When I first got Obsidian this year I was quite happy. It was easy to use and did the job I wanted, which really wasn’t complicated, just notetaking on my reading.
But when you put a ton of changes all at once in the new tabbed version… what a mess. It’s not easy to use. It’s not simple anymore. Very little seems to work the way it did. Maybe your online help didn’t keep up with the changes either. You apparently took something good, threw it against the wall with a bunch of new parts, and congratulated yourselves for screwing it up. I’ll keep trying to figure out what the hell you did, but I’m looking for something else to work with. I suspect also that having made big changes all at once this time, you’ll do it again in the future. You’ve cost me considerable time and effort. I suspect you people have never heard of incremental change for complex systems. Never mind.
I hear you. It was a huge change, and it did affect some people more than others, depending how they work.
I get that it’s frustrating, and if you give up, that’s your call and totally understandable. If you’re willing to stick it out, personally I got used to the new changes, and it works a lot more smoothly for me now. But my setup is really simple.
WhiteNoise made a lot of good suggestions to try if you are experiencing weird bugs from things being out of date. Especially older themes.
Thanks for the reply. There’s nothing complex about my work. All very basic and simple. Notes and links. But when the simple things no longer work (type two brackets [[ and they complete with ]] and clicking on the entry creates a new empty note --that doesn’t work anymore, except apparently by chance and whim of the denizens of Mt. Olympus or Valhalla or when the local field mice dance the boogie in unison). Now the advice here is go do that, go do this, kick the tire, change the oil, go back to horse and buggy, and so on, in a synergistic system, when all I want to do is do my work, like I used to, without software hassles. How do you trust programmers who treat users to a massive dump of changes that way? Sorry to grump grump, but I’m really pissed. I thought I’d found a good program for the purpose, and then somebody pulled the rug out from under me. It’s like working in a place and the bosses come down and say “We’re changing the way you work, we’re changing the hours, we’re changing the tools you use, and were changing the processes. We’re doing it all at once. This afternoon. You will be expected to meet your usual quotas. Vacations are cancelled. And everybody but us takes a cut in pay. Have a nice day, plebs!”
BTW it’s not bugs I’m experiencing. They changed so much stuff that they broke my workflow because I’m supposed to just stop and learn all the new crap practically from ground zero. I suspect I’m not the only one, and I suspect they didn’t even consider that when they messed around with the program.
So, how much the time have you invested in crafting a note making system
in Obsidian? Are you are going to throw all of that away and start over in another program system? You can adapt your workflows. There is lots of help on here and discord if you have questions. The changes that were made to advance the program out of Beta were needed. Most of us adapted and modified our workflows and find they are much better. The Plug ins and Themes all had to be updated, which took lots of work from the community of developers. In this case, change was welcome. The changes were extensively tested by beta users. No program is perfect. This is still only a version1 release. The greater obsidian community is full of helpful users who can help you modify your usage of Obsidian to craft it to just what fits your usage.
For clicking links, Ctrl-Click the link. It makes it easier to click inside the text to edit it without accidentally following the link. It’s a trade-off. An improvement in my opinion.
I don’t think the devs deserve the tone of your posts. If you want help then you need to state the specifics of what was so devastating, because as far as I am aware, as good as the devs and the Obsidian community is, none of us are mind readers.
I think the v1.0 upgrade was the best thing that has happened to Obsidian since I first discovered it a few years ago. It has finally given the product the polish it’s incredible architecture deserves. I have a pretty complex workflow with a gazillion plugins installed, operating over 40K notes and did not encounter ANY issues with the upgrade. I might be lucky but I really didn’t see anything that would not be backward compatible with the v1.0.0.
The only issue you mentioned is not an issue at all, but rather your lack of understanding of how to properly configure the product, as evidenced in @rigmarole’s reply. Fair mistake to make because the one thing that is challenging with Obsidian is keeping up with the changes and the myriad of plugin releases. Turn your back for a moment and you fall behind. That is the nature of the beast and there is no way around it. However, that very pace of change is what has made Obsidian v1.0+ such an incredible product.
For me, the changes in v1 were incremental, logical, progressive, simple to understand, and welcome. I didn’t notice any bump in the road. for the developers. We’re all different.
“Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.” Edward de Bono. Version 1 of Obsidian was putting away the stage-coach to bring out the motor car. And with that, learning how to drive something different.
I am hearing you say …
I’m really pissed
you people have never heard of incremental change
threw it against the wall
by chance and whim
learn all the new crap
what the hell you did
You’ve cost me
you’ll do it again in the future
looking for something else to work with
Hell with it. Never mind
As Ramst3r observes: I don’t think the devs deserve the tone of your posts. If you want help then you need to state the specifics of what was so devastating.
That helps separate the people from the problem. The problem seems to be change. Was happy, devs changed things, now not happy. Change can be a challenge, but in the words of the philosopher: without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. Frank Zappa.
I moved from Bear Notes to Obsidian and there is so much I can do now that was unthinkable then. The result isn’t a better note-taker; it is better-note taking. So yes, the change is in us and that is perhaps the most transformative aspect of Obsidian. Frankly, I can hardly wait for the next big step with Canvas and what doors it may unlock.
I don’t see any specific issues to address in this help thread. Closing it. Feel free to open new issues with details after trying some of the troubleshooting steps suggested here.
for the developers. We’re all different.