One of my issues with Obsidian is still the “over-complex” workflow when I just want to add a quick note. Before I can add a note, this happens:
If it’s the first time opening the app, it takes like 6 seconds to go from the icon/splash screen to the app itself
Even when the app is already opened in the background, sometimes it has to “Load plugins”, “Load XYZ”, etc. More time added.
When I click the + button to add a note and I start typing the title, it shows me all the notes that match that title, which gets in the way. If I’m adding a new note, I don’t think it should try to add new content to a new note, unless I clicked another button just for that, not the + button. Or if I click the + button, it could show me 2 options: Add to Note, and New Note. If I pick New Note, then I don’t want to see the matches.
If I click Enter by mistake, when there’s a matching note, now I’m inside that note, instead of creating a new note, so I have to go back to the beginning.
This, to me, is a very convoluted workflow.
My suggestion would be that the team would provide a separate app, maybe call it QuickNote or something. This obviously syncs with the main app, but it’s really just that, an app to add a quick note. No plugins, no themes, no search, nothing.
Workflow:
Open the app
Shows an empty note page with just 2 fields: Title (optional) and Body.
At the bottom, a Submit button. That’s it.
Quick, light, no obstacles.
We could set the default folder for new notes, as well as a default title (in case we don’t want to add a title to the note), if we wanted to, for example “Quick Note” and it would increase the numbering after that as we create new notes and if there’s a note with that name already in that default folder.
I’ve been using Apple Notes just for this purpose (adding quick notes) and then I have to import them to Obsidian, which adds an extra (and unnecessary) step. I would love to just use Obsidian for all my notes, but the current workflow is just too painful at times.
I checked the links you provided, and came to the conclusion that maybe those won’t work as expected, because even if I use an app like Taio for example, I still need to open Obsidian in order for it to sync with my laptop. Not a big issue, and it’s definitely better than always having to wait for Obsidian to load and all that extra workflow.
I hope the team comes up with the “Mobile quick capture” option soon. Glad to see that it’s in the roadmap! Appreciate you sharing that.
EDIT
Since I have Keyboard Maestro, I found a way to use Taio to my advantage with some extra work (but it’s only done once, which is the creation of the Keyboard Maestro macro).
In Taio, I can set it to create new notes in the iCloud Drive folder. New notes are then automatically synced to my laptop to the folder: ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~app~cyan~taio/Documents/Editor
Now, in Keyboard Maestro, I can have it run a macro periodically (maybe once a day or 2-3 times a day), where it checks the content of my vault’s root and compares those files with the files in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~app~cyan~taio/Documents/Editor.
It moves unique files to the vault, and renames files with the same name by appending the current date, then moves them.
Just a workaround until we have the official “Mobile quick capture”.