Workspaces across MacOS and iPadOS

[SebMacV]

Hello friends

Santa brought me a year’s subscription to Obsidian Sync! I’ve just set it up and am already enjoying having my vault on the iPad.

My question is this: what is the state of play creating Workspaces on Mac for use on mobile, in my case iPad OS? Can this be done or is better avoided? Or should I create different workspaces for the two systems and don’t expect these to work across devices?

I’ve done my forum trawl but am not sure sure how current are the below bits of advice:

1). The disappearing sidebar on iPadOS (my first tests suggests that this hasn’t been resolved):

Missing sidebar settings on mobile / Wrong workspace loaded

Thanks

2). And this post suggests that Workspaces shouldn’t be shared between desktop/mobile, period:

Workspace Layouts Don't Work Across Different Devices

Steps to reproduce Make a workspace on Mobile and save it. Allow the Vault to sync. Open the Desktop app and load the workspace you save on Mobile. The workspace loads and the sidebars are broken. You can fix it by reloading a workspace you’ve saved on (if you have a workspace you’ve saved on Desktop). Expected result Ideally the Workspaces could load across devices, but would retain a version of the sidebars that is usable. If Workspaces cannot be made to load across devices, then loading …

Especially where @WhiteNoise posted that

Desktop/Mobile workspaces are now incompatible. We have not decided yet if we want to explicitly forbid loading a mobile workspace in desktop even in its broken state.

Is this incompatibility still the case?

Tnanks!

[ariehen]

@SebMacV

Desktop/Mobile workspaces are now incompatible. We have not decided yet if we want to explicitly forbid loading a mobile workspace in desktop even in its broken state.

Is this incompatibility still the case?

Yes. Putting aside the Workspaces core plugin for a moment, desktop Obsidian and mobile Obsidian use different files for saving your open tabs, sidebar state, ribbon order & hidden items, last opened files, etc. (.obsidian/workspace.json and .obsidian/workspace-mobile.json respectively).

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The .obsidian/workspaceS.json file is what the core Workspaces plugin uses, and while it will sync to all devices (if you’ve turned that on in the Obsidian Sync preferences), you’ll get unexpected results (blank sidebars, etc.) if you try to open a workspace on the phone/iPad that was originally saved on the desktop.

You can, of course, use the Workspaces plugin on mobile, but I’d label desktop and mobile workspaces as such. Only load desktop workspaces on desktop, mobile workspaces on mobile. e.g.

- basic-desktop
- basic-mobile
- three.tab.groups-desktop
- three.tab.groups-mobile

[SebMacV]

Thanks for taking the time to explain this so carefully! That all makes sense, and I’ll create separate workspaces on mobile.

Take care, S.