Way to quick add notes?

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12

The key challenge that most of these suggestions fail to resolve is using and rendering Markdown in the pop-up quick note UX. (Although I, too, applaud the use of Alfred for quick appending things to a given note!)

I was thinking that Keyboard Maestro could work for this within Obsidian. Create a macro that:

  • Asks for a title
  • Optionally asks for a location
  • Opens Obsidian
  • Creates a new note (in the requested location)
  • Moves the window to the side, collapses all possible UI elements, and makes it small

This should all be trivial, save maybe the location component; I can build it if it sounds useful.

The one problem with this is that said note window would not “stay on top,” which would be a nice-to-have mechanism if I read the OP right.

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Here’s the daily logging one:

I’ve tidied it up from my “just hack something” original and added some docs so that you can set it up how you might need it. Hopefully it makes sense, let me know if help is required. I’ll clean up the “new idea” one this evening and post it here as well.

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14

FWIW, those of us primarily using iPadOS, who do not have a portable Mac, as far as I know, Shortcuts can do all but the item listed above to create a Note (Zettel) using 1Writer or iAWriter which can ‘later’ be used by Obsidian.

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15

I am also an Alfred fan and long time user. In another thread I suggested using alfred’s snippets (expand text) or workflows (shortcut to execute a workflow) where there is no native Obsidian shortcut support, for example to create md checkboxes.

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16

…looks like something Autohotkey would be well capable of, on Windows

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17

Just wanted to share that I meanwhile changed my workflow for taking quick notes whenever I am working outside of obsidian.

I gave up the QOwnNotes solution as 1. it actually makes no sense having a running application minimised to your system tray all the time eating RAM despite only being used a couple of times a day (if at all…) just for typing down a spontaneous thought and 2. it tended to crash regularly.

My current - really lightweight - solution is to use vim.

This is my workflow (on Linux):

  1. create an alias in your .bashrc by adding the following line:
    alias nn='vim ~/path/to/your/vault/quicknotes/$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).md';
  2. Whenever you have an idea you quickly want to write down with as little distraction as possible from what you were doing at the moment, open a terminal with your favorite specified shortcut, type “nn” and press Enter;
  3. Write down your quick note using markdown syntax, add some #tags if you want and save/quit with :wq (which is the default vim shortcut).

Detailed explanation for anyone not so familiar with the above-mentioned commands:

The first step defines a short command (I chose “nn” for “new note” but you can choose whatever you like as long as it doesn’t collide with an actually existing terminal command) which, when typed into the terminal, will automatically be replaced by its alias. The complete command (‘vim ~/path/to/your/vault/quicknotes/$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).md’) tells the terminal to start vim and immeditaly create a new markdown file with a date-time based unique zettelkasten id file name. The file is placed directly in your vault (I established a subfolder “quicknotes” in my vault so that I can easily find my quick notes later on in obsidian, edit them, make links to other notes if necessary and finally move them to my actual zettelkasten folder).
Vim is really doing a good job with writing markdown syntax!

One more thing: Vim starts, by default, in “normal mode” which means you can’t type any text. By pressing “i” vim changes to “insert mode” which is what you need to write down a note. In order to just being able to start typing after you opened your terminal, add the following line to your .vimrc:
au BufRead,BufNewFile * startinsert
This will make vim start in insert mode whenever you open a new file.

Both the .bashrc and the .vimrc files live in your home directory. If they don’t, just create them (don’t forget the dot in the filename!).

So, this is a really really fast and lightweight mode to quickly write down any spontaneous thought, have it saved in your obsidian vault and postponing any editing stuff (which would distract you from what you are doing at the moment) to any later point in time.

Edit: An even more time-saving way would be to create a new terminal profile (name it “quicknote” or whatever you like) and, instead of defining an alias in your .bashrc, tell your new profile to immediately execute the command 'vim ~/path/to/your/vault/quicknotes/$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).md'as soon as it starts. Then define a global keyboard shortcut for opening your new profile. In my case, however, my terminal always crashes with a segfault whenever I try this - I spent some hours of searching but couldn’t figure out the reason for this… :frowning_face: If anyone has any idea what could cause this issue, I would be happy to hear about it!

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18

After posting this question and getting so much feedback, I should have come back and posted what I ended up doing – which is basically this.

I set up a bash function and an alias, one for very short notes and one for slightly longer notes:

For shorter notes, I use the function, with my note as a string argument. I’ve set it to append a single long running file instead of creating a new file, because I like reviewing all my notes in one place before organizing them.

function n() {
   now=$(date +"%m/%d/%y, %H:%M") && echo -e "##" $now "
      "$@ >> /Users/path/file.md;
}

For longer notes, I do basically the same as yours, but with the same single file as above.

alias nv='now=$(date +"%m/%d/%y, %H:%M") && echo -e "
""##" $now "
" >> /Users/path/file.md'

I also have a keyboard shortcut set to open terminal – so whenever I want to jot a quick note I just ⌘⌃T and type n "note to save".

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19

  1. What about an icon for quick entries in the menu bar (macOS), throwing ideas into a chaos box/desktop folder in Obsidian without the need to open obsidian and disrupt my workflow?

  2. Isnt it possible to create an extension in macOS system preferences, allowing access to obsidian/desktop folder from other (markdown quick entry) apps?

I am not a developer and not native english, just a simple user. Sorry, if this question is already answered somewhere. But the mass of ideas and informations are too challanging for me to sort out a solution that works.

Kind regards and many thanks, if somone might answer my question in a “simple“ way.

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20

Hi ShaneNZ, I can’t express my gratitude to you in words. What a wonderful alfred workflow. Thank you so much…

21

Hi Augie, would you mind sharing some of your alfred workflow for getting the most out of obsidian? I have been using Alfred for a while, but never ventured much beyond the basics…Would love to learn from an experienced Alfred user

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You’re most welcome :slightly_smiling_face: I suggest you also take a look at the thread Alfred - Obsidian Utilities - there’s a much more developed and capable set of Alfred utilities in there, which is what I’m using these days.

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I made an autohotkey script for myself. It’s incredibly hacky and depends on my situation (and theme that I use), but maybe someone else finds it inspiring or useful:

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24

Thanks ShaneNZ for the pointer. I chanced upon it and bookmarked it for later reading and further hacking. Limiting my time on hacking the system so that I could actually get some real work done using Obsidian. For now, your script has been very useful

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25

You’re wiser than I :slight_smile: My first month on Obsidian was all hack, no work

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26

You can start vim in insert mode with vim File +star

27

I use nvAlt on Mac to quickly create and edit notes right into my Vault. nvAlt is now getting replaced by nvUltra. Both feature super fast searching and note creating. I don’t think the links work exactly the same, so i stick to basic MD.

28

This is awesome! Thanks so much!

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For those who uses Windows can suggest to try qNote - my AHK script

30

I just learned about mem.ai, which is another note app based on links. At least for Mac users, it includes a Spotlight-equivalent, where you press ⇧⌘+Space, and a pop-up appears for either searching old notes, or writing a new one.

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This is pretty much precisely the functionality I was looking for when I started this thread.

Unlike Obsidian, it keeps all your writing internally, so you can’t access your notes except through the app. For that reason, I’m probably staying with Obsidian, but it would be super super cool to see this functionality added on!

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31

Have you looked into the Alfred workflows that exist? They might provide what you’re looking for.

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