Is there a way ChromeOS users can use Obsidian without relying on Crostini or running an installed application? This would essentially be equivalent to being able to run Obsidian in a browser.
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Just for reference on getting it working on Chromeos:
What worked for me
- Enable linux in Chromebook settings (not crostini)
- Download obsidian…Appimage from website and put in Linux folder
- Open terminal. Making it executable didn’t seem to work, so I ran it via an app called midnight commander - in terminal I ran: sudo apt install mc . Then select appImage file and hit enter (this I figured out from https://www.reddit.com/r/Crostini/comments/bpiizj/appimage_on_chromeos/)
- It didn’t install an icon, so to run it I have to via terminal : open terminal and enter: ./obsidianfilename.AppImage
You could then also use rclone to sync your vault with cloud storage like dropbox
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Good morning
Obsidian appears to be an Electron app, which I guess is how they can support multiple platforms so easily. Except Chrome OS (properly - my Chrome book doesn’t support Linux so it’s not universal)!
How about publishing Obsidian as a Progressive Web App (PWA) - it’s all the same benefits of Electron plus Chrome OS and you don’t need to package Electron (it is just running a Chrome browser anyways so I struggle to see the value in Electron)! And PWA’s work on Android too (but the only one I use is Twitter so I’m not as familiar with them there).
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I second this. perhaps a self hosted server version!
I think PWAs have different security box issues for reading the file system – i.e. browsers can’t read the file system due to sandboxing. Or calling specific OS calls underneath that Electron needs, for example for setting the file menus.
I second this. Building a Progressive Web App (PWA) will take time and effort, however it allows the team to use one application across all major platforms. The Twitter app is a prime example, just like YouTube Music. It is also a way to bypass app stores and their restrictions to donate a percentage of your income to, for example, Apple and Google.
A PWA can also act as a bridge to have people enjoy Obsidian on their mobile devices on short term, and allow the developers more time to develop a native app in the long term. Flutter is a framework I have read about and seems promising for developing cross-platform mobile apps, including Linux.
Now I am not a developer, so there may be shortcomings that I am not aware of.
Read more about PWA development on:
PWA home: https://web.dev/progressive-web-apps/
Web support for Flutter: https://flutter.dev/web
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Has there been any further research into an in-browser or a PWA version of Obsidian? Anything outside developers could do to help?
Echoing what @ksandvik mentioned, I think it might be incompatible with what Obsidian does. I found this stackoverflow question, and from there I found this:
At least for now out of scope is access to the full file system, subscribing to file change notifications, probably many things related to file metadata (i.e. marking files as executable/hidden, etc). Also not yet planning to address how this new API might integrate with .
I’m not an expert on this though, so feel free to look into this more.
- on a chromebook, you can set up opening the application through AppImage. download the Obsidian AppImage, and place it in the Linux folder. Then, open the Terminal and type:
chmod a+x Obsidian-0.9.4.AppImage - now Obsidian can be opened anytime after this set up by simply typing:
./Obsidian-0.9.4.AppImage- hint: press tab to autofill the filename after typing the first three letters! So, effectively opening Obsidian is quick by typing
./Obs+ tab.
reference: https://beebom.com/install-appimage-programs-on-chromebook/
there is a .deb build for chromeos
My employer locks down our Google Accounts such that I can’t use Linux or Android on a Chromebook if I’m signed in to my work account. Kind of a deal-breaker for using obsidian with no web app…