@Darren_McDonald said:
As a suggestion for the content of a another video, I would be interested to in your take on the differences been Roam Research and Obsidian.
I would love to get my hands on Roam but sadly I haven't been able to get into the private beta yet. Hopefully that'll happen soon, since I am reading raving reviews from all sides.
@GBC said:
I read yesterday that they're aware of a memory leak in the graph view which needs fixing. I don't use that and I've not seen significant resource usage on my (old) Mac.
Ohh... so that's what was causing the memory issue. I'm really glad they're sorting it out.
Ohh... so that's what was causing the memory issue. I'm really glad they're sorting it out.
Well, that's the one that they mentioned, and that I happened to spot after your review. I'm not sure I've seen an issue on my Mac caused by Obsidian but I have been having other problems recently, although mainly with wi-fi (which works in safe mode, so it's something to do with background processes). Maybe it's linked, I don't time to investigate right now, but will do in a couple of weeks time. There was a new version a couple of days ago - do you still see the same issue? They didn't mention it as a fix in the release notes, though.
I'm still playing around with Obsidian vs TA. Pros and cons for each. Happily, they can both be used for the same folders, so I don't feel I need to make a decision on that at the mo.
I have tried Roam and I really liked it but... I think it caught people's attention because it offered a new way of thinking about notes (inbuilt back links and daily pages) that are now replicable in other tools. I'm not sure what it offers now that other things don't (that's not to say it doesn't, I'm just not aware of it). And, channelling @Sascha it's probably a better investment to develop ourselves to use those the tools at hand. I still had a slight sense of notes just disappearing into stack of other notes - maybe I didn't use it enough but Roam didn't calm my nerves that I wouldn't effectively be able to find what I'd put in. Also, I really don't like everything being online, not only because of the reasons often discussed here but because I reasonably frequently find myself in places where I don't have wifi.
But for me, $15 a month is a LOT, given the low price of TA and Obsidian. I tend to consider this kind of thing in the long term - will I want to pay that kind of sub to access my date for ever? What if I spend 15-20 years building up a body of knowledge and then hit hard times in retirement - will I really want the hassle of exporting. In the last six months I've gone from a very decent wage to zero wage due to Covid, and if I had a load of important life work info in a tool at that cost I'd be worried about whether there would come a time I'd have to pull the plug.
I find having The Archive limited to my MacBook Pro and not available (yet :>) for an iPad to be enough of a limitation. As good as Roam might be (I also couldn't get into the private beta), I wouldn't settle for something that had to be run on-line. Just a comment from a newcomer to Zettelksten.
@GeoEng51 said:
I find having The Archive limited to my MacBook Pro and not available (yet :>) for an iPad to be enough of a limitation. As good as Roam might be (I also couldn't get into the private beta), I wouldn't settle for something that had to be run on-line. Just a comment from a newcomer to Zettelksten.
I think you can find various threads on the forum discussing apps you can use on iOS. I use 1Writer, and others use iaWriter, and there are many more. It is one of the advantages of using plain text files.
This looks like a great app, and I was excited to read about it, but was EXTREMELY disappointed to find out that this is yet another desktop centric app with the long term promise of severely limited mobile apps in the "long term roadmap."
I have tried the beta. The ideas behind Obsidian are very interesting and if/when the app works properly I think it could be an absolutely killer app for a plain text zettelkasten. But right now it is painfully slow and clunky in my existing collection of several thousand notes - too slow to actually use in a productive way.
I think you can find various threads on the forum discussing apps you can use on iOS. I use 1Writer, and others use iaWriter, and there are many more. It is one of the advantages of using plain text files.
I was checking that out today and found several programs, one called "Drafts", which seems quite good but then doesn't seem to produce plain text files. The other two you mentioned also look like they would do the job - thanks!
I was checking that out today and found several programs, one called "Drafts", which seems quite good but then doesn't seem to produce plain text files. The other two you mentioned also look like they would do the job - thanks!
Many of use use drafts to create a note then a drafts action to save it into our archive folder with the zettelkasten style timestamp in the title and a tag of #inbox so we know to come back to it. But to actually work with notes on mobile / ipad 1writer is a better choice because it has the note browser pane
@GBC said:
Many of use use drafts to create a note then a drafts action to save it into our archive folder with the zettelkasten style timestamp in the title and a tag of #inbox so we know to come back to it. But to actually work with notes on mobile / ipad 1writer is a better choice because it has the note browser pane
Yes, I've been playing around with IAwriter on my iPhone and Mac, as I had a trial version installed before. It works well and saves each note as a separate text or markdown file, which can be copied directly over to The Archive folder, when desired. I've used Bear a lot in the past (and still use it). I discovered I can select a few Bear notes and then export them in Markdown format to whatever folder I want.
I'm going to do a separate post on the nested tag system in Bear (won't steal its thunder here).
I have my Archive folder on Dropbox, so I just open that in 1writer. No copying over, that way, they're there immediately. That's also where the drafts action pings notes to, and obvs I can see what's already there v
I built an ios workflow shortcut to clip the content of a webpage to markdown, but that goes to somewhere different as that's definitely not a zettel, and I'm keen to not just carry on collecting stuff. I've yet to refine my reading / processing workflow as I've had no time. Once next week is over I'll get on it.
@kevin maybe because everyone isn't as tied to mobile as you are? Else they would be making that instead off the bat. I for example hardly use mobile. Just because it doesn't cater to your use case doesn't mean its stuck in 2009...
I find questions like these funny: Usually, people use this to convey a sense of out-dated-ness. As if having worked for decades is a bad thing. (→ Lindy Effect)
What happened to the folks who, at the advent of ebooks, said "Books are so 15th century!" and now the dead tree prints are still around? I don't think that obtaining the label "This serverless cloud web microservice is so 2020!" is a virtue in and of itself, it's rather pointing out the risk of being technologically outdated in a year or two.
"Text files are so 1970s" would be true, too, but I don't see a problem with that, either
In the Zettelkasten app ecosystem, being in for the long game is the true virtue. I develop iOS apps, too, for example, and if you don't pay attention, they just stop working about every 3 to 5 years. That's not a good basis for a life-long knowledge repository.
(To defend my fellow developers, making a business that repays the development from mobile apps alone is super tricky because virtually nobody wants to pay anything, and subscriptions aren't welcomed with open arms, either.)
if you don't pay attention, they just stop working about every 3 to 5 years.
Agreed! I’m a MASSIVE mobile user, my ratio of iPad to Mac use is probably 8:1 but I’d be hugely reluctant to commit a long term project to a mobile app because of the iOS upgrade approach.
Now iPads have more native support for keyboards, I anticipate that some apps (perhaps like 1Writer) will be enhanced accordingly, eg for better links (1Writer isn’t dreadful at this but could improve).
Bug reports, feature requests, forum posts, and comments, and financially supporting independent software development is the best way to facilitate outcomes. Getting in the boat instead of staying on the shore is in my opinion is a better approach.
Like the Arts, I am a proud supporter of Independent software development. Show your craftsmen and craftswomen love and they will reciprocate.
(To defend my fellow developers, making a business that repays the development from mobile apps alone is super tricky because virtually nobody wants to pay anything, and subscriptions aren't welcomed with open arms, either.)
So so so sorry about the melodramatic post! All of the stress of everything going on in the world and in my life had me in a really bad place that day.
Users don’t often see or understand the realities that developers have to deal with. And it’s easy to forget that there are good reasons for decisions being made.
Comments
Thank you!!
I would love to get my hands on Roam but sadly I haven't been able to get into the private beta yet. Hopefully that'll happen soon, since I am reading raving reviews from all sides.
Ohh... so that's what was causing the memory issue. I'm really glad they're sorting it out.
Well, that's the one that they mentioned, and that I happened to spot after your review. I'm not sure I've seen an issue on my Mac caused by Obsidian but I have been having other problems recently, although mainly with wi-fi (which works in safe mode, so it's something to do with background processes). Maybe it's linked, I don't time to investigate right now, but will do in a couple of weeks time. There was a new version a couple of days ago - do you still see the same issue? They didn't mention it as a fix in the release notes, though.
I'm still playing around with Obsidian vs TA. Pros and cons for each. Happily, they can both be used for the same folders, so I don't feel I need to make a decision on that at the mo.
I have tried Roam and I really liked it but... I think it caught people's attention because it offered a new way of thinking about notes (inbuilt back links and daily pages) that are now replicable in other tools. I'm not sure what it offers now that other things don't (that's not to say it doesn't, I'm just not aware of it). And, channelling @Sascha it's probably a better investment to develop ourselves to use those the tools at hand. I still had a slight sense of notes just disappearing into stack of other notes - maybe I didn't use it enough but Roam didn't calm my nerves that I wouldn't effectively be able to find what I'd put in. Also, I really don't like everything being online, not only because of the reasons often discussed here but because I reasonably frequently find myself in places where I don't have wifi.
But for me, $15 a month is a LOT, given the low price of TA and Obsidian. I tend to consider this kind of thing in the long term - will I want to pay that kind of sub to access my date for ever? What if I spend 15-20 years building up a body of knowledge and then hit hard times in retirement - will I really want the hassle of exporting. In the last six months I've gone from a very decent wage to zero wage due to Covid, and if I had a load of important life work info in a tool at that cost I'd be worried about whether there would come a time I'd have to pull the plug.
I find having The Archive limited to my MacBook Pro and not available (yet :>) for an iPad to be enough of a limitation. As good as Roam might be (I also couldn't get into the private beta), I wouldn't settle for something that had to be run on-line. Just a comment from a newcomer to Zettelksten.
I think you can find various threads on the forum discussing apps you can use on iOS. I use 1Writer, and others use iaWriter, and there are many more. It is one of the advantages of using plain text files.
This looks like a great app, and I was excited to read about it, but was EXTREMELY disappointed to find out that this is yet another desktop centric app with the long term promise of severely limited mobile apps in the "long term roadmap."
Why is Zettel software development stuck in 2009?
I have tried the beta. The ideas behind Obsidian are very interesting and if/when the app works properly I think it could be an absolutely killer app for a plain text zettelkasten. But right now it is painfully slow and clunky in my existing collection of several thousand notes - too slow to actually use in a productive way.
I was checking that out today and found several programs, one called "Drafts", which seems quite good but then doesn't seem to produce plain text files. The other two you mentioned also look like they would do the job - thanks!
Many of use use drafts to create a note then a drafts action to save it into our archive folder with the zettelkasten style timestamp in the title and a tag of #inbox so we know to come back to it. But to actually work with notes on mobile / ipad 1writer is a better choice because it has the note browser pane
Yes, I've been playing around with IAwriter on my iPhone and Mac, as I had a trial version installed before. It works well and saves each note as a separate text or markdown file, which can be copied directly over to The Archive folder, when desired. I've used Bear a lot in the past (and still use it). I discovered I can select a few Bear notes and then export them in Markdown format to whatever folder I want.
I'm going to do a separate post on the nested tag system in Bear (won't steal its thunder here).
I have my Archive folder on Dropbox, so I just open that in 1writer. No copying over, that way, they're there immediately. That's also where the drafts action pings notes to, and obvs I can see what's already there v
I built an ios workflow shortcut to clip the content of a webpage to markdown, but that goes to somewhere different as that's definitely not a zettel, and I'm keen to not just carry on collecting stuff. I've yet to refine my reading / processing workflow as I've had no time. Once next week is over I'll get on it.
@kevin maybe because everyone isn't as tied to mobile as you are? Else they would be making that instead off the bat. I for example hardly use mobile. Just because it doesn't cater to your use case doesn't mean its stuck in 2009...
I find questions like these funny: Usually, people use this to convey a sense of out-dated-ness. As if having worked for decades is a bad thing. (→ Lindy Effect)
What happened to the folks who, at the advent of ebooks, said "Books are so 15th century!" and now the dead tree prints are still around? I don't think that obtaining the label "This serverless cloud web microservice is so 2020!" is a virtue in and of itself, it's rather pointing out the risk of being technologically outdated in a year or two.
"Text files are so 1970s" would be true, too, but I don't see a problem with that, either
In the Zettelkasten app ecosystem, being in for the long game is the true virtue. I develop iOS apps, too, for example, and if you don't pay attention, they just stop working about every 3 to 5 years. That's not a good basis for a life-long knowledge repository.
(To defend my fellow developers, making a business that repays the development from mobile apps alone is super tricky because virtually nobody wants to pay anything, and subscriptions aren't welcomed with open arms, either.)
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
@ctietze said
Agreed! I’m a MASSIVE mobile user, my ratio of iPad to Mac use is probably 8:1 but I’d be hugely reluctant to commit a long term project to a mobile app because of the iOS upgrade approach.
Now iPads have more native support for keyboards, I anticipate that some apps (perhaps like 1Writer) will be enhanced accordingly, eg for better links (1Writer isn’t dreadful at this but could improve).
Bug reports, feature requests, forum posts, and comments, and financially supporting independent software development is the best way to facilitate outcomes. Getting in the boat instead of staying on the shore is in my opinion is a better approach.
Like the Arts, I am a proud supporter of Independent software development. Show your craftsmen and craftswomen love and they will reciprocate.
No caps lock required.
So so so sorry about the melodramatic post! All of the stress of everything going on in the world and in my life had me in a really bad place that day.
Users don’t often see or understand the realities that developers have to deal with. And it’s easy to forget that there are good reasons for decisions being made.
Was there any "Zettel software" in 2009?
I migrated 63 notes to Obsidian. Here is a couple of screenshots. Pretty interesting.
It’s pretty awesome. I like how you’ve set up your windows.