Templater VS obsidian-git

Obsidian has a large collection of community-contributed plugins to serve various user needs. For this guide, we'll install Templater and Tasks, two plugins that can be really powerful when combined to create notes and task lists.

I use the Templater plugin mostly for my newsletter and some other miscellaneous things not relevant here. I ended up making a "blog template" that I can use to quickly add the frontmatter I need!

Example templates

That said: - I assume you will be doing at least some highlighting / annotating of pdfs and / or websites. In that case, you might want to look into either plugins that automatically import your highlights from other tools (Zotero, Kindle or another e-ink device, Hypothes.is, Readwise, etc), or into plugins that allow for highlighting PDFs directly inside Obsidian (Obsidian Annotator). - Templater is useful for most folks that have to create many notes with repeated layout. If you have notes for each lesson, you could have a lesson note template, to create them faster and keep them consistent. - As a student, you have to keep track of your schedule when it comes to classes, exams, etc. - you could use a plugin to sync your existing Google calendar, or keep your calendar entirely in Obsidian (Full Calendar).

The tools I use: Arc Browser - Nothing special here, I am just enjoying this browser right now. Dropzone - Used to automate the screenshots iScreenshoter - My screenshot app of choice even though the misspelling gives me hives. Dataview Plugin Templater Plugin Quick Add Plugin

Don't worry if you're template isn't perfect. It can always be modified. I modified a template this morning that I created eight months ago. It needed a little tweak. Documentation: https://github.com/SilentVoid13/Templater

I totally understand the learning curve. I was there too, for sure. The syntax you've pointed out are both part of the Templater extension. It's a fantastic extension and well worth the effort in learning, by the way. I'd recommend looking at the guide the author provided for the extension (https://silentvoid13.github.io/Templater/).

I spent another couple hours writing an elaborate script that creates new notes based on a set of conditions, but that also turned out to be a waste of time due to another documented bug with Templater itself.

In practice I write in Obsidian, the best thing since slice bread for me. And it was obsidian-git, running every 10 minutes or so, who was keeping my GitHub vanity metrics very green.

> Joplin is using md to.

The way it's handled can make the difference in control.

> by separating that in their DB, it's a big NO for me since it's a closed silo.

Joplin is using a popular open database with a healthy community and good tooling. It's as open as markdown. Maybe not for you, when you lack the knowledge, but markdown is similar closed for anyone not understanding filesystems and editors.

> This: https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview works so wonderful for me

Good for you, but that is very low level in terms of data-handling. Dataview is really just an elaborated search, there is no good level of interaction. Datacore, the next project of the Dataview is supposed to bring this, but it's not even usable yet AFAIK. Coincidental, the Obsidian-devs are also working on that front, but nothing is finished yet.

> https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git and b) easy to fix since it's a text file. Gosh!

That's useless when the app itself is not working. And even worse if you are not realizing the errors early.

> Aha. I don't think so. Which authority says that?

My own experience. I've tested enough plugins over the years to know their dark corners.

> And even if It's like that, my markdown files would survive everything

The thing is, technically you are not even having proper markdown, but a fork with some extensions of Obsidian. So some features of your parts might break when switching away from Obsidian. And the reason for all this is also because markdown is lacking definitions for what obsidian-people are doing with it. Coincidentally, this seems also one of the reasons why Joplin is using a database.

> And gosh, this is a good thing!

Not if they all suck.

> Installing multiple task plugins shows that something is "broke" on the user side.

Sure, because the plugins are lacking features, its the users fault... Maybe some users have just very different levels of requirements from you.

The Obsidian team uses the "remote vault" feature[1] to collaborate on making Obsidian. Since Obsidian runs on local files you could use any shared file storage like Dropbox. If you want more granular version history, you can use Git, there's a nice plugin for it[2].

[1]: https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Share+remote+vaults

[2]: https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git

I've been using the main Obsidian git extension, https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git. Took some work to set it up ergnonomically but it works great now. I enabled auto-commit and push on save, and auto-pull when you start the editor. No merge conflicts yet between two machines.

Should note I use Obsidian for a journal, so it's pretty much append-only.

I use Obsidian to create notes as Markdown files on my computer and use the Obsidian Git plugin to version control the changes via Git. The Obsidian vault in which I store my notes is stored in a folder synced using iCloud Drive.

Up to my knowledge, Obsidian GIT doesn't support merge on mobile. There is a different approach for handling those on mobile using Command Line, you can find more info in this post and this article.

Plugin: https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git

I am using Git for that. Here is the extension that might help. https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git