After 16 years I am leaving EverNote for Obsidian

[PhillyBass 8]

I have been a dedicated and paying customer of Evernote since 2008. The abrupt and unexpected decision by Bending Spoons to shut down Evernote V10 for Linux, followed by the announcement that Evernote Classic (that I could run in WINE on Linux) will be discontinued next month, has made it exceedingly difficult for me to maintain an efficient workflow in Linux. Furthermore, the web client is not a suitable alternative for me as I require the ability to have multiple note windows open simultaneously. This sudden action by Bending Spoons reflects a lack of consideration for their customers, and as a result, I have made the decision to terminate my subscription with them. I have promptly migrated all my notes to Obsidian, a superior tool that offers greater functionality and scalability compared to Evernote, and at a more affordable price.

[Razmataz 220]

Can I ask how do you deal with unknown file types in Obsidian? I have for example GPS data in *.gpx files in about 100 notes. These are not even imported into Obsidian. If I put one in by hand, there is no way of opening in.

Obsidian supports just a handful of filetypes, as it seems, while Evernote can take any.

[Mike P 2,721]

13 hours ago, PhillyBass said:

Furthermore, the web client is not a suitable alternative for me as I require the ability to have multiple note windows open simultaneously.

Your decision as to whether to leave of course but you can have EN open in many tabs of the browser at the same time (I'm not sure whether there is a max or system overhead in doing this). This is actually a feature many people would like for the desktop version. You can use "expand note" if you only want the note without the rest of the interface.

Good luck with Obsidian.

[gazumped 11,746]

39 minutes ago, Mike P said:

I'm not sure whether there is a max or system overhead in doing this

In answer to another question I did try several open tabs - each new one was a relatively small extra load on the basic browser footprint.  I used Thorium (a low-profile Chrome clone browser) so I guess the actual practice varies by system and OS.  Chrome versions also have the ability to open web apps in their own window,  so you can probably have tabs or separate windows.

[PhillyBass 8]

On 2/28/2024 at 12:57 AM, Razmataz said:

Can I ask how do you deal with unknown file types in Obsidian? I have for example GPS data in *.gpx files in about 100 notes. These are not even imported into Obsidian. If I put one in by hand, there is no way of opening in.

Obsidian supports just a handful of filetypes, as it seems, while Evernote can take any.

Obsidian is able to sync the unknown file types, even if it doesn't know what to do with them.

[PhillyBass 8]

After having used Obsidian sync for the past 3 weeks I can say that I should have left EverNote sooner (but I was overwhelmingly emotionally tied to EverNote).  Obsidian sync is amazingly fast, and without sync issues.  I have about a dozen computers all syncing to the cloud, and I am running the client in 5 different operating systems (Linux, MacOS,  Windows, iOS, and Android).  The client speed is substantially faster than EverNote, especially when compared to v10 which was miserably slow on some of my machines.  Search works much faster and more accurately.  I also like being able to see all of my individual notes and files.  The only thing I miss from EverNote is the simplicity.

 

 

[ferol 487]

5 minutes ago, PhillyBass said:

After having used Obsidian sync for the past 3 weeks I can say that I should have left EverNote sooner (but I was overwhelmingly emotionally tied to EverNote).  Obsidian sync is amazingly fast, and without sync issues.  I have about a dozen computers all syncing to the cloud, and I am running the client in 5 different operating systems (Linux, MacOS,  Windows, iOS, and Android).  The client speed is substantially faster than EverNote, especially when compared to v10 which was miserably slow on some of my machines.  Search works much faster and more accurately.  I also like being able to see all of my individual notes and files.  The only thing I miss from EverNote is the simplicity.

 

 

Are you using the official Obsidian Sync? 
Is the complete setup of the program also synchronized on individual computers or only notes? (environment, plugins, etc...)

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

I also moving to Obsidian after being around 11 years with Evernote. I was using Evernote Legacy clients on both Windows and Android, but when BS decided to ditch those, and rose the subscription prices, I could no longer be a "loyal customer". Evernote Legacy native clients were the only reason I wasn't migrating sooner - they were fast, responsive and easy to use - I build a lot of habits around them. Now when Evernote became another electron-based app, and has no benefits (for me) over other apps, I've reached the point of no return.

And I enjoy Obsidian so far. At first I was thinking that it was lacking features, I couldn't understand how I could do quickly what I was doing in Evernote in seconds. But after constantly investing small amounts of time over several months, I've discovered dozens Obsidian community plugins, learned "the obsidian way", the frontmatter attributes, etc. It allowed me to obtain a feature parity with Evernote at first, and then the superiority. And I don't have to pay a penny to anyone, and worry about a vendor-lock (well, there are risks for sure, but they are less risky than e.g. to continue using Evernote). For example, I was missing an image annotation feature at first, but then discovered "excalidraw" plugin, which is much more powerful than Evernote's image annotator, though, it took me a lot of hours to learn how to effectively use it.

I'm also a Notion user, and now it seems like I can build a system in Obsidian similar to what I have in Notion using "database folder" and "dataview" plugins. With some drawbacks, but with some added benefits as well. It's fully offline (Notion is online-only), it has image annotation feature (via the "excalidraw" plugin, Notion doesn't), and much more. 
 

On 3/13/2024 at 9:49 PM, ferol said:

Are you using the official Obsidian Sync? 
Is the complete setup of the program also synchronized on individual computers or only notes? (environment, plugins, etc...)

And regarding this question - I'm using Syncthing for synching between devices and have no issues so far. Though, there were a couple of sync conflicts, if you are a developer or an advanced PC user, you can easily resolve those conflicts. I'm also syncing notes to a private Nextcloud instance for added backup/searchability benefits. And yes, all plugins, settings and notes are synced between Windows and Android clients, and work flawlessly.

[ferol 487]

1 hour ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

I also moving to Obsidian after being around 11 years with Evernote. I was using Evernote Legacy clients on both Windows and Android, but when BS decided to ditch those, and rose the subscription prices, I could no longer be a "loyal customer". Evernote Legacy native clients were the only reason I wasn't migrating sooner - they were fast, responsive and easy to use - I build a lot of habits around them. Now when Evernote became another electron-based app, and has no benefits (for me) over other apps, I've reached the point of no return.

And I enjoy Obsidian so far. At first I was thinking that it was lacking features, I couldn't understand how I could do quickly what I was doing in Evernote in seconds. But after constantly investing small amounts of time over several months, I've discovered dozens Obsidian community plugins, learned "the obsidian way", the frontmatter attributes, etc. It allowed me to obtain a feature parity with Evernote at first, and then the superiority. And I don't have to pay a penny to anyone, and worry about a vendor-lock (well, there are risks for sure, but they are less risky than e.g. to continue using Evernote). For example, I was missing an image annotation feature at first, but then discovered "excalidraw" plugin, which is much more powerful than Evernote's image annotator, though, it took me a lot of hours to learn how to effectively use it.

I'm also a Notion user, and now it seems like I can build a system in Obsidian similar to what I have in Notion using "database folder" and "dataview" plugins. With some drawbacks, but with some added benefits as well. It's fully offline (Notion is online-only), it has image annotation feature (via the "excalidraw" plugin, Notion doesn't), and much more. 
 

And regarding this question - I'm using Syncthing for synching between devices and have no issues so far. Though, there were a couple of sync conflicts, if you are a developer or an advanced PC user, you can easily resolve those conflicts. I'm also syncing notes to a private Nextcloud instance for added backup/searchability benefits. And yes, all plugins, settings and notes are synced between Windows and Android clients, and work flawlessly.

I've since switched from the official Sync to Dropbox. It works great for me. I've had Dropbox checked out for years for other things and it has one great thing - Read only folders work well on Windows, which I can share with colleagues and they have my reading notes.. and they don't mess them up for me. And the others have like R/W..

And conflites are handled as duplication with renaming in Dropbox, so one certainly doesn't lose anything, and I've had about 2 happen to me in months?

It takes over the entire Obsdidian setup completely. Most of the conflicts are there - especially for plugins like Last edited... Workspace... But those conflicts absolutely don't need to be resolved... At most I go to delete them from time to time, so that they don't dig there unnecessarily... because it has no effect on the functionality. 

Are you using the new "Annotate image in Excalidraw" feature that has been implemented there for a couple of weeks, or "basic Excalidraw" ?
If not, give it a try... When I switched from Evernote, it did work with Excalidraw.. but not as fast and well as with Evernote. I made a query for this feature and fine tuned with developer in his Discord. And it's working great now. 

I recommend to use the settings that I have noted here - Look at: "Annotate Image Excalidraw settings":
https://share.note.sx/3r7k80g9#UwQ4h4wcJemXjfkhOFT5u1itvH/fx8je6Z2xHYmhoag

 

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

1 hour ago, ferol said:

Are you using the new "Annotate image in Excalidraw" feature that has been implemented there for a couple of weeks, or "basic Excalidraw" ?
If not, give it a try... When I switched from Evernote, it did work with Excalidraw.. but not as fast and well as with Evernote. I made a query for this feature and fine tuned with developer in his Discord. And it's working great now. 

That's cool, I haven't tried that feature yet, it sounds more Evernote-like. Will give it a chance, thanks.

Previously I inserted screenshots into an empty Excalidraw page and then annotated everything in that page. And then embedded the annotated Excalidraw page into another "basic" page to add standard text notes similarly to what I usually did in Evernote. Not as fast and convenient as with "Annotate Image Excalidraw settings", I suppose.

And using dropbox is even better if your vault has a small size and/or you have a paid dropbox account. Though, most likely evernote is still a winner in terms of a sync speed because it only sync what changes without scanning every file, while dropbox and/or syncthing scans files for changes at startup, which may be slower with large amount of files in the vault. There are community sync plugins for syncing, but haven't tried them yet.

[eric99 1,004]

3 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

 And I don't have to pay a penny to anyone

hmm, I wouldn't trust this,  why do you believe Obsidian will remain in business without generating any revenue?

[ferol 487]

2 hours ago, eric99 said:

hmm, I wouldn't trust this,  why do you believe Obsidian will remain in business without generating any revenue?

He doesn't have to believe it. All he has to do is study the manuals and the conditions of use...

And for example, he can believe it because Obsidian has a paid synchronization and a paid Publish system, for commercial use a commercial license is required (they probably won't charge you if you don't buy it) but at the same time on the official manuals they also offer descriptions of how to synchronize for free...

 

[ferol 487]

And many people pay for those paid services for convenience and reliability and also to support development. But they don't have to...

 

So Obsidian is already generating revenue

 

In addition, it can be used in parallel with Opensoce alternatives like Logseq or Zettlr or... so simple switch is possible

[ferol 487]

2 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

And using dropbox is even better if your vault has a small size and/or you have a paid dropbox account. Though, most likely evernote is still a winner in terms of a sync speed because it only sync what changes without scanning every file, while dropbox and/or syncthing scans files for changes at startup, which may be slower with large amount of files in the vault. There are community sync plugins for syncing, but haven't tried them yet.

I tested it... The synchronization with Dropbox even works so that I could almost in real time see on another laptop an open note and the text I was writing on the PC popped up there... almost like realtime with Evernote.

 

Obsidian's official sync does this faster. But I practically never use it.

When I turn on the computer, I have to wait for Dropbox to start and the synchronization takes place. Depending on how much editing I've done on another PC, it takes me max 10-15 seconds on a regular basis... Even if I don't wait, nothing happens, the synchronization runs in real case nonstop..

and Evernote? .. synchronization is time unreliable for me in the last months and I lose attachments. 

 

[gazumped 11,746]

47 minutes ago, ferol said:

And many people pay for those paid services for convenience and reliability and also to support development. But they don't have to...

...And Freemium worked to well for Evernote... 

[Frki2 77]

3 hours ago, eric99 said:

hmm, I wouldn't trust this,  why do you believe Obsidian will remain in business without generating any revenue?

Its easy to trust as OBS is only markdown plain text file in nature, easily  removable from OBS and shared to almost any tool. That is the beauty of OBS, it is just nice and powerful markdown editor.

For me currently the biggest issue with OBS is actually app, it is very bad to to use and native OCR.

 

[Jon/t 1,359]

 

26 minutes ago, gazumped said:

...And Freemium worked to well for Evernote... 

From reading between the lines It was one factor that almost drove it out of business!

I would imagine Obsidian would be able to make free work better than Evernote. I think they are a small team and have managed to get other developers to add the functionality to their product for free via the plugin system. This would keep their overall costs down but makes the product much more fragmented and not 100% under their control.

[Boot17 1,484]

Obsidian doesn't have huge server/bandwidth costs like Evernote. Those people using free sync services aren't using Obsidian server resources and get zero support and don't even have an Obsidian account. Compare this to the millions of Evernote users that were using the Free version of Evernote and Evernote (paying subscribers) were footing the server bill and Evernote also had to manage the accounts (and give account support to millions of free users).

Those people using Obsidian sync services are paying for it too. Obsidian storage/sync services aren't near as generous as Evernote's either. 10 GB total of sync/storage costs $99 USD per year for Obsidian. Compare that to 10 GB per month upload you can get paying $129 USD per year for Evernote.

[ferol 487]

55 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

Obsidian doesn't have huge server/bandwidth costs like Evernote. Those people using free sync services aren't using Obsidian server resources and get zero support and don't even have an Obsidian account. Compare this to the millions of Evernote users that were using the Free version of Evernote and Evernote (paying subscribers) were footing the server bill and Evernote also had to manage the accounts (and give account support to millions of free users).

Those people using Obsidian sync services are paying for it too. Obsidian storage/sync services aren't near as generous as Evernote's either. 10 GB total of sync/storage costs $99 USD per year for Obsidian. Compare that to 10 GB per month upload you can get paying $129 USD per year for Evernote.

Exactly. As a result, it ends up costing more than Evernote for someone with a huge amount of data, because you have to pay extra for 10GB of data.

Someone who uses few attachments and writes texts as a priority there is again a solution for 4 EUR per month...

 

And I pay for Dropbox 2TB anyway for other things, I found it the easiest to use there.In addition, I pay for the most 100 GB googledrive, so I tested it there too, but Dropbox is better.

Other options like Sync, Box, Mega are also usable, but according to my tests there were more conflicts.

And otherwise independent developers don't do it for free either. The best ones, besides their own work, get quite a bit of money for something they enjoy doing. See for example the developer of the most downloaded plugin:

https://ko-fi.com/zsolt (not only for Obsidian plugin..)

4596 coffies x 5USD...

and also people with memberships... you can calcultate monthly plus... 

 

Personally, I also contributed to it because it helped me...

[eric99 1,004]

2 hours ago, ferol said:

And many people pay for those paid services for convenience and reliability and also to support development. But they don't have to...

Sounds familiar, another famous note-taking app has tried this before. It almost went bankrupt...

[ferol 487]

4 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Sounds familiar, another famous note-taking app has tried this before. It almost went bankrupt...

if you mean Evernote... look up on @Boot17... where is big difference...

 

[eric99 1,004]

1 hour ago, Frki2 said:

Its easy to trust as OBS is only markdown plain text file in nature, easily  removable from OBS and shared to almost any tool. That is the beauty of OBS, it is just nice and powerful markdown editor.

markdown is not one formal  standard, everyone calls their proprietary dialect 'Markdown'

[ferol 487]

26 minutes ago, eric99 said:

markdown is not one formal  standard, everyone calls their proprietary dialect 'Markdown'

That's possible, but at most you'll lose the nice formatting. You won't lose data.

If I just take what I have installed for other things, I can read the notes in:
Total Commander
Notepad
Dropbox (online)
Word

I've tried competing opnesorce which ever you switch to quickly and it works:
https://www.zettlr.com/
https://www.logseq.com/
 and there are some others

Frankly, I have a much better sense of data security and reliability than with Evernote, which has left me in an uncomfortable situation several times in the last few months (I wrote in another thread)
I have a daily full backup via Cobian Backup to Dropbox, Googledrive and my own Sylogogy NAS, while also vezioning in Dropbox and also directly in Obsidian (the latter is not so good)
 

... and all is really offline (for reall backup very important)

[eric99 1,004]

1 hour ago, ferol said:

That's possible, but at most you'll lose the nice formatting. You won't lose data.

If I just take what I have installed for other things, I can read the notes in:
Total Commander
Notepad
Dropbox (online)
Word

Interesting, have you tried advanced tables etc and  html css constructs as well?

[ferol 487]

12 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Interesting, have you tried advanced tables etc and  html css constructs as well?

Of course, the tables won't be perfect... the HTML will be there in the HTML codes... css no...
But most of the text is normally  readable

And there won't be attachments embedded, just links to them... but those are in the folders.

This is an example of Notepad++ next to Obsidian open at once

 

[ferol 487]

And this is from Dropbox:

[ferol 487]

And simple Notepad:

- look at table:

 

[ferol 487]

26 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Interesting, have you tried advanced tables etc and  html css constructs as well?

I avoid using HTML. At most some color for the text..  But then that normally leaves such html..

Advanced tables if I need to make in Google Sheets and compose as an Iframe into a note

I don't use any sophisticated html for simple tables, just my css that works in Obsidian, but those tables have a generic markdown format.

 

I use custom css, but these only show up directly in Obsidian and only affect the display, not the data itself.

[Jon/t 1,359]

I don't think you can do merged cells in Markdown and they really look a mess in notepad when you have 10 columns and 125 rows with different lengths of content in them.

Not for me.

[HeBoIz 247]

7 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

I don't think you can do merged cells in Markdown and they really look a mess in notepad when you have 10 columns and 125 rows with different lengths of content in them.

as a matter of fact: there are no merged cells in Markdown (this would only work with asciidoc, but there is no comparable notetaking system for asciidoc like Obsidian)

Advance-tables plugin nearly seems to be replaced  y newer core table-functions. These functions will create a rather readable plain text in the editor with adding additional whitespace (als long as you don't add more text or html-line-breaks in cells...). But for sure: complex tables are better in Evernote. 

On the other hand: If you work with markdown you could and should structure text better with sections, headlines, indented lists than with tables... (tables with 10 columns and 125 rows or more should go to excel or sheets or numbers anyway)

[ferol 487]

18 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

I don't think you can do merged cells in Markdown and they really look a mess in notepad when you have 10 columns and 125 rows with different lengths of content in them.

Not for me.

But nobody wants to read it that way. I just showed here that I can quickly get to the data through anything that is handy... As a basic solution. Not as a main replacement for Obsidian...

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Why do you think anybody wants a replacement for Obsidian ?

Or did you mix up the forums in which you are posting 🤪 ?

[ferol 487]

3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Why do you think anybody wants a replacement for Obsidian ?

Or did you mix up the forums in which you are posting 🤪 ?

We're having a normal discussion here, is there a problem with something?

[ferol 487]

52 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

I don't think you can do merged cells in Markdown and they really look a mess in notepad when you have 10 columns and 125 rows with different lengths of content in them.

Not for me.

Tables are definitely more flexible in Evernote in terms of formatting colors, cells, etc. But if you spend 2 evenings playing with it in Obsidian css for tables and prepare your system how you will use the tables... I don't see it as too much of a limitation anymore, as I saw at the beginning. A quick little demonstration while you wait:

[eric99 1,004]

30 minutes ago, ferol said:

Tables are definitely more flexible in Evernote in terms of formatting colors, cells, etc. But if you spend 2 evenings playing with it in Obsidian css for tables and prepare your system how you will use the tables... I don't see it as too much of a limitation anymore, as I saw at the beginning. A quick little demonstration while you wait:

nice, and how does this look in markdown? And what do you mean by "prepare your system how you will use the tables" ?

[ferol 487]

4 minutes ago, eric99 said:

nice, and how does this look in markdown?

First like this:

But I dont see it in makrdown... Normally I edit it exactly as you see it, like in Evernote
... I certainly wouldn't do that to tables I edit in markdown view 

[eric99 1,004]

3 minutes ago, ferol said:

First like this:

But I dont see it in makrdown... Normally I edit it exactly as you see it, like in Evernote
... I certainly wouldn't do that to tables I edit in markdown view 

I understand that, but isn't Markdown's selling point that everything is readable with a regular text editor?

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

1 hour ago, Jon/t said:

I don't think you can do merged cells in Markdown and they really look a mess in notepad when you have 10 columns and 125 rows with different lengths of content in them.

Not for me.

I believe what @ferol tried to say is that markdown tables can be opened even in a text editor, and copied to everywhere (because it's just a text at the end), and very portable. And they still looks great.

If you have more than 3 columns, and such many rows, and planning to use complex calculations, seems like it's a better job for MS Excel, or Open Office, or Google Spreadsheets. I would just add it as an attachment or put a link in a cloud drive. Note taking apps have a different purpose.

Though, you may still find `dataview` plugin for Obsidian quite powerful, seems like it's even possible to create dynamic tables, similar to what Notion allows.

[Jon/t 1,359]

Kind of the way I look at is why should I write some CSS, simplify my tables, put stuff in excel cos tables shouldn't be big and add a plugin written by lord knows who just to create a nice looking table that I can in Evernote in a few mins. 

Not really for me. Way too much fussing.

[eric99 1,004]

5 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

Kind of the way I look at is why should I write some CSS, simplify my tables, put stuff in excel cos tables shouldn't be big and add a plugin written by lord knows who just to create a nice looking table that I can in Evernote in a few mins. 

Not really for me. Way too much fussing.

imho the main issue with Markdown lies in its lack of initial design vision. It evolved organically over time, and now it faces limitations and inconsistencies. To address these limitations, developers have resorted to patching it with HTML, CSS, and other workarounds.

[ferol 487]

5 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

Kind of the way I look at is why should I write some CSS, simplify my tables, put stuff in excel cos tables shouldn't be big and add a plugin written by lord knows who just to create a nice looking table that I can in Evernote in a few mins. 

Not really for me. Way too much fussing.

Right. I'm not convincing you to use it. I'm just explaining that it's not really as hard as it looks...  

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

8 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

Kind of the way I look at is why should I write some CSS, simplify my tables, put stuff in excel cos tables shouldn't be big and add a plugin written by lord knows who just to create a nice looking table that I can in Evernote in a few mins. 

Not really for me. Way too much fussing.

Whatever works for you. I've tried tables in Evernote, and they were terrible. I remember using them for temporarily calculations, but huge tables were unusable - both in terms of a performance and inconvenience. Are they became any better in Evernote? And how do you use them?

[ferol 487]

2 minutes ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

Whatever works for you. I've tried tables in Evernote, and they were terrible. I remember using them for temporarily calculations, but huge tables were unusable - both in terms of a performance and inconvenience. Are they became any better in Evernote? And how do you use them?

Can calculations be done in evernote tables?

[gazumped 11,746]

2 hours ago, ferol said:

Can calculations be done in evernote tables?

Nope,  but they can be done in Excel spreadsheets,  and spreadsheets can be attached to Evernote notes...

[PinkElephant 8,244]

5 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

Whatever works for you. I've tried tables in Evernote, and they were terrible. I remember using them for temporarily calculations, but ….

OK, that was then a miracle.

EN tables never had any ability for calculations. They are a layout tool, to visually structure content. 

You obviously mix up something.

[Jon/t 1,359]

11 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

Whatever works for you. I've tried tables in Evernote, and they were terrible. I remember using them for temporarily calculations, but huge tables were unusable - both in terms of a performance and inconvenience. Are they became any better in Evernote? And how do you use them?

Evernote tables never did calculations. Always been there to display information in a structured way which is what tables were invented for. Not sure I'd want spreadsheet functionality in Evernote... If I need that I'll use a spreadsheet.

I have loads of tables, really long ones. Lots of code manuals that include big tables with various formats of things and stuff. I query my notes using Ai Search... I just did "How can I check memory usage in a PHP script" and it gave me the function which is in a really long table. Got the answer without having to scroll down a table. Didn't have to write a single line of CSS to do it!

[eugenes 30]

On 4/29/2024 at 3:34 PM, Pavel Sapehin said:

 I've tried tables in Evernote, and they were terrible. I remember using them for temporarily calculations, but huge tables were unusable ...

You probably used Notion or some other app, EN never had this functionality.

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

On 5/1/2024 at 9:16 PM, eugenes said:

You probably used Notion or some other app, EN never had this functionality.

I've never said that EN had it, I just manually did the calculations in my head and had written them into an Evernote table. Never tried querying tables with AI though.

On 4/29/2024 at 10:47 AM, ferol said:

Are you using the new "Annotate image in Excalidraw" feature that has been implemented there for a couple of weeks, or "basic Excalidraw" ?
If not, give it a try... When I switched from Evernote, it did work with Excalidraw.. but not as fast and well as with Evernote. I made a query for this feature and fine tuned with developer in his Discord. And it's working great now. 

Works like a charm, thanks again for making this feature possible and collaborating with the Excalidraw author!

And also a small update. Finally found a way to make a list of notes to look similar to Evernote, with attachment previews which even work for Excalidraw drawings. Based on a `dataview` query I've found on the internet and building up upon it:

[ferol 487]

2 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

And also a small update. Finally found a way to make a list of notes to look similar to Evernote, with attachment previews which even work for Excalidraw drawings. Based on a `dataview` query I've found on the internet and building up upon it:

Can you sent mi link for this - where you find solution for dataview with this thumbnails?  The only way I've found so far is to manually add a COVER image directly to properties. But I haven't yet made dataview to display the images directly inserted in the notes.. Only the Note Galery plugin works for me...
 
 

[AlbertR 565]

23 minutes ago, ferol said:

... solution for dataview with this thumbnails? ...

It's so sad: EN offers this feature with no foreign add-in. Even modifying images is base functionality.
But they haven't implemented an easy was to define what's image should be used as a thumbnail 😞

[s2sailor 2,283]

1 minute ago, AlbertR said:

But they haven't implemented an easy was to define what's image should be used as a thumbnail 😞

I don’t remember where I saw it, but I believe this is coming. 

[Jon/t 1,359]

33 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

But they haven't implemented an easy was to define what's image should be used as a thumbnail 😞

 

32 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

don’t remember where I saw it, but I believe this is coming

Federico mentioned it on Xitter a few weeks ago. Hopefully something like a right click and set as thumbnail. 

[ferol 487]

3 hours ago, AlbertR said:

It's so sad: EN offers this feature with no foreign add-in. Even modifying images is base functionality.
But they haven't implemented an easy was to define what's image should be used as a thumbnail 😞

I already have one solution for thumbnails, but I am interested in another possibility. Maybe it will be better.

 

I can also set a specific thumbnail. I am using this a lot at the moment. Is it sad... hard to say. Plugins are the main concept of Obsidian.

[HeBoIz 247]

16 hours ago, ferol said:

Can you sent mi link for this - where you find solution for dataview with this thumbnails?  The only way I've found so far is to manually add a COVER image directly to properties. But I haven't yet made dataview to display the images directly inserted in the notes.. Only the Note Galery plugin works for me...

The Obsidian-solution with dataviev plugin is to (manually) add or edit a COVER image in frontmatter is do write picture-link as wikilink in the (quoted) format: "![[picturename.png]]" (don't forget the quotes...). You can even set size in pixels like "![[picturename.png|150]]".

This can be displayed in other notes with dataview-tables, best for example with cards-layout like in Minimal-Theme.

To display the image directly inserted in the same note use simple inline dataview code like: `=this.logo` or `=this.cover`

(little disadvantage of putting cover image-infos als property in capsuled frontmatter links is that this data will not be automatically updated by Obsidian in case of renaming the picture...) 

[ferol 487]

3 hours ago, HeBoIz said:

The Obsidian-solution with dataviev plugin is to (manually) add or edit a COVER image in frontmatter is do write picture-link as wikilink in the (quoted) format: "![[picturename.png]]" (don't forget the quotes...). You can even set size in pixels like "![[picturename.png|150]]".

This can be displayed in other notes with dataview-tables, best for example with cards-layout like in Minimal-Theme.

To display the image directly inserted in the same note use simple inline dataview code like: `=this.logo` or `=this.cover`

(little disadvantage of putting cover image-infos als property in capsuled frontmatter links is that this data will not be automatically updated by Obsidian in case of renaming the picture...) 

Thank you. That's how I use it already. I was wondering if you found a solution that would directly take the first image from the note and would not have to be put into COVER manually. I did find a Note Gallery that can do this. It's just an extra plugin, so if it goes through Dataview, that would be fine

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

On 5/5/2024 at 4:19 PM, ferol said:

Can you sent mi link for this - where you find solution for dataview with this thumbnails?  The only way I've found so far is to manually add a COVER image directly to properties. But I haven't yet made dataview to display the images directly inserted in the notes.. Only the Note Galery plugin works for me...
 
 

Yep, I found it here. Though, it doesn't support previews for Excalidraw.

7 hours ago, ferol said:

I was wondering if you found a solution that would directly take the first image from the note and would not have to be put into COVER manually. I did find a Note Gallery that can do this. It's just an extra plugin, so if it goes through Dataview, that would be fine

Not sure whether it's related or not, but I've also fixed this problem - in the compact mode the image was not shown sometimes. Instead a common `.md` icon was shown. Fixed by sorting attachments that can be rendered as images/previews, and only then other attachments, and taking the first image/preview if present.

I can share modifications to the source code in the link if needed. Though they are more like dirty hacks for now.

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

Ok, now with tag colored tabs, similar to what evernote legacy was having:

[ferol 487]

25 minutes ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

Ok, now with tag colored tabs, similar to what evernote legacy was having:

Somehow I didn't figure it out. It gives me an error. Can you share your codes? Or send it to a private message, so we don't spam here...

[s2sailor 2,283]

3 hours ago, ferol said:

Or send it to a private message, so we don't spam here...

Or continue this discussion on an Obsidian forum.

[eric99 1,004]

5 hours ago, ferol said:

Somehow I didn't figure it out. It gives me an error. Can you share your codes? Or send it to a private message, so we don't spam here...

This discussion nicely illustrates why we stick to Evernote. Obsidian appears to be quite delicate and reliant on numerous plugins, customized / hacked to individual preferences. While I might personally choose this approach, it’s crucial that our notes remain accessible to my wife without requiring my assistance. She needs a straightforward and user-friendly tool, it's a little bit like linux vs mac-OS...

[Jon/t 1,359]

39 minutes ago, eric99 said:

This discussion nicely illustrates why we stick to Evernote. Obsidian appears to be quite delicate and reliant on numerous plugins, customized / hacked to individual preferences. While I might personally choose this approach, it’s crucial that our notes remain accessible to my wife without requiring my assistance. She needs a straightforward and user-friendly tool, it's a little bit like linux vs mac-OS...

Totally agree. Its a bastardisation of all sorts of bits of code from all over the place. Mind you the Obsidian developers are onto a good thing as other folk are building the functionality for them for free and they just sell sync services with a small team and less overheads. Maybe they're onto something 😁

[Boot17 1,484]

7 hours ago, eric99 said:

This discussion nicely illustrates why we stick to Evernote. Obsidian appears to be quite delicate and reliant on numerous plugins, customized / hacked to individual preferences. While I might personally choose this approach, it’s crucial that our notes remain accessible to my wife without requiring my assistance. She needs a straightforward and user-friendly tool, it's a little bit like linux vs mac-OS...

Finding and moving to Obsidian and finding it overall superior for my current needs, wants, and preferences... I agree with this take.

Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately) I could never get my wife to join Evernote (even though I still maintain it would be awesome for her) and so that isn't holding me back from moving (emphasis mine in that quoted content above).

[ferol 487]

Guys, I agree with you all.. Evernote is simple... But this Obsidian just doesn't do it for me (see screenshot from the note) . I've been struggling since yesterday, the note is from September last year, when I was working on v.10

I come across this a few times a week... I'll probably never see that 2 attachments again...

The simplicity just has to work, but it doesn't work for me anymore... 
And believe it or not, this is why my wife is bugging me, why she doesn't have the notes she made... anyway colleagues.

so I'm going to set up Obsidian and keep it all under control remotely via Dropbox, as I open the exact same thing for myself and if there's a problem, I know I'll fix it... As long as I have access to everything.

[eric99 1,004]

1 hour ago, ferol said:

so I'm going to set up Obsidian and keep it all under control remotely via Dropbox, as I open the exact same thing for myself and if there's a problem, I know I'll fix it... As long as I have access to everything.

But who will fix the obsidian pecularities for your wife when you get hit by a bus? In our case, she still needs access to our paperless office...

That's also the reason that I wrote my own "html4ever" converter ( complete conversion from ENEX to HTML)

[mackid1993 922]

1 hour ago, ferol said:

Guys, I agree with you all.. Evernote is simple... But this Obsidian just doesn't do it for me (see screenshot from the note) . I've been struggling since yesterday, the note is from September last year, when I was working on v.10

I come across this a few times a week... I'll probably never see that 2 attachments again...

The simplicity just has to work, but it doesn't work for me anymore... 
And believe it or not, this is why my wife is bugging me, why she doesn't have the notes she made... anyway colleagues.

so I'm going to set up Obsidian and keep it all under control remotely via Dropbox, as I open the exact same thing for myself and if there's a problem, I know I'll fix it... As long as I have access to everything.

I've seen this before, control + r usually fixes it for me. Have you also tried looking at the note history?

[thefryhole 59]

Ah, the spinning circles. In my case, that content never reappeared, not on desktop and not on the web. Restoring previous versions of the note didn't bring the content back, either. Bye bye, whatever that image was supposed to be! I hope you weren't important!

[ferol 487]

2 hours ago, eric99 said:

But who will fix the obsidian pecularities for your wife when you get hit by a bus? In our case, she still needs access to our paperless office...

That's also the reason that I wrote my own "html4ever" converter ( complete conversion from ENEX to HTML)

Obsidian weirdness only happens when I'm adding or testing something. It works reliably for me in normal operation. Normal operation is that I have disabled automatic updates and fixed the stable state. What we are discussing above is the state of testing and adding more possible functionality. Which is not necessary and I don't need it. But I am interested in how it can be done.

And I think that if I get hit by a bus, Obsidian won't care... And it will work without problems for another year, because I don't have automatic updates turned on... and it'll run quietly for a couple of years...
And then it'll just be arranged somehow differently... Evernote is also handled by me and she still has some problems with them and I have to solve it for her. 

And I don't think I'm the only one in the world who uses it.

[ferol 487]

2 hours ago, mackid1993 said:

I've seen this before, control + r usually fixes it for me. Have you also tried looking at the note history?

CTRL+R -  no help...

Exported from note history - same problem....

[ferol 487]

1 hour ago, thefryhole said:

Ah, the spinning circles. In my case, that content never reappeared, not on desktop and not on the web. Restoring previous versions of the note didn't bring the content back, either. Bye bye, whatever that image was supposed to be! I hope you weren't important!

Now these were no vital remarks... But this is no way to approach a working tool... 
I can rent a climbing rope... pay rent for it regularly... Occasionally it breaks, but so far it has only broken about half a meter above the ground... so that's fine... I'll keep using the rope...  I've taken it a bit to the extreme, but some people here would actually downplay it like that and argue the "ease" of using Evernote

[ferol 487]

4 hours ago, Boot17 said:

Finding and moving to Obsidian and finding it overall superior for my current needs, wants, and preferences... I agree with this take.

Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately) I could never get my wife to join Evernote (even though I still maintain it would be awesome for her) and so that isn't holding me back.

I leave my wife in Evernote for now too... and I still hope that Evernote will regain my trust. Blending Spoon working on it, but the missing attachments just don't add to my credit. I think that's pretty understandable...

[CalS 5,284]

Don't know that I would include spouse or heirs in the consideration for "note tanking" app selection.  I would consider dropping whatever into an indexed folder structure,  creating a shortcut on the desktop, and explain the search field.  For the more tech savvy family send a link for their use plus share your device credentials. 

Based on my family universe anyway.  No way my spouse would crack EN usage, old or new.  She did have recipes in Legacy, but V10 was a bridge too far, she just didn't want to invest the time.  So I dumped 1500 PDFs to an indexed folder and created a shortcut.  It works.  And lets me live on the wild side.  🤣  YMMV. 

[mackid1993 922]

3 hours ago, ferol said:

CTRL+R -  no help...

Exported from note history - same problem....

I would open a support ticket... if something like that is happening support should be aware. They may need to reindex your database on the backend.

[ferol 487]

13 hours ago, mackid1993 said:

I would open a support ticket... if something like that is happening support should be aware. They may need to reindex your database on the backend.

I opened ticket

[mackid1993 922]

2 hours ago, ferol said:

I opened ticket

Let us know the outcome!

[Cristiano478 160]

Em 05/05/2024 at 12:21, Jon/t disse:

 

Federico mentioned it on Xitter a few weeks ago. Hopefully something like a right click and set as thumbnail. 

I didn't find this post. If possible, post the link here please

[Jon/t 1,359]

5 minutes ago, Cristiano478 said:

didn't find this post. If possible, post the link here please

 

[eric99 1,004]

On 5/7/2024 at 9:44 PM, CalS said:

Don't know that I would include spouse or heirs in the consideration for "note tanking" app selection.  I would consider dropping whatever into an indexed folder structure,  creating a shortcut on the desktop, and explain the search field.  For the more tech savvy family send a link for their use plus share your device credentials. 

Based on my family universe anyway.  No way my spouse would crack EN usage, old or new.  She did have recipes in Legacy, but V10 was a bridge too far, she just didn't want to invest the time.  So I dumped 1500 PDFs to an indexed folder and created a shortcut.  It works.  And lets me live on the wild side.  🤣  YMMV. 

But how did you generate the PDFs from your notes? Do these PDFs include working links to attachments?

[CalS 5,284]

On 5/8/2024 at 3:09 PM, eric99 said:

But how did you generate the PDFs from your notes? Do these PDFs include working links to attachments?

The only thing she had in her Evernote were recipes (tended by me). 

1. For notes that were a PDF I did Save Attachments.
2. For those notes that weren't PDFs I printed to PDF. 
3. No need for links, each note was a recipe.  If you have a lot of attachments HTML export is the way to go.

Ended up with 1551 PDFs in a single folder.  Works the same for her, Legacy or new folder - click an icon and enter whatever in the search bar.  Search works on title and contents.

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

On 5/7/2024 at 1:19 PM, s2sailor said:

Or continue this discussion on an Obsidian forum.

There is nothing we can do with old habits

[s2sailor 2,283]

6 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

There is nothing we can do with old habits

There is but you chose not to.  As mentioned before, posts about optimizing a competitor's product are outside the scope of an Evernote forum.  The post has been removed.

[ferol 487]

6 hours ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

There is nothing we can do with old habits

Thanks, I'll play with it when I have time.... I've got it saved

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

5 hours ago, s2sailor said:

There is but you chose not to.  As mentioned before, posts about optimizing a competitor's product are outside the scope of an Evernote forum.  The post has been removed.

Don't get me wrong, I had no idea that:

1. Sharing some USER scripts, which work in a community plugin for a competitor pruduct can be considered "optimizing a competitor's product"
2. It's prohibited to "optimizing a competitor product"

That's why I did't chose anything. If I knew that I wouldn't even post here in the first place.

 

But I have no complaints with the post removal anyway.

[mackid1993 922]

This isn't the place to talk about Obsidian. This is: https://forum.obsidian.md

[Jon/t 1,359]

I think the gist of it is there's an Obsidian forum to discuss Obsidian scripts, codes and plugins.

This is an Evernote user community.

A little bit like heading to the Harley Davidson user forums and talking about fixing a Honda!

[s2sailor 2,283]

13 minutes ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

If I knew that I wouldn't even post here in the first place.

Asking you earlier to move the conversation to an Obsidian forum wasn't clear enough?

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

8 minutes ago, mackid1993 said:

This isn't the place to talk about Obsidian. This is: https://forum.obsidian.md

Isn't it Evernote user forum? I've being a paid Evernote user for many years, and you telling me that I can't discuss here what is a direct outcome of decommissioning Evernote Legacy client? This thread title is "After 16 years I am leaving EverNote for Obsidian", and you telling me that this isn't the place to talk about Obsidian?
 

8 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

Asking you earlier to move the conversation to an Obsidian forum wasn't clear enough?

How should I know that you was a MODERATOR which was actually "asking"? You don't have a moderator badge, do you expect me to read your mind?

[AKARJLUK 16]

This is really boring.....off to Obsidian...fine close the door on your way out.

[s2sailor 2,283]

2 minutes ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

You don't have a moderator badge, do you expect me to read your mind?

No mind reading required.  It is subtle, but hover over the green shield.

 

[mackid1993 922]

11 minutes ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

Isn't it Evernote user forum? I've being a paid Evernote user for many years, and you telling me that I can't discuss here what is a direct outcome of decommissioning Evernote Legacy client? This thread title is "After 16 years I am leaving EverNote for Obsidian", and you telling me that this isn't the place to talk about Obsidian?
 

How should I know that you was a MODERATOR which was actually "asking"? You don't have a moderator badge, do you expect me to read your mind?

It is an Evernote user forum. You just said it. It's not an Obsidian user forum like we've established and you've agreed to. 

[Pavel Sapehin 42]

6 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

No mind reading required.  It is subtle, but hover over the green shield.

Subtle indeed. Thanks for explaining.

Just now, mackid1993 said:

It is an Evernote user forum. You just said it. It's not an Obsidian user forum like we've established and you've agreed to. 

Don't know what you are trying to say, I didn't agreed to anything you said.

Though, I don't see any problems to discuss a competitor in a separate thread like this, I'll better leave it to TRUE evernote users because this topic is already far off from the originally indented.

[mackid1993 922]

I think listening to the moderator is the right way to go.

[s2sailor 2,283]

4 minutes ago, Pavel Sapehin said:

Though, I don't see any problems to discuss a competitor in a separate thread like this, I'll better leave it to TRUE evernote users because this topic is already far off from the originally indented.

We are pretty lenient here.  Discussions about why people are leaving Evernote for Obsidian, or comparisons on what Obsidian does better are fair game. I think that Evernote would be interested in those reasons.  When the discussion starts moving to how to optimize Obsidian and how to get plug-ins running, then I think we have gone beyond Evernote's intended use of the forum.

[mackid1993 922]

This is one of the most lenient forums I've ever seen in regards to moderation at times maybe too lenient.

[ferol 487]

1 hour ago, Jon/t said:

A little bit like heading to the Harley Davidson user forums and talking about fixing a Honda

Factual comment. Not a correction, but a tuning... it's the Harley Davidson that needs fixing, the Honda is running like clockwork...

 

Please take this as a lightening of the discussion and a certain degree of sarcasm.. 😏

[rflang 1]

I've been using Evernote daily since 2009.  This is very first post and, sadly, it is to say goodbye.  I just cancelled my account based on the price increase.  

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Actually reading this I wonder why after 15years of non contribution to the community, it is now necessary to post - just to announce the further non contribution. The logic behind this escapes me 🤔

[mackid1993 922]

2 hours ago, rflang said:

I've been using Evernote daily since 2009.  This is very first post and, sadly, it is to say goodbye.  I just cancelled my account based on the price increase.  

Hello! Welcome to the forum. 

oh.....

[mackid1993 922]

Looks like their only contribution was a complaint back in 2021... in spite of that I'm completely devastated about the sudden loss of @rflang. I'm quite shocked and may need some extra therapy this week to process this loss.

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Maybe the idea that a software price increase will break the bank offers some consolation ...

[mackid1993 922]

11 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Maybe the idea that a software price increase will break the bank offers some consolation ...

I still may need to take some time to adjust to this change.