Use case or problem
I’d love to be able to use Obsidian to create open, and edit files outside my vault. With the editing and interface features that have been added—and the ways I’ve been able to customize it—Obsidian blows away any other markdown editor I’ve tried, and I’d rather be editing and writing everything in it.
Proposed solution
Enable Obsidian to create, open, and edit markdown files system-wide.
Current workaround (optional)
Current workarounds are:
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Move files temporarily into my vault, then move them back afterward.
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Use another markdown editor, none of which comes close to Obsidian. Typora has some limitations (inability to fold sections by headings in the Mac app, for example) and weird idiosyncrasies (like not being able to see or edit the
#symbols at the beginning of headers once they’re rendered), and there’s no mobile version. And the latest version of iA Writer that came out today for macOS and iOS is a disappointment.
UPDATE 1:
@pdworkman, @rjp, and I aren’t the only ones who want this. As Benjamin D. Lee says in his post “Obsidian is (almost) a Typora killer”:
Obsidian is not without its downsides relative to Typora. However, I think these downsides can be fixed relatively easily. First and foremost, it’s not possible to open an arbitrarily located Markdown file in Obsidian. Instead, it has to be located within your notes directory. I’ve gotten around this so far by temporarily symlinking but this hack isn’t anywhere as slick as just opening it in Typora. Obsidian should follow VS Code’s approach when opening files that are not in the current workspace: just open the file anyway. [emphasis added]
UPDATE 2:
This feature would also make it possible to designate Obsidian as your system’s default app for opening markdown files. It would be wonderful to be able to simply double-click any .md file anywhere on your system, whether inside or outside a vault, and have it automatically open in Obsidian, ready for viewing or editing.