#31

Here are a few screenshots of how TheBrain was used reading this thread and trying to understant how Obsidian was more than a wiki. Screenshots makes it small, I hope you will be able to see.

I created the Obsidian node about two weeks ago, while I stumbled upon Roam:

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Information is added below the Obsidian node regarding references (yellow), questions (orange), key concepts and bits of information (white).
Above it shows that Obsidian is part of the “Take notes”, “Markdown” and “Backlinks” concepts. Actually, I am also going to add “Transclusion” right now. I have just created “Backlinks” and “Transclusion” yesterday. They are two new concepts below which I might add more information one day.
On the left side, it shows that Obsidian is compared to Roam. Roam has a lot of buzz these days so it seems it’s a kind of reference.
On the right side are nodes that are related to the four parents (“Take Notes”, etc).

Now, if I click on Mardown, I get this:

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I have added some information from this thread (thanks!)
We can see that Obsidian is referenced among other software that have something to do with Markdown.

And if I click on Take Notes, I get this:

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Obsidian is also referenced there, but this time among other software that have something to do with taking notes.
Since I discovered the Zettelkasten methode at the same time, I have added it about 4 weeks ago. Same with the book of Sonke Ahrens, that I am currently reading and find quite good.

And so on…
The graphic visualisation makes all the difference in this case because the focus is not so much on linear text but rather on linking concepts and creating some order that makes sense to me.

For each of the nodes, you can add a note, and the note accept hyperlinks to other nodes. So, TheBrain could also be used as some kind of wiki. But Notes are not as sophisticated as in Obsidian/Roam (no backlinks, transclusion, outline, basic search engine, etc) and they remain kind of lost in the graph. So now you know why I am here :slight_smile:

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#32

To answer a couple of the orange questions:

BTW, Roam Highlighter has been adapted to work with Obsidian too.

  • Obsidian on mobile: not available yet.
#33

I used The Brain in the early '00s as my desktop (both for notes, as well as navigating files)

#34

Have been familiar with the Brain since its very earliest incarnation. Over the last 10 years+ I’ve paid for an annual license/subscription 3 times and tried each time to make it my second brain. The last one thinking “this time I’ll make it work” but it just doesn’t get there for me. Their incorporation of linking from mind maps and making it visual was visionary but the system is just cumbersome. It looks awesome with its visual rearrangement when you move through the knowledge base but for me in usage it was just clunky. Having to move a “thought” (their term for a unit of knowledge) into the center of the plex before you can see its note or other attachments is just too high friction. It’s too bad because if I could have gotten it to work I’d have many years of second-brain accumulated in one place rather than scattered across dozens of apps or notebooks as it is now. So now you know why I am here :wink:

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#35

What will happen to all those “thoughts” you collected over the years?

#36

That’s a good question. Plan is to bring those most currently valuable into Obsidian if it gets to where I believe it will be “the tool”. Many are in paper notebooks on a shelf, many are scattered in apps - those in apps are more vulnerable to loss so slightly higher on the priority list. Prioritization being also a function of current value.
Understand I am an old fart but I was lucky to discover early in life that in order to learn something you have to think about how best to organize the information and WRITE down your conclusions. As a result I have a lot of notebooks that are rarely revisited - the main value was the process of taking the notes and reviewing them at the time. I doubt those will be captured (it would be difficult) but it’s not a big loss - I learned the information in there. FYI my observation even now with these digital tools is that I get far more value from handwriting notes as I read then thinking about how to organize them THEN taking them into digital form than from those books where I use the various Kindle capture methodologies. A big portion of the value of note-taking and zettleing is in that step of thinking about how the knowledge fits - and that is done more deeply while handwriting.
Also when will I know Obsidian is THE tool? When there is a step-change improvement in filters/queries. Until that happens it is not the tool I am ready to commit the time to import.

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#37

There are those who are experts compared to me the ignorant, and they think that hand-writing is more effective to remember your notes. So, by all means, go ahead if it works for you.

By "old “thoughts” I meant the notes in The Brain. And the reason I asked about them is that over the past 7 years I have had to change computer and note-taking app a few times, and each time I ran into that wall of vendor lock-in.

So, I decided enough is enough, I need future-proof notes that are mine, so I opted for markdown.

I am still in the process of manually transcribing (copy/pasting) my OneNote notes to Obs.

#38

By "old “thoughts” I meant the notes in The Brain .

Ah I see - I never had anything in the Brain that I also did not have elsewhere (mostly in OneNote to be honest) so it was not an issue. When I last used it however it was not possible to do any kind of bulk export so pulling information out of it was a “one at a time” process.

#39

TheBrain allows for 3 types of exports: folder hierachy, text file, JSON files. I have never used any of them so I wouldn’t know what result you get, and frankly I hope I will never have to because I am kind of expecting a mess. They say JSON files would also export the links, which would be the biggest loss in case of leaving TheBrain: attached documents and notes can be exported, but I am not clear how the links are exported and could be reused in a different software. I don’t know how JSON files work.

In any case, even without exporting, TheBrain keeps notes, documents and links in folders that can easily be opened and managed with a file manager. Folders are coded so you wouldn’t know to which node they correspond. Notes are saved in html so easily readable, but they are named “notes.html”, so impossible to know what they are about before opening. Maybe exporting as a “folder hiearchy” would rename those notes with the name of the node, who knows.

I suspect the issue of exporting links is common to any software that produce links between nodes. As far as I know there is no industry standard for this so far (xml? JSON?). So in the end, once made a choice better stick to it, and hope for the best… To me, the accumulation of data in a single system has outweighted so far the inconveniences and imperfections about TheBrain. I am now trying to see if I can somehow complement with a smart note software.

#40

5 posts were split to a new topic: Why doesn’t transclusion work for me?

#41

just discovered transclusions, feels like I just got a really cool Christmas present

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#42

@KaneDodgson: I discovered transclusions in TiddlyWiki. When I left TW, found Obsidian and saw it also supported them, I was over the moon.

AFAIK no other markdown app supports transclusions.

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#43

@Klaas It is a really neat feature, finding it really useful to create a virtual one page full of notes and personal reflections. I would be interested to know how you are using this feature, in what situations. I am really over the moon to explore ways of utilising this feature more.

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#44

Briefly, I have 2 sets of notes: a zettelkasten -with short, atomic notes - and a Geopolitical collection with (very) long notes.

In the zk, thanks to Obsidian, I have suddenly started links/relationships more clearly. From there I can construct what I call “story rivers” (term borrowed from TiddylWiki, though with a somewhat different meaning).

The story rivers tell a story based on a combination of various notes. A story river is nothing more than a series of transclusions interlaced with some comments, views, conclusions.

With my Geopolitical notes I am starting to do the same, and transclusions also allow me to shorten the notes (apart from excising parts) by not having to repeat a section of text, using a transclusion instead.

1 additional transclusion functionality I would love to have is more to be able to go 2-3 levels deep of transclusions. There is a feature request in for it, but I am not so sure it’ll get implemented.

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#45

Yes that resonates with me I have a set on notes that act as a bridge from my seed notes to my permanent notes and articles. Now using your story river reference these can become almost draft pages between the two a place to begin piecing together stories

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#46

Glad someone mentioned that! Together with all the other arguments this is the most important reason one should use text (or markdown) to write notes.

#47

Another Brain user here. Version 11 of The Brain completely rebuilt the note editor from scratch (vs. using a third party component). It now is fully Markdown. I am trying to work out some combination of The Brain - nvAlt - Obsidian. I import the Markdown notes into The Brain as file references, but they are editable in The Brain. If you start a note in The Brain, it creates a markdown file that is somewhat hidden. So I have to think more about whether integration works.

Doing it on one computer seems like it might work, but iPad would just be a Markdown editor like Byword or Drafts.

#48

What is the advantage of a combination of The Brain-nvAlt-Obsidian ? Seems like all 3 fulfill basically the same niche?

#49

That’s what I am aiming to find out! Three sounds like too many.

  • The Brain has been a collection point of a lot of web URL’s and then linked together. Ingested PDFs and MD files are searched
  • nvAlt is pure speed. Search and start typing. This is my day to day drop notes in from meetings and conversations (somewhat akin to Daily notes plus mini-CRM plus project notes)
  • Obsidian i am just exploring, but i think for more Evergreen longer thought process
#50

My five cents:

Unless you don’t have more than 20K daily working notes I shouldn’t worry a lot about speed. I am currently doing some volume tests to see where that limit would be for Obsidian. I can safely put that 1000 notefiles (.md) work very well without any issue even graphing included. So for a daily notekeeping flow seems Obsidian will be able to do the job exactly fine (on a desktop).
I you making your raw notes during the day you can use whatever program you’d like and save the files to the shared cloud location.
In the evening you than take your laptop and process everything in Obsidian.
You can even separate the Notetaking space and rest of the vault if you’d like to when you don’t want your coleagues to see what a beauty of information you have gathered in your vault :wink:

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