re, the plugin ‘argument’
Just because a plugin is open-source does not mean it doesn’t require a person to update it, as Jopp pointed out. If one person sets down a plugin and chooses not to update it, that requires another person to then pick it up and choose to update it; if someone never makes that choice, you’re out of luck. An abandoned plugin can very well stay an abandoned plugin. It may be a beautiful free software world, but let’s not forget it’s people that are doing all the work.
That said, it is super frustrating, but at the end of the day Obsidian can’t factor in every single plugin and plugin creator. You’ll run into similar problems if you ever mod a game that’s still getting updated, and even an unmodded game that’s still getting updated.
This is a super frustrating problem but Obsidian devs cannot control you & your vault additives, those are things within your control (if they are within your vault or not), and if you refuse to consider a vault without those additives, that is ultimately a choice you are making. My read of this seems like you found your solution; stay on an old version.
& as a Sims player, I’m not judging, I totally get it, but I don’t blame EA for progressing with their software the way they want to just because it doesn’t work with my additives that I can’t live without, ya dig what i’m puttin down? When I update my game there are always some mods that I have to leave behind or search for adequate substitutes for because they simply don’t work with the new update; it is the circle of life.
Ultimately, how you proceed with this is your choice, but we have to respect that it is your choice, and not Obsidan Dev’s choice, to keep your plugins.
Thank you for your message. I think you may have interpreted what I wrote in a way I didn’t intend.
Firstly, in the open-source world, the updating of a useful plugin doesn’t necessarily depend on its current developer. Another developer can take over its development. I believe we’re saying the same thing on this point. We know, of course, that all the work is done by people, but it’s not a small minority; rather, it’s a collective effort.
Unfortunately, your game metaphor doesn’t really capture what I was trying to convey. I’m not suggesting that Obsidian developers should control vault content or plugins. In fact, we choose Obsidian because they don’t do that! My suggestion is that the Obsidian developers maintain active communication with plugin developers regarding Obsidian version updates and wait for their feedback before releasing the final version. Plugins that don’t provide feedback could be removed from the application repository. If I’ve explained more clearly now, do you have any objections to this?
This argument reminds me very much of the big security thread from a long time ago.
Many people were arguing for the developers to take responsibility for auditing and policing the plugins’ security. And this is basically asking them to take responsibility for a growing number of developers and countless permutations of plugins interacting with one another. I can’t see how this is feasible, or possible, or even reasonable!
You take your own personal risk (security, updates, bugs, interactions, etc. etc.) when you install plugins. And that risk multiplies as you install more and more. And your wish that the developers and plugin developers could all control this, or police this – without side effects – becomes more and more unfeasible as the number of plugins grows.
Rather than a contentious thread title to not update. I suggest: choose fewer plugins.
There are almost 2,000 plugins now and more are being added all the time. It’s just not feasible for Obsidian’s small team to wait for feedback from all of them before the public release. And if they tried, users would be complaining about how long it was taking for new features to become available.
It’s up to the plugin devs to test and update their plugins to work with the latest versions of Obsidian, and many of them do so during the beta period so they’re ready to go on the release date.
The feedback process could be automated and may hold only statistical importance for the Obsidian developers. Even AI could be utilized in this area. Additionally, I believe there’s no harm in spending more time on alpha and beta updates if it means the final version will be stable. At the end, outright dismissing a suggestion is different from considering ways to improve and make it more reasonable.
Friends, version 1.7.4 is a downgrade in terms of “user experience” compared to version 1.6.7 and is an incompatible update. This incompatibility arises from plugin conflicts. I’m suggesting this to prevent similar issues in the future. If you have better suggestions, feel free to share them in this discussion thread. However, if you’re not contributing any suggestions, trying to invalidate an existing one doesn’t seem constructive or appropriate to me.
Finally, please remember that Obsidian currently has hundreds or even thousands of users. Let’s consider how Obsidian could create an almost perfect user experience on both mobile devices and PCs, taking the issue with version 1.7.4 into account. This is what I’m trying to do myself.
You are not owed a personal response from the dev team. This is a free community support forum.
You are aware of the large number of users. That’s why directly pinging team members for support is against our code of conduct. Community code of conduct - Obsidian Help
I’m afraid, I don’t see how this thread is productive. Sorry you had a rough upgrade experience with so many plugins. You acknowledged the risk in a disclaimer when you turned on community plugins in the app.
I’ll be closing this thread now.
If you find a specific issue with a plugin, you can file a (polite) bug report on that plugin’s Github page. If you find a reproducible bug in Obsidian that you can reproduce in the Sandbox, you can open a bug report and follow the template.
