The rocket launch of user in Obsidian shows that this could be the next generation for the note taking software. This software only launched on 2020 and already have plenty of tutorial on the internet, including the use cases. For just an afternoon understanding and search for the next tool that can both records important information and also publish the article-oriented info, Obsidian is really a good free-software that I never seen before. This can really improve the efficiency after several settings. Of course, the community is quite large also to bring the useful plugins.
Introduction
Every tools do have their limitation and the pros and cons, no need to say that Obsidian, as a tool, also has it’s limitation. However, a person like me with a long journey that spending time on writing the notes from just paper and pen to the digital blog, I still did not find a good way to build a note system. Some people may think about building a second brain via different note taking software. I have to say that Obsidian, may really change our mind about the note taking software, which is really a free software that worth to donote the developer to maintain the software!
Criteria of selecting a good note-taking software
- Personal knowledge note taking platform, including
- 1-step note taking to publish ready article
- Periodic review notes
- Can carry data anywhere
- Can store confidential information locally without update to the cloud
- Potential to extend the function (e.g. good community environment to build the extension, just like VScode and Chrome)
- Markdown based for easy note taking (Light weight).
- Fast response time
- 1step for the note taking
- Easily transfer to different platforms (including Windows, iOS, Pads, and mobile!)
Does Obsidian fit all the above criteria that I mentioned? So far, yes! In the future, there might be more note taking system, but I would like to stick on one software and deeply dive into it (high growing searching activities worldwide!) It seems like Obsidian is really the software that I would like to choose.
Plugins
As I mentioned earlier, plugin/extension of a software in the open source community is really the key for the software as a “live” software. From my personal opinion, Obsidian in the near future would be a killer apps.
Writing/idea enhanced
- Excalidraw
Killer plugin for showing the flow chart as the hand witting style. Quite useful when starting a new project or trying to link between the concepts. It is like a whiteboard with flexible integration to the Obsidian usage. Highly recommend to install this.
Management
-
Kanban
Convenient tool to track the progress and the status. Standard tracking tool for the management. If you are not familiar with Kanban method, Google is your good friend. -
Periodic Note & Calendar
Those tools were developed by the same author. Those tools are really good for the management tracking. For the periodic tool, it is for those who don’t want to update the daily note, but still want to have periodic updating/tracking/review. This is the right tool to manage weekly/yearly note.
For the calendar, it shows how many files that generated on the specific dates, especially for tracking.
File management tools
-
Consistent attachments and links
Good method to change the attachments and the links automatically as changing the file in different folders. Also, it can replace wiki links to the normal markdown links, which is useful if we would like to write down something in the pure markdown language. -
Unique attachments
Automatically rename the attachments. Also helpful if we would like to publish the blog. -
File hider
Useful to hide “scaffold” or like “achieve” folder or system file in the vault.
MSIC
- Obsidian 42-BRAT
I actually don’t know what is this for. For the beta test, maybe? - Terminal
I guess I don’t have to say more about this, right? - Mind Map
Really helpful to see the full structure of the article.
Snapshots of my extension (Lazy to update the newest snapshots here lol.)