I have a project based on Etymology with thousands of entries moving from paper to digital and I thought Obsidian would be the perfect tool with the graph capability.
After a couple of weeks of heavily using Obsidian daily and entering about 5,000 words and text/images, here are the things that I’d like to share hoping this can help the community. I like the idea of putting down raw ideas and managing them with this concept. I was aiming for Wikipedia and a Neo4j interface but I decided to give O a shot. I am running into some fundamental issues (or missed expectations) that are getting in the way:
cmd-G for Graph view: I get that the graph is a critical part of O. but this is also the shortcut key for next find. Coming from a Sublime usage I hit that one half of the time. Can the Graph be burried in a cmd-cntl-G type of combination so it’s less accessible?
The editor is not there. Search is limited, the function to edit text are super light. What I am doing is using Sublime on top of O. for editing all the text. Is that how people are using it bypassing the weak editor in O.? What would be terrific is adding the basic editor capability of Sublime into O.
File hierarchy on the sidebar literally sucks. I can’t sort one folder with alphabetical order while the other is by modified date? It has to be everything at one. For a “vault” gigantic listing of things it’s not workable.
The navigation via backward and forward is a mimic of web browsers but it’s inconsistent and it should be more exposed ala Chrome. I constantly want to go back in previous pages due the link nature of things. It’s critical. Then I start editing and I can’t suddenly go backward.
I haven’t found a work around about the fact that the files are always created top dir. I can’t just continue adding to a folder. I need to create then drag the files.
How do you populate automatically missing links for one word? Today I need to go discover them in Graph and click on them to create them. Super cumbersome.
How do I manage multiple vaults from the app? I can select a previous vault from the start but where is the open recent… in file when I have already a vault open?
When I have a vault window opened, the window title bar can’t be clicked on to show the file hierarchy like most apps do these days.
With thousands of files to re-index when you have to move them (see above), the thing is crawling. I understand the nature of md links being very flexible but this file manipulation doesn’t work at scale. I can see the files on the screen re-indexed and sometimes the feedback is not even provided (Did it hang? kinda feeling).
I’ll keep using O. for what it is going around its limitations for now but will probably switch to something more robust and ux friendly later if things continue to get sticky and in the way. For me the biggest frustration is at the editor and navigation levels. If O. is trying to be a better Wikipedia, it needs these two things to be usable.
I don’t understand why you think search is limited, did you see all the operators? You can also enter regular expressions.
For pane history, you could look at the pane relief community plugin, I’m not sure whether it does pane history for closed panes, though. Also, please explain what chrome does that obsidian doesn’t.
I don’t get what you mean by missing links. Do you mean links to uncreated notes? If there isn’t a plugin for it yet, I’m pretty sure one could be written.
How many files and links are we talking about? When is obsidian slow? Only while it reindexes? Or all time?
For the things you mentioned, please search if there are already feature requests for it. If so, please add your support. Otherwise, open one for each feature describing precisely what it is you’re looking for. Thanks!
Thank you so much more your answer. This confirms exactly what I need to know about the roadmap of O and the way gaps and issues are addressed or not. That’s not my cup of tea but to each their own.
In all fairness, I think I stressed the usage of the software asking for better UX and more granular management of files and dirs and especially a better editor that doesn’t mix up with other shortcut keys. It’s a good lesson learned and I only wasted a couple of week trying this.
instead will need to go with a more hybrid solution:
I will continue to use Sublime Text because the Editor in any other app can’t match its features. The O editor is something similar to the md editor i used in the past. It’s lacking too many search and replace features.
I will generate pages using wikitext because the md format is too limited and if you need formatting (centered images) you need to use html and css anyway.
I will store all the data into Neo4j so I can run fast relationship queries. Even if O display a nice graph, I can’t find anything that runs the type of queries I need (Etymology trees). I used filtering but can’t save them to replay them. So it’s like a toy.
I will write a python script to export my neo4j db and wikipedia tree using its links to md files that I will put in a vault so O can show me the graph without me having to deal with all the quarks and limitations it has above. Beside i can probably try to export in other formats to explore graph visualization alternatives.
I haven’t found a work around about the fact that the files are always created top dir. I can’t just continue adding to a folder. I need to create then drag the files.
Right click on the folder in the file tree and then click new note from the popup menu. It will create a file in the folder you right clicked.
How do I manage multiple vaults from the app? I can select a previous vault from the start but where is the open recent… in file when I have already a vault open?
At the bottom left above the ? (help) icon there is a square vault icon. Click that and you will get a pop up that will let you open previously opened vaults or make new vaults. It will be the same screen as when you first start Oblivion. Vaults on disconnected drives such as USB thumb drives will not appear in the previously opened list.
The editor is not there.
The editor is still being developed. As far as I have read on the forums they are going to be making some changes like making the editor more “what you see is what you get.”
Search is limited,
Have you checked into the community plug ins via the settings (gear icon)? There are several search/replace add ons like:
Find Unlinked Files
Find and replace in selection
Related notes finder
Apply Patterns
Relative find
What would be terrific is adding the basic editor capability of Sublime into O.
Depending on what specific features I don’t know how easy it would be for them to copy Sublime as Oblivion is an Electron based app which is Chromium + NodeJS, in other words it is basically like a webpage inside an app. So far I don’t recall seeing any web editor that is as good as Sublime.
I agree better editing would be nice but like I said above they are still working on the editor. Oblivion seems to have a lot of potential but it is still growing. I hope some of the above helps ya.