So, so, so much this. Thanks for posting it; I want to print it out and keep it on my wall. I am moving to Obsidian from Evernote because it’s more stable, more reliable, uses storage I control, has cool features like easy inter-note links and transclusion, and is highly flexible. Markdown is not on the list of reasons. Give me rich text and a rich text editor. If you want to save the file in Markdown, or enhanced markdown, or some other human-comprehensible, open format, great! I do like the notion that if Obsidian dies, or if I want to move to another system, all of my data will just transfer.
Except, I mean, of course, it won’t. The text will be there, but the formatting? Will every other reader parse callouts successfully? How about Dataview? Or the various other plugins I use to get my notes to look like I want, and to replicate the functionality of Evernote?
And it is far from easier to write in Markdown than in a genuine WYSIWYG editor. I’m constantly having to look up how to do things, or downloading a plugin, in order to get my notes to look and act how I want. And in many cases, it’s to get Obsidian to do things that are just standard in any word processor. And don’t tell me that Live Preview is just as good as an actual WYSIWYG editor. It helps, certainly, but it’s just not in the same class.
I can already hear the responses: “Maybe Obsidian’s not for you then?” Well, maybe it’s not. But then, what is? What other app allows such easy linking of thoughts and ideas (down to the paragraph level!), uses a non-proprietary data format (like, I dunno, RTF?), and allows automatic syncing between all my devices using any means I like?
There’s no such thing. MacJournal does some of this, and if it had a decent iOS app, I might still be using it. I gave up on Evernote when it started eating my data. An actual word processor just leaves a lot of unrelated and difficult-to-organize files laying around.
I want to be clear that I’m not bitching. I’m not saying, “Obsidian should abandon (or at least hide) Markdown!” I mean, would I like that? Sure, but Obsidian is working for me, and I’m slowly building up the practices, plugins, and Shortcuts to make it work as I’d like. But it’s a long, slow process, and I’m spending more time learning about Obsidian than I am writing.
I’m just sick of hearing “Markdown is better than a word processor! It lets you focus on your writing, and not on formatting!” Because that’s not how it works for me. If the formatting looks wrong, that’s distracting. And I have to stop writing and go figure out how to make it look and work how I’d like.