I’m a long-time user of the Epsilon Notes app on Android. I use it daily and have hundreds of notes in it. Unfortunately, this editor is no longer being developed and also doesn’t have a version for Windows. So, I’m looking for something that would allow me to read and manage my notes on Windows. Epsilon Notes stores notes in markdown format, utilizing some extensions. Important extensions for me include MathJax, ABC notation, highlighted source code syntax, and a preprocessor. The preprocessor in Epsilon Notes is based on regular expressions and allows me to create my own markdown extensions, which I use for better image formatting, for example. I have my notes shared between my devices via Dropbox. It seems to me that Obsidian is close to this concept and could potentially read my Epsilon Notes. What do you think? Is there already something out there for this purpose so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel? Thank you.
I’ve done the transition from Epsilon Notes, and I’m not regretting the change.
There are of differences, but I would like to focus on just two of them; startup time and no preprocessor.
There is not a similar preprocessor in Obsidian, which I sometimes miss a little. At the same time the plugin system, with both existing and the potential to create new plugins, more than outweighs the lack of that preprocessor.
The startup time, especially on mobile for me, is a little hindering, as it feels a little slow even though it only takes seconds. Some people report longer startup times, but it can often be trimmed down related to plugins and other configuration.
So all in all, I’m very happy with the transition, and especially all the extra options that the Dataview, QuickAdd and Templater plugins gives me access to more than compensates for those minor nuisances I experience.
I like Obsidian. If it weren’t for historical baggage, I’d choose it right away, but I have hundreds of notes that won’t work without a preprocessor. It’s a shame that no plugin can handle this. I’ll try to find out how difficult it would be to create such a plugin.
What kind of preprocessor stuff are you doing? I used them to change links to match proper wikilinks, which was not needed when I started using Obsidian. So maybe some of your needs will be met by existing plugins/conventions.
I’ve also used, and seen other refer to using VS Code for more heavy one-time changes to their imported stuff to better match the standards which Obsidian complies to. That could also be a solution for some of your other requirements.
It is a user-configurable regex preprocessor that modifies the text before it is passed to the renderer. It does not alter the original source text.