses.
It feels too early in its development for me to use it (and my current use cases don't seem ideally suited ot it), but I have liked the look and feel when I've looked it over.

69

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 13, 2022, 06:27 PM »

Also notice Tangent Notes. Very early stages.

-Dormouse (February 19, 2022, 07:08 AM)

Just updated it. Does feel interesting. Very visual, card style interface. I could imagine working in it. Especially if I wrote many short pieces or short notes.

70

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 13, 2022, 04:58 PM »

Given the lack of a reasonable combine and export option in Obsidian

-Dormouse (May 12, 2022, 06:09 PM)

While I was looking at it, I thought I ought to work out what I think is currently the best workflow for longform writing in Obsidian. The lack of tools for a single file approach makes it hard to recommend that purely. So, ..

A separate vault (or folder) for the long project.

Plugins required:

• Bartender (for manual sequencing of files in the file explorer)
• Pandoc (possibly + Obsidian Enhancing Export)
• Novel word count (for visible word or page counts for each file or folder)
• Better word count or File info panel (for word counts including a count for selected text, in the current note; and other info in the FIP)
• Note Refactor - (optional - to make files easier to split)
• Hover Editor (to give the option to do all the editing via the large document rather than the separate notes)

The basic technique is to have a single note that contains all the scenes, chapters etc as embeds, and then to export that document into the desired format.

Workflow(s) - there's a number of options.
One would be to write from the beginning using the large note with embeds and headings. I feel it is likely to be better to only do that at a later stage.
Easier to start in the conventional Scrivener/Ulysses way with separate scene/chapter notes in the explorer. With bartender, and using folders, it's easy to see everything in sequence and with their word count (via Novel Word Count). Once you are ready, you can select all the required notes and paste into a new note as links, and then make those links embeds. The bartender sequence will not be preserved, but, if the embeds are made into headings, the outline will allow them to be moved around.

Export is straightforward, but attention needs to be paid to the line/paragraph distinction.

71

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 12, 2022, 06:09 PM »

Paragraphs, Lines and Enter
This remains an issue. If someone writes paragraphs only (ie no single new lines within the paragraph), then there may be no effective difference between a line and a paragraph - everything will depend on the settings of the export/conversion process. Depending partly on the use of copy/paste and the settings used within that.

-Dormouse (May 09, 2022, 09:15 PM)

Given the lack of a reasonable combine and export option in Obsidian, I decided to do a little testing. Two md files, one with an empty line between the lines (ie markdown definition of a paragraph) and one without (ie lines only), exported into docx

Inspire Writer - exported the no empty line file "correctly" (from my usage point of view) into paragraphs, and the one with markdown paragraphs into paragraphs with an empty space between the paragraphs.
iA Writer - exported the empty line into paragraphs, and the no empty line file was concatenated into a single paragraph.
Typora was the same as iA Writer. As was Writage.

In other words, Inspire Writer interprets markdown lines as if they were paragraphs - which is the way many people intend. But iA Writer and Typora stick rigidly to the markdown standard paragraphs. I was a little surprised by Typora because when I enter directly into it, the Enter = New Paragraph, but quite reasonably it regards that just as a keyboard adjustment for WYSIWYG.

Which means, for me, that I'd have to add an extra process (double spacing lines in text editor) if I wanted genuine paragraphs without adjusting keyboard behaviour to double Enter every time I pressed Enter should I type in Obsidian or iA Writer and export through iA Writer, Writage or Typora. Writing in Typora always exports as I want, as does writing in Inspire Writer. And writing directly into docx obviously works perfectly.

The combining options in Inspire Writer work well; in iA Writer the embed system export requires combining files one at a time - functional but quite high friction if done often, and no preview.

72

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 12, 2022, 07:25 AM »

what do I need to see to believe that taking notes (and elaborate on them) is beneficial?
We have one outlier, Luhman, and ... well the entirety 'productivity' web (is this a hipster thing?) who are into it. But are they productive?

-urlwolf (May 11, 2022, 10:16 AM)

In the main, I don't believe that the people doing this are productive, apart from the mass production of notes.
Most appear to be students; probably the most driven and usually highly performing students anyway. Many appear to have the belief that it will help them learn (though that's not what Luhmann was about); and treat Ahrens' Smart Notes book as their bible even though it conflates his own ideas (developed largely around student note-taking) with those of Luhmann.

Luhmann lived an exraordinarily focused and regular life and was extremely disciplined. His system was perfected to optimise his productivity, and building on the usual reading and writing work typical of academics. He turned it into a form of painting-by-numbers (so rapid writing at the end). It was a form of academic mass production where the usual academic clay was sorted and then formed into bricks, with an index so that he could quickly find the bricks he wanted whatever he decided he wanted to build in the future.
It's a system I can see working very productively for any academic with his level of discipline (and ability to spot the best clay and craft good bricks).
But not so much for students, and not at all for anyone who doesn't actually have an intention to produce anything at the end of it.

Personally, I've never had that regularity, nor that style of discipline. Neverhteless, I can craft the bricks and the system makes it easy to drop and pick up as desired, with no loss of previously done work. So that's great.

How much effort is it to keep notes?

-urlwolf (May 11, 2022, 10:16 AM)

I don't know. People do appear to be producing prodigious quantities of them.
For me, I don't make a fraction of the notes that most seem to make (though I do have a very good memory, and my own workflow has always been heavily based on that). I have only ever made notes as an essential component of doing something, and even then usually only a fraction of what most seem to believe is required. Even when I was a student, I might make 4 lines of notes, and noticed others with 4 pages or even more; I never could understand what they thought they were going to do with them.

Who is measuring this?

-urlwolf (May 11, 2022, 10:16 AM)

I'd like to believe that everyone doing it will be measuring it for themselves. No way of avoiding bias.
Trying to do matched samples for group work would be fraught with problems, and I don''t think it could be made to work. A longidudinal single-case approach to carefully selected groups might work, but would be expensive to conduct.

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General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« on: May 10, 2022, 05:01 PM »

I'm very happy with logseq so far.

-urlwolf (May 10, 2022, 01:30 PM)

That's great. Given the people who like it, I'm sure it's good and is, as you said, developing rapidly. Had more developers than Obsidian even before raising the $4m. The basic structure is very Roam-like. I've simply never go on with it well enough so far, but it's the one Obsidian alternative I check out regularly. Actually, I do keep an eye on Zettlr; I'm not in its core user group (which I see as post-grads and academics) but seems to me to be the most writer biased of the PKM apps.

Plus neovide, a nvim frontend, that does something really interesting with the cursor (check this: https://youtu.be/Vd5AACp6GG0?t=112) because it has better typing latency.

-urlwolf (May 10, 2022, 01:30 PM)

I do see what you mean. Looks very neat. Of course, I don't actually use emacs, vim, neovim or alternatives and use the mouse by preference when I can. And have never typed fast enough to have an issue with latency; even if I did hit an issue, I'd probably be sitting  back thinking while it untangled itself. I'm a fast typist so I assume that I simply spend too much time thinking and not typing.

74

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive; Obsidian Writing Plugins

« on: May 09, 2022, 09:15 PM »

I revisited the current state of the Obsidian plugins &etc that relate to writing while I was 'watching' the Kentucky Derby on internet TV. I made a few notes; then thought it was worth posting them here.

File Management
Bartender allows manual sorting of files in the file explorer. Not yet approved as community plugin (installable via BRAT), but does work and makes it easier to work using shorter notes - makes it more like Scrivener, Ulysses and most other programs. imho, it is more useful than the longform plugin at present (Longform last revised 4 months ago). otoh, when I turned the plugin off, all the files in the vault disappeared from the Obsidian file explorer (still visible on system) and they only reappeared when I restarted it; hasn't worked a few times and I've had to resort to stopping and restarting Obsidian.

File splitting and merging - I don't believe Obsidian has a good solution for merging files, and the splitting plugin (Note Refactor) works, but hasn't been updated for some time and the developer hasn't been active on Github since the middle of last year. There are easy solution for the files outside Obsidian, but I feel that this remains an area of weakness for Obsidian as a writing app, although embeds are a way of constructing long files from shorter ones, and is the method iA Writer uses (although that has an easier way of adding them).

Editable Embeds
The Hover Editor allows linked files and embeds to be edited directly without having to open the original file. This makes it possible to put together a long document from many files using embeds or links, whilst still being able to edit the sections from within the large file.

Word Counts
My preferred option for current file remains the File Info plugin; last updated about 3 months ago, but does everything I need. Better Word Count now works in Live Preview.

Another very useful plugin is Novel Word Count(only just updated). It adds the total word (or page etc) count to every file and folder in the Obsidian File Explorer. Very useful, but the value does come only when writing is done using multiple small files rather than big files with headings.

I don't believe there is a way of working with heading level word counts.

Blocks
There are two main block dragging plugins. The first covers every type of text, but only works in legacy editor, not Live Preview. The second is more recent, works in Live Preview, but thus far only works with lists. There's also a block copy/embed plugin.

Focus Mode
One plugin (Ghost) progressively fades lines the further away from the active line they are but doesn't work in Live Preview (I found this plugin quite useful sometimes, but only when the lines are short). The other hides the side panels and menus (more friction than it's worth for me).

Folding
Natively, Obsidian has the ability to fold headings and lists. The Creases plugin adds a much finer level of control, plus the ability to add creases (folds) wherever you want. I appreciate the potential value of this in very big documents, but haven't needed it myself as yet.

Outliner functionality
Best approached using two plugins (Outliner and Zoom) which are designed to work together. They're functional enough for simple outlining but Zoom now only works in Live Preview.

Colour highlights
The Highlightr works quite well, but has two disadvantages - it's not low friction and the HTML makes the edit pane a pain to read

Appearance
I mostly use the default theme for the simplicity, but the Minimal Theme has grown very impressively with a good set of settings to personalise the appearance without needing to do anything with CSS. Some themes are actively updated but many aren't.

Long-form writing using single file
Sadly (for me), I see very little that helps with this apaart from the folding options. The core Outline plugin, allows headings, with text below, to be moved around. The block embed/link plugin works for the headings and text too.
My impression is that long-form writing purely in Obsidian, would probably work most effectively using sections rather than a whole book or separate scenes/chapters.

One advantage of Obsidian over most writing programs
Is the ability to show a number of files at the same time, particularly if some are placed, hidden or half-hidden in the side panels. That's an extremely flexible arrangement which can be very useful. Most writing apps allow a side note to be triggered, or a program such as Notezilla can be used for multiple notes, but that's not quite the same thing. Obsidian also has the Callouts core plugin which makes it fairly simple to add standardised alerts/comments of different types.

Paragraphs, Lines and Enter
This remains an issue. If someone writes paragraphs only (ie no single new lines within the paragraph), then there may be no effective difference between a line and a paragraph - everything will depend on the settings of the export/conversion process. Depending partly on the use of copy/paste and the settings used within that.

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General Software Discussion / Re: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS vs Intel i7 1260P ?

« on: May 09, 2022, 10:39 AM »

Windows 11 Home edition is too 'stupified' for my tastes

-Shades (May 09, 2022, 12:15 AM)

idk whether you have the experience to have an opinion, but would you see it as more or less stupefied than MacOS?