First impressions from a Obsidian user

[jungfrau]

This is great stuff at the alpha stage! My first observations (version: 0.29.0)…

1. Bug: Tag options cannot be deleted from the drop down menu. This is a bug that needs to be resolved asap. Also, it would be nice to allow tags to be generated inline within a block or within some text (for example using # symbol). Ref: Tag options cannot be deleted from the dropdown menu

2. LaTeX support: It would be nice if $ would generate inline equations in LaTeX and $$ would generate block LaTeX equations. This syntax should also be used when exporting to Markdown.

3. Search feature should help search everywhere (notes, pages…, etc.) in anytype using plain text and when clicked display result(s) that take you directly to the place/block where the searched text appears highlighted within the object. Search feature is by far the most important and needs to be deep and comprehensive (match case, expand/collapse results, sort order, etc). Also, allow seeing and clearing search history.

4. Import from Markdown feature… I can see that it is scheduled for a future release but kindly expedite. I have a bunch of MD files to import into anytype.

[Erindale]

@jungfrau

ake you directly to the place/block

+1 for this! Searching to, and linking to, blocks directly would be a huge one for improving linking and navigation

[kerbless]

Hi @jungfrau, welcome to the forum and thank you for the feedback!

1. You linked the correct bug report, please like that post and let’s hope the devs will fix that (I find it really annoying too). For the “inline” tag, try adding a block with your tag relation to the body of the page, maybe this is satisfying for your situation, otherwise check this feature request (or make your own!).

2. There is a feature request for that, please go and like it!

3. There is indeed some work to be done when it comes to the search feature, maybe this forum search is interesting to you.

4. It’s not “official” but if your files use the .md format you can try to use the notion import. Sadly the current state of AnyType is making our devs focus more on the infrastructure and other stuff but you’ll definitely get that import function in the future.

[kerbless]

About this topic in particular, there is a feature request:

Add an option to link blocks from other pages (also with transclusion)

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. I was writing a page in Anytype that was deeply nested inside other pages and couldn’t be accessed easily other than searching for it by name. I was finishing up my work and wanted to create tasks for tomorrow when I realized that in order to find those tasks, I would need to search for the page and then locate the task. There wasn’t an easier option to locate those tasks on the main page (from the dashboard). The only option there …

[jmatienza]

Hi there. Another Obsidian user here.

This (Anytype) is good. This is really good! The first thing that caught my attention is that, like Obsidian, Anytype is local-first. That checks the first of my boxes. Being free and open source also helped. Peer to peer sync is icing on the cake. The only thing missing in this regard is that Anytype, unlike Obsidian, doesn’t store data in plain text files.

What almost seals the deal for me is the user experience. The interface is much easier than Obsidian’s. Even more important are Anytype’s so-called Fundamentals, which are elegant and well-thought out. They make using the app almost intuitive. They also seem rather obvious, which makes you wonder why anyone hasn’t thought of them before.

I am seriously considering moving my PKM here. I like Obsidian, but Anytype apparently is also secure, it’s simpler to use (so far), and does more out of the box.

[ignatovv]

Thanks for such a uplifting feedback @jmatienza
Hope you will enjoy our future updates, we gonna to introduce even more innovative stuff and polish existing ones as well

[lloyd.jackman]

I’ll say this as an Obsidian user, the front end it provides on the graph offering relationship types moves it beyond simple links. I do think, to really make the most of that underlying graph, we need to be able to query it, using either Sparql or cypher as a first step before then abstracting the user experience from the code.