Best practices on iOS/iPadOS

#1

I realize that mobile apps are on the long-term roadmap (though I implore the devs to reconsider only building a lightweight version there—many people are mobile-first these days)!

In the meantime, I wanted to hear how folks were using Obsidian on their iPhone or iPad without a native app. I know some discussion has taken place on the Discord re: using 1Writer. Are there other popular alternatives? Has anyone developed any neat shortcuts for powering up their Obsidian workflows?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I found a post on iA Writer here—it seems the author uses iA Writer on the iPad as a holding area for notes, 'til they get back to the Mac.

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#2

I just finished playing around with 1Writer and iA Writer myself.

iA Writer has been my editor of choice for years. Sadly, iA Writer’s implementation of transclusion is its own proprietary approach: content blocks. Content blocks are cool, but they don’t follow the same syntax as Obsidian, so a file transcluded in iA Writer won’t work properly in Obsidian and vice-versa.

1Writer follows the same [[double square bracket]] syntax as Obsidian for transclusion, so it is a great way to view and traverse your Obsidian vault on an iPhone or iPad. Of course, you can also edit documents in your vault using 1Writer. Given that 1Writer supports [[double square bracket wiki linking]], I would’ve thought it would offer some kind of autocomplete when you enter [[—but no. So, you’ll have to go look up the exact title of existing notes in order to properly link to them in a new edit to a document in 1Writer. (Of course, there’s also no way to see backlinks.)

For now, 1Writer wins out. Still, if an app exists that offers autocomplete upon [[-ing, I’d love to know about it.

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How do I work with Obsidian on Mobile?
#3

iA Writer is all my preferred markdown editor. The content blocks feature works well, but I do wish that it wasn’t proprietary or that back linking was an additional option.

Drafts supports what it calls cross-linking, but similarly to 1Writer doesn’t have auto-complete.

For now, I think I’ll stick with iA Writer on iOS and iPadOS for generating notes into my notes inbox or for editing existing notes. Then I’ll work from Obsidian on the Mac when it’s time for backlinking or doing research.

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#4

Drafts also doesn’t do the whole file system access thing. Not a problem if you subscribe to the “Drafts is where text starts” mentality, but personally, I’d rather start and finish my text in the same place.

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#5

Just posted about a shortcut that helps you work with Daily Notes in 1Writer if you use Dropbox.

#6

Content Blocks are attempted to be a documented standard. That said, outside of the initial announcement of the feature I haven’t seen the developers link to the initial spec nor has there been great interest from other markdown editors.

I pretty much live in iA Writer, so I do make use of the feature, but it feels out of place syntax wise (I’d personally prefer something based on the existing link syntax). There also seems to be more one could do to integrate it in the writing experience, such as autocompleting.

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#7

I too use 1Writer on my iPad Pro to interact indirectly with Obsidian. I use Apple Shortcuts to have 1Writer create markdown files in a 1Writer folder that is also used as an Obsidian Vault location. I have created Shortcut templates for various Zettel styles. I’m using the Jump app on an iPad Pro to connect by WiFi to my MacMini in order to use Obsidian ‘directly’ from other rooms in the house. In addition, I can use the same setup to connect to Obsidian directly thru WiFi from ‘outside’ my home WiFi. The experience is obviously dependent on WiFi speed. So, for now I can be patient until the Obsidian Devs do their magic with their mobile solutions.

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