The Archive + Obsidian : The best of 2 worlds?

APG

Since a few days, I'm testing the use of Obsidian and The Archive in parallel on the same folder.

I've just created a new "vault" in Obsidian from the folder (on Dropbox) where I keep all notes I had created The Archive (more than 5 000). Obsidian has added his stuff (it has created a new .obsidian folder), I had to reinstall all plugins, but now it works fine: I can modify the same note in Obsidian and in The Archive, switching from one to the other, without any conflict on any side.

So I've now all the functionalities of Obsidian (Backlinks, Rich Links, Outlines, etc.) when I need them, and still the ease and simplicity of The Archive (for example I largely prefer to search on The Archive).

This means that The Archive can remain simple and fast without lacking in functionality (rem: I use VSCode when I need extended functionalities in the editor).

Marcus

Hi APG, that sounds good. May I ask how you deal with links, since The Archive uses link-as-search and Obsidian works with direct links?

APG

@Marcus said:
Hi APG, that sounds good. May I ask how you deal with links, since The Archive uses link-as-search and Obsidian works with direct links?

Their behavior is not exactly the same, but it has not (yet) posed any problem, perhaps because I do not use internal links a lot (I use tags).

If I click on an internal links ([[...]]):

• Obsidian:

  • If a note with the precise name exists, Obsidian opens it, nothing else change
  • If it does not exist, it does nothing, except if I press CMD where it proposes me to create it

• The Archive:

  • Filters the list of notes (on notes names and headers) in the left panel even if it does not precisely correspond to any note (at worst the list will only contain the current note) and:
    • If the name is distinctive enough (example: [[2024-11-13]]) it opens the corresponding note even if it is not its complete name
    • If it is not distinctive (example: [[2024]]), sometimes it stays on the original note, sometimes it opens one from the list (I've not tested enough to understand the rule)

Both behaviors have their advantages. But as The Archive and Obsidian save the content in real time, I can switch to use the one I prefer when I want (I can even type a character on one, switch to the other for the next character, etc., for example, I've written this answer on both).

Marcus

@APG said:
If I click on an internal links ([[...]]):

• Obsidian:
  • If a note with the precise name exists, Obsidian opens it, nothing else change
  • If it does not exist, it does nothing, except if I press CMD where it proposes me to create it

Hi APG, here is exactly the point that is a problem for me. I use my links in The Archive with "[[UID]] Title of the note". If I click the link in [[ ]] in Obsidian, either nothing happens or the note will be created.

Since there are practically no links for Obsidian, the other options such as the graph or plugins that rely on links should not work either. Correct?

In order to work in both worlds, the solution can only be to change the links in The Archive from "[[UID]] Title of the note" to "[[UID title of the note]]".

The file name of the note in The Archive already corresponds to the latter option.

APG

Good catch! Indeed, it's a limitation, and Graph would not work.

Another one is that Obsidian allows the use of aliases, which won't be recognized in The Archive. For example if I type in Obsidian [[name of the note|alias]], Obsidian will display alias but will recognize the link, when The Archive will search for a note with all the characters (and won't find it).

APG

@Marcus said:

In order to work in both worlds, the solution can only be to change the links in The Archive from "[[UID]] Title of the note" to "[[UID title of the note]]".

I've just discovered that the Core (integrated with Obsidian) Plugin "Format Converter" does this conversion: https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Format+converter

(I've not tested it!)

Marcus

@APG said:

@Marcus said:

In order to work in both worlds, the solution can only be to change the links in The Archive from "[[UID]] Title of the note" to "[[UID title of the note]]".

I've just discovered that the Core (integrated with Obsidian) Plugin "Format Converter" does this conversion: https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Format+converter

(I've not tested it!)

Hi APG, I know the format converter from Obsidian and under your posted Link you can also see the Zettelkasten option, where the format of [[UID]] title is changed to [[UID title]]. It is important that Obsidian changes this in all notes immediately! A backup would therefore make sense.

In The Archive, however, this would mean that you can no longer change the title after linking (or have to update all links, which Obsidian does by default) and that you no longer just link the UID and incorporate it into a sentence, but also see the title of the linked note directly next to the UID.

So if you use the Format Converter in an existing Zettelkasten, existing links that are only integrated into sentences by UID could look extremely unattractive.

Not ideal from my point of view, although I would like to use both tools together.