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I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten
JavaJones:
The boom in interest in both Roam and Obsidian, and various third-party stuff, is both good and bad. Good in that great things will probably come out of it. But bad in that things are still so much up in the air that we don't know how much these tools will change 6 months from now. So I still find it hard commit to either ATM, since which one (or other) I will prefer in the not so distant future probably depends on features not yet there or not yet refined. I'm kind of stuck in test drive mode 8)
-Nod5 (August 13, 2020, 02:18 PM)
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That's one advantage that Obsidian has over Roam; there's not much in the way of commitment since it sits on top of text files. I'm not currently using it though I maintain the same folder structure as when I did- so I can pick it back up if I desire at a later time.
-wraith808 (August 13, 2020, 04:32 PM)
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I'm not clear that Roam is that much more of a commitment than Obsidian in that they are both based on Markdown and exportable to same, right? So yes, you might lose the proprietary features, the interlinking, transclusion, etc., that makes Roam cool, but you don't lose what you've written, or at least you don't have to (export it). Am I wrong on that?
- Oshyan
Dormouse:
Obsidian can't export to markdown because it doesn't contain the notes in the first place. The files have an independent existence and can be edited using any program at any time.
Everything written using Roam is contained in its database. It can be exported, but then it's no longer in Roam.
Obsidian's linking and transclusions can be duplicated at any point by programs that can interpret the same syntax and have similar functionality.
PS Roam's exports have to converted to be read in Obsidian.
Nod5:
You are together building the case for Obsidian for my particular use style and needs :up:
One other strong consideration for me is that local plaintext files are very much easier to do stuff with from small AutoHotkey scripts for superspecific processing tasks, quick tweaks and more.
I hope that the Block Reference feature request discussed in their forum comes through. Specifically these thoughts are much in line with my brainstormed wishes for transclusion earlier here on DC. Such atomicity seems like a must have feature to me. But a challenge for Obsidian devs: how to implement that while staying with (1) plaintext files and (2) openness in the sense of plaintext files still being editable in other tools without a big clutter of long UID strings everywhere?
If (1) was the only requirement then the three level approach seems pretty straightforward: raw view, transclude view (resolve transcluded content, resolve UID strings as small icons, dots, color styling or some such) and preview view (fully resolved). Those who use transclude features would then spend most of their time writing in the mid-tier transclude view in Obsidian, but sometimes jump to raw view to fix issues. Obsidian and plug-ins would operate on the raw view data in the background.
But I can't think of a way to get convenient, reliable transclude atomicity in a set of every changing plaintext files without a paying a price re (2). Seems like something has to give. Bet: transclusion will prove so useful that Markdown syntax will be extended for it. Hopefully in a standardized way. NetCommonMark (Net as in networked notes) on the horizon? Once standardized other note apps would have similar transclude views so there would be less of an lock-in effect to the Obsidian editor.
panzer:
How to Take Smart Notes: A Step-by-Step Guide:
https://www.nateliason.com/blog/smart-notes
JavaJones:
Obsidian can't export to markdown because it doesn't contain the notes in the first place. The files have an independent existence and can be edited using any program at any time.
-Dormouse (August 13, 2020, 07:44 PM)
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I don't understand the point of that distinction. They don't need to be exported because they're *already* markdown, aren't they?
- Oshyan
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