recently I have switched to Obsidian as my main note-taking app for my University. I really enjoy it so far, but I have a major problem with one of the core functionalities of the app - the graph view. It is practically unusable because I cannot save it in place - rearranging it every time I want to use it would take too much time. Plus there is no way of differentiating the parent nodes from each other.
So I wanted to ask:
Is there a way of saving the arrangement of the graph view?
Can I somehow change the color and size of individual nodes to make them stand out from each other?
The graph’s appearance and mechanics rely more on the relationships between notes than on individual notes’ nature or content. There’s a different color for tags, and size varies according to the number of links involving each node, but that’s about it.
The way I see it, you want/need a mind map, which — despite some apparent functional overlapping — the graph view is not.
I will just add that in my experience, as I’ve made more connections, the heavily interconnected notes have “anchored” my graph more, so that at least the center part is kind of stable and its a lot less jumpy than before (but still jumpy on the outsides for sure)
Also I’m really hoping we will get a feature like coloring notes in a folder soon so that even if its not in the same place, you can quickly see your notes of a certain type and I believe that will go a long way to orienting yourself on the graph view
Yeah, you are right I would like the graph view to function more like a mind-map, but it’s just that I have a variety of different, not clearly connected folders in my vault (which is the main vault for my University notes).
Maybe I will try to use tags to differentiate between the courses, because I am afraid that as the graph will grow, it will slowly become more and more useless, because of how overwhelming it will look.
When I use the global graph view, I watch out for clusters os notes: if there’s two or three bigger nodes close together, I zoom in on them and look around. Sometimes, I discover curious (and useful) affinities between subjects or times periods.
For a more focused experience, I use the local graph, with a depth of 2. That gives me a “Wikipedia rabbit hole” kind of flow.
Both of these uses are somewhat serendipitous and irreproduceable. I cannot build a fixed graphic representation of ideas, I just dive into this messy, temporary snapshot of my notes.
When I need mind maps, I still use mind-mapping software.