Main thing prompting the exploration is annoyance that I more or less have two duplicate hierarchies… one in Notes, and another in my file system for everything else.
For me, it’s mildly annoying. But thinking about how I would share this with my SO to be prepared in the case of an emergency scenario… it adds a layer of confusion for someone who didn’t create the content: For a note I wrote, you look here. But for a file on the exact same topic you need to look over here.
It seems like Obsidian’s plain .md storage at the file system layer could allow for a single hierarchy that contains all files… notes, pdfs, etc.
I guess it’s up to the individual. I drag links to outside notes into Obsidian. So, on my file system I might have a document of the city counsel meeting, and in Obsidian I might have a note of just the parts of the meeting I’m interested in want to follow up on. I think link the file note within the Obsidian note so I can open it if I need it but it doesn’t clutter Obsidian or show up in searches.
If you share with SO and have an Obsidian note such as your retirement account information, you can keep those documents on your HDD and link them in so your SO can just click the link and open it.
Having all files and notes in the same vault can work in some cases. For example I have a separate vault for all my personal medical data and one for finances. These single purpose vaults contain notes and files.
But my general purpose vault is mostly Markdown.
I don’t use links to individual files in the file system, because they break easily. I preferr a naming scheme for files and folders that works in multiple hierarchies.
I have no files in my vault (except a few images). I do link to files on my filesystem from within notes, and to documents (books, papers) I keep in Zotero.
Files inside the vaut show up in search (unless you have them in a single folder and can exclude their path easily from search) and I find that cluttering my search.
I think if you add /^(\.md)$/ to Excluded Files in Obsidian’s options, you’ll hide any of your non-Markdown files. I experimented with it a little and it seems to work. If you wanted to allow other formats, searching with file:.png “unexcludes” .png files as far as my testing goes.
I personally prefer keeping files outside of my vault to just keep it lighter, then have notes be “abstractions” of those files if I want them represented in the vault somehow.
I pretty much write every note in Obsidian, except the mobile quick jotting which I do in Apple Notes. They land in Obsidian afterwards though. If Obsidian releases a mobile quick capture someday, I will switch.
For files and stuff I use Zotero since I have been using it since university anyway and they have also improved the software during years quite a lot. I love the ZotLit integration too. In this way I also save a lot on Sync space, because I manage all these PDFs and other format documents in Zotero which syncs to my Nextcloud through WebDAV.
For very brief items, I use Remember the Milk on mobile. Actions for Obsidian is helpful when I want to write a longer note like a journal entry or something on the go.
Yeah, I think it comes down to personal comfort and I am aware of all these workarounds and even other Markdown apps I could use, but my cellphone is for me just a thing that I do not want use if I don‘t have to. On the platform of my choice (iOS) I like to be able to quickly write something and move on. Unfortunately platform native and the default app is the only working option currently. I hope the planned mobile capture app for Obsidian will be somehow a native experience with tight integration, so I could replace Apple Notes.
If you’re concerned about your SO having being able to navigate your files, I suggest you create a document with instructions and make sure they know where to find it. This goes beyond your notes, it’s a list of critical accounts, list of insurance policies and contact info for filing claims, where your will is, where your power of attorney documents are, where you save your passwords, etc. As part of that document, you can have a brief section describing your note structure.
For me, all of my notes go into Obsidian which has its own file structure. I use a separate folder structure for anything that requires a specialized application (like a word processor, spreadsheet editor, media player) or is just a “filing cabinet” (e.g. copies of bank statements, digital copies of product manuals). I only put media in my Obsidian vault if it is something I would reference in conjunction with a note. For example, in some of my conceptual notes I have a picture of a diagram to visually explain the concept. Because of this structure, I don’t have a need to overlap the two filing systems.