Importing to Archive from Obsidian

AayushPriyank

Hi! I'm really thrilled to share that I just bought my first Macbook - 70% of the reason was so that I could use the Archive. Wanted to know what are the onboarding steps, what kind of tips and tricks you have been using to maximize experience, and most importantly how I can import my notes from Obsidian to Archive.

Would love to know anything else you can share to help me start my note taking journey on the Archive

mediapathic

There is no importing needed! Just point The Archive at the same directory your obsidian notes are stored in. Assuming you have a single directory with no subdirectories, it should just work (I use both The Archive and Obsidian on the same files all the time).

Will

@AayushPriyank said:
what kind of tips and tricks you have been using to maximize experience

I recommend pairing The Archive and your MAC experience with Keyboard Maestro. Keyboard Maestro will fill in your custom workflow.

AayushPriyank

@mediapathic said:
There is no importing needed! Just point The Archive at the same directory your obsidian notes are stored in. Assuming you have a single directory with no subdirectories, it should just work (I use both The Archive and Obsidian on the same files all the time).

How do I point the archive to the directory? Please dumb it down for me [click this, then select this].

Will

First, run The Archive.
Then...

Select your notes directory.

Viola
Easy peasy. 123

AayushPriyank

@Will said:
First, run The Archive.
Then...

Select your notes directory.

Viola
Easy peasy. 123

Thanks!

@Will said:

@AayushPriyank said:
what kind of tips and tricks you have been using to maximize experience

I recommend pairing The Archive and your MAC experience with Keyboard Maestro. Keyboard Maestro will fill in your custom workflow.

Downloaded their free trial! I think I saw some articles here about Keyboard Maestro setup - will explore them too.

I also saw that my notes in the Archive are names on the basis of timestamp, while my Obsidian notes are title based [eg - types of deep work]. Should I switch all my past notes to timestamp based as well - it will look quite odd to have a mix of half timestamp and half text based.

Also, other than brevity is there any advantage to timestamp based notes? Are there any existing articles discussing the philosophies/advantages of timestamp vs title based notes?

@Sascha do you have any thoughts on this - would love to understand.

Will

I'd recommend a combination of title-based and timestamp notes. I place the title before the timestamp, but everyone else places the timestamp first. Here's a look at my note list. This is how I name my files. Others do it differently.

mediapathic

I also saw that my notes in the Archive are names on the basis of timestamp, while my Obsidian notes are title based [eg - types of deep work]. Should I switch all my past notes to timestamp based as well - it will look quite odd to have a mix of half timestamp and half text based.

Also, other than brevity is there any advantage to timestamp based notes? Are there any existing articles discussing the philosophies/advantages of timestamp vs title based notes?

This is a point of a lot of debate across the years here, and there are many opinions about this. I recommend doing a site search (up at the top) for "UID", and you'll find a lot of discussion.

The short form, as I understand it, is: using a UID (the timestamp you refer to) as your filename always assures you have a unique thing to search for (this is what the "U" stands for), and the actual title of the note is usually the first header. Not using a UID means that if you change a title (Mongolia to Questions about Mongolia) links will be broken unless you change them all. Every other position is trying to balance these things.

I personally use a filename like 202410300117 Questions about Mongolia for my ZK files, and always ensure I put the UID somewhere in the file, so a search will always find it (and, unlike Will, I like the fact that putting it at the beginning means my files sort by date if I sort alphabetically).

There is no One True Answer to this question. Your implementation will depend on the tensions in the way you want to use your ZK. I recommend, since you're starting with a base of notes already named by title, just create new notes in the format I use (it's easiest because you just create a new note in The Archive then keep typing aftward), play with it, experiment, and see what where your pinch points are with how you work. At the least, I recommend using the Generate Zettel ID (cmd-U) somewhere in the body of the note, so if you want to append a timestamp to the filename later, you'll have a record of when the note was created to copy and paste.