How do I work with Obsidian on Mobile?

Basement
103

Hello!
Thanks for your post. As a user of DT and DTTG I am quite interested in how you open or connect your Obsidian Vault to DTTG.
I am using iCloud to store my Obsidian files. In DTTG I can make a new database but indexing is not possible. How did you point DTTG to your vault and showed it the files?

Thanks for your help.

104

Hi @burningchrome - My experience is that my Obsidian notes, indexed to DevonThink on the desktop, do appear within DTTG.

However I never actually use that…partially because it seems as though it would be very easy to create a situation where notes were edited in both places given how iCloud sync can be laggy with Devon…

…but mostly because editing the Obsidian documents folder directly via 1Writer or iA Writer is just a way nicer experience - better writing environment and quicker sync.

My attitude is that changes made on iOS will float back over to DevonThink on the desk eventually, but if these are notes I’m working with in Obsidian primarily anyway that is the priority.

I don’t think anyone loves the current iOS situation but 1Writer and iA Writer are both pretty capable…with 1Writer I’ve been able to add a “jump to header” macro I found, which is a nice equivalent to the Outline plugin and makes it easy to move around in longer documents.

105

The developer of NotePlan just pushed a v3 beta update over the weekend that enables support for .md files which is one step closer to a more seamless integration between Obsidian and NotePlan. I’ve been working with these two apps side by side for a month or two now and I think they work as great companion apps.

NotePlan has been covered on this thread before but if you need a quick refresher:

  • NotePlan is a Mac / iOS calendar led task manager / note taker, it’s particularly suitable for those that like to bullet journal.
  • It’s markdown, supports [[linking]] etc.
  • It doesn’t use it’s own proprietary database and reads files off your file system (good for us Obsidian users)
  • NotePlan now has CloudKit integration which I’ve been testing and seems to work very well.

Considerations:
While the two apps can share a common data set relatively easily there are a few caveats and things I’ve discovered along the way that you might want to consider.

  • NotePlan’s folder structure is /Calendar (for daily notes) and /Notes (for everything else) so you if you want Obsidian to read it directly you have to have all your Obsidian content in /Notes which isn’t ideal
  • NotePlan will also read the obsidian .css file as a note which will mess up tags on the NotePlan side
  • NotePlan and Obsidian manage attachments slightly differently, I don’t really need to access attachments on mobile so not a big issue

My setup:
Because of the above I’ve found it not ideal to try and have Obsidian and NotePlan use the same dataset. Instead I’ve been experimenting with using Chronosync (which is a solid app I’ve used for years) to keep the two folders up-to-date when changes are made.

  • Chronosync is great because it allows you to specify the parameters of how the two folders are kept in sync, i.e. I can exclude the Obsidian.css and navigate around the two different folder structures.
  • I’ve also set Chronosync to exclude my Attachments folder which is unnecessary overhead
  • Chronosync also lets you schedule to activate when a change is made in either folder which essentially keeps sync realtime.

I now I have my Obsidian folder in Dropbox syncing with the NotePlan folder which then syncs automatically with CloudKit. It’s all working pretty nicely and I haven’t hit any conflicts yet. I can work either in Obsidian or NotePlan and they both share the same content. I find NotePlan great for day-to-day task planning and, well, you don’t need me to tell you what Obsidian is great for.

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106

Recently, NP beta (3.0.10) gained a support for .md

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  • NotePlan will also read the obsidian .css file as a note which will mess up tags on the NotePlan side

I added whole NP folder to obsidian’s vault. I then moved the .css out of the notes folder so NP would not read the css file to fetch the tags.

  • NotePlan and Obsidian manage attachments slightly differently, I don’t really need to access attachments on mobile so not a big issue

I chose to stick with NP’s image storage behavior, as it keeps images in separate folder named same as the note title. In the future it would be easier to identify/find images in local storage, though I don’t use many images in my notes.

  • NotePlan’s folder structure is /Calendar (for daily notes) and /Notes (for everything else) so you if you want Obsidian to read it directly you have to have all your Obsidian content in /Notes which isn’t ideal

Why do you think it isn’t ideal? Can you please give more detail.

In general I don’t want to rely on too many steps to sync my files between two different software. I previously used Sync Folders Pro to create a similar workflow like yours . But I was always hesitant and skeptical that something would cause a conflict, therefore abandoned that approach and I chose to use the same folder location for both.

108

Re folder structure, you can just select the co.noteplan.NotePlan3 application folder and everything will be included in Obsidian. The Calendar folder will contain your daily notes, which you can target by modifying the plugin settings Date format to YYYYMMDD, then the Notes folder will contain everything else. The bonus of this is it means Obsidian system files like obsidian.css won’t appear in NotePlan.

To make this even cleaner, we need an update that allows you to hide folders from Obsidian, so that we can hide NotePlan’s system folders. If you want that too, upvote this feature request! Hide select vault folders from Obsidian

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109

Can I make [[links]] work somehow in Epsilon Notes?

/edit: figured it out, post from MarcusM further up.

110

Note that the newest version of Drafts (iOS), released a few days ago, includes various improvements to wiki style link functionality.

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/ instead of | though. Not necessarily helpful for us.

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112

A warning to anyone using Google Drive or OneDrive, 1Writer does not support cloud storage other than Dropbox and iCloud. If you try to add OneDrive/Google Drive as a location in the Files app and select it from the “other” option, they will appear but will be unselectable and grayed out.

I wasted $5.40 on 1Writer thinking it would work with OneDrive.

Do any of the iOS apps mentioned work with OneDrive? I don’t want to waste any more money on these apps that don’t have a trial or free version like 1Writer and iA Writer. Really, I’d prefer if Obsidian came out with a mobile app, because I can’t see any apps providing as frictionless of an experience since they aren’t designed with backlinks, graph view, and other aspects of Obsidian’s workflow in mind.

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113

You can “return” apps. Never done it myself, but apparently it should work without any questions asked. Just contact Apple.

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114

You need to index your Vault(s) on macOS using DEVONthink. DTTG does not offer the ability to “index” anything outside, it only gains access to your Vault(s) after DT syncs the indexed folder to DTTG.

115

So say us all.
It’s the item on the roadmap that I’m most waiting for.
Though I’m also hoping there will be a lot of improvements in the editor when wysiwyg comes. Don’t especially need wysiwyg, but I’d love a more feature rich editor.

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116

@ryans @dc17 Indeed, I have gotten a refund for dozens of apps over the years. It doesn’t always work but if you go to reportaproblem.apple.com, you can say that the app didn’t work as expected and sometimes get your cash back.

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117

I’m looking for a cheap iOS app that can read markdown from Google Drive. I don’t really need to write, though that would be a plus.

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118

Great write-up, thanks. It’s worth mentioning that NotePlan v3 (beta) will be subscription-based, which can be off-putting to many (myself included). For whoever is researching this, 1Writer app is a single purchase, not subscription-based.

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119

You can try adding OneDrive as a WebDAV server. Works just fine with my Seafile-cloud storage :slight_smile:

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120

Indeed. Just apply for a refund.
No questions asked.
Did it many times already.

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121

I never had a case were the refund wasn’t given.
Good to hear it’s not always the case.

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122

Is there a way to have Markor (Android) work with WikiLinks [[Page Title|Alternative Text]], maybe through the Inject code to body setting (Settings / View mode / Inject → body), in a similar manner Epsilon Notes uses regex replacement in Compatibility mode?

Markor is really enjoyable to use, but as far as [[WikiLinks]] work, [[Page Title|Alternative Text]] doesn’t.

Thanks @MarcusM for that trick on Epsilon by the way, it’s been working perfectly so far.

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