Newbie user – long-time Dynalist user: Obsidian first impressions

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Hi all,

I only started using Obsidian a couple of days ago, but because I know Erica & Shida wouldn’t have ditched Dynalist for something else if that something else were not at least just as phenomenal, I went right ahead and purchased both Obsidian subscriptions: Sync & Publish. (The 50 GB promotion, running for only 1 more day, certainly helped me to make that decision!) I purchased the monthly subscriptions to start with, but it looks like both of them are keepers, so I will likely switch both Sync & Publish to annual subscription at the end of next month.

I can’t imagine my life without Dynalist. It most definitely is my “second brain”. Now here, quite outrageously, comes another piece of software that boldly claims it wishes to become my “second brain”. What?! I don’t need three brains, you know?

Then again, if that bold claim is made by the very pair who already gave me my second brain, I guess I have to give them a chance.

I don’t think Obsidian will be able to fully replace Dynalist for me, but in some respects, it definitely can replace, and also exceed it. In some respects, Obsidian seems inferior to Dynalist; in many others, far superior.

I was dismayed/shocked to learn, a year ago or so, that Shida & Erica stopped developing Dynalist, in favor of Obsidian. Having taken a look at Obsidian over the last couple of days, I can understand why they did it, though. Dynalist is nearly perfect, but there are still some annoying bugs in it, that would benefit from fixing. I guess that will never happen now. Sigh. That’s life.

I remember hearing Erica say repeatedly that Obsidian is not meant to replace Dynalist. But still: charging the same amount of money for software that is no longer being developed, as for software that is actively being updated, seems a bit strange. I’m sure Erica & Shida & their new colleague(s) fully deserve to get the triple amount of money from me from now on, but still – it’s rather expensive, you know? ($300 per year instead of $100 per year.)

I’d like to ask Shida & Erica if they haven’t considered introducing lifetime licences for Dynalist. Such a purchase option would only be fair for a piece of software that is no longer being developed, and I would most definitely buy that licence.

No matter how impressed I am by Obsidian, there are quite a few things in it I find unsatisfactory, so I have created a new webpage on my Obsidian Publish site, detailing these problematic items:

If you find a moment to take a look there, and if anyone can help me with tackling some of the issues listed there, I’ll be grateful to you. (I will, of course, do my best to study both Obsidian Forum and the Obsidian subreddit to learn whether anyone has already attempted to resolve these issues currently bugging me in Obsidian.)

Thank you.

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Welcome! I think you’ll have better luck getting responses here if you post copies of your questions here (1 per post unless they’re very closely related).

For your Dynalist suggestion, since you’re a subscriber I’d guess there is probably a support channel you could send it to.

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Thank you!

I know, I know. But I suffer from chronic work overload, so I barely managed to find the time to launch Obsidian and Obsidian Publish, and to put together that initial webpage, listing all my current issues with Obsidian.

Later on, as time permits, I will absolutely try and tackle those issues one-by-one. I’ve already found a thread dealing with one of the issues in this forum, and have posted my reply there.

As to the Dynalist forum, I’m afraid Erica & Shida are no longer present there, either. And no wonder! It must be a prodigious amount of work, developing Obsidian on a consistent basis.

And, as I said, I don’t really mind paying them $300 per year instead of $100 like until now – they definitely deserve it! On the other hand, at least some sort of gesture/bonus towards long-standing Dynalist subscribers would certainly be appreciated…

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OK! I thought Dynalist might have an email address for subscriber support like Obsidian does.

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Can you, please, explain why my posts in this thread (and another post in another thread) are “flagged by the community and are temporarily hidden”? :astonished:

Also, it appears I’m unable to share links to my Obsidian Publish pages here? :astonished:

Oh, my goodness. I truly hope that it’s just a misunderstanding. The last thing I’d expect as a welcome in this forum, and a brand-new Obsidian Sync and Obsidian Publish paying subscriber, is a posting ban of all things.

Thank you in advance for restoring my posts, @CawlinTeffid. :slightly_smiling_face:

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[email protected]

They regularly, if not frequently, visit the Dynalist discord.

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Yeah, I know about Discord – I’m just not a Discord user. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m not blaming our favorite pair of software creators in the least – as I mentioned above, I suffer from chronic work overload (for example, only 3 hours of sleep last night – again), so I consider it a downright miracle that they were capable of accomplishing with Dynalist what they accomplished with it, and now, on an apparently even grander scale, with Obsidian. They’re both astonishing pieces of software. :star_struck:

I’m also, of course, familiar with Dynalist’s support email address – I’ve been using it for years. I would feel silly (and guilty), though, asking for “lifetime licences” there. I only send an email to that address whenever something is seriously wrong – such as a server outage. My musings on potential licensing models are well-suited for a discussion board, such as this one, which is why I mentioned them here. But only tangentially, because this is the Obsidian forum – not Dynalist forum.

Thank you, @CawlinTeffid, for unblocking my posts above – I guess that must have been you, eh? :wink: My third post from yesterday remains blocked (mistakenly, I must believe), but that’s OK, because I posted another reply to that thread earlier today just below it, which discusses the issue (of custom fonts) with more precision and in more detail on my Obsidian Publish page that I created specifically for that issue earlier today.

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You were automatically flagged for posting multiple links to the same domain (an anti-spam safeguard). Another moderator rejected the flags but approved the one in the still-blocked post — I’ll ask why. But generally, please don’t repost flagged content.

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Not a good one, I’m afraid! :wink: For goodness’ sake, it’s my Obsidian Publish custom domain, you know? And this is the official forum for that software… I summarize my findings about Obsidian on my Obsidian Publish site, so will need to refer to it repeatedly in this forum, quite naturally. (I will try and employ various workarounds if the “anti-spam safeguard” :roll_eyes: can’t be told to behave in future.) :wink:

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