logseq VS Templater

Logseq support via our Logseq Plugin

Sorry, but _what exactly_ «it seems to do» from your point of view?

My «second brain» now is almost 300Mb of text, pictures, sound files, PDF and other stuff. As I already mentioned, it contains tables, mathematical formulae, sheet music, cross-references, code samples, UML diagrams and graphs in Graphviz format. It is versioned, indexed by local search engine, analyzed by AI assistant and shared between many computers and mobile devices. And (last but not least) it works: it allows me to solve my tasks way more faster than with the assistant of external, non-personalized tools (like ChatGPT, StackExchange or Google).

I know no tools for all this tasks except org-mode. Well, maybe Evernote in the 2010-s was something similar — but with less features, with more bugs and with worse interface.

Personal note-taking _is_ a complex task per se (well, at least for someone like typical HN visitor). I've seen many note-taking tools, that were ridiculously featureless, stupid and inconvenient because they were _not_ complex enough.

> Sure if one wants to do emacs-gardening it is fine.

1)You can use org-mode outside Emacs. See for example Logseq (https://logseq.com/), organice (https://organice.200ok.ch/) or EasyOrg.

2)Org-mode works in Emacs out of the box, you don't need any «emacs-gardening» to use org-mode.

3)The term «Emacs-gardening» itself sound a bit like hate-speech for me. The complexity of Emacs customization is overrated, mostly due to opinions of people who never used Emacs or used it in the previous millennium.

Obsidian is great.

For those looking for an open source alternative (or don't want to pay the Obsidian fees for professional usage) check out Logseq: https://logseq.com/

For an opensource alternative to Obsidian checkout Logseq (1). I spent a while thinking obsidian was opensource out of my own ignorance and was disappointed when I learned it was not.

1: https://logseq.com/

I use logseq to keep journal of my daily work.

While Emacs and Org mode can certainly be used for this (and, when they can't, you can always inject little python/js scripts in your emacs config to take care of specific things), I'd also recommend you take a look at Logseq.

My work notes (and email) has shifted into emacs but I'm still editing zimwiki formatted files w/ the many years of notes accumulated in it Though I've lost it moving to emacs, the Zim GUI has a nice backlink sidebar that's amazing for rediscovery. Zim also facilitates hierarchy (file and folder) renames which helps take the pressure off creating new files. I didn't make good use of the map plugin, but it's occasionally useful to see the graph of connected pages.

I'm (possibly unreasonably) frustrated with using the browser for editing text. Page loads and latency are noticeably, editor customization is limited, and shortcuts aren't what I've muscle memory for -- accidental ctrl-w (vim:swap focus, emacs/readline delete word) is devastating.

Zim and/or emacs is super speedy. Especially with local files. I using syncthing to get keep computers and phone synced. But, if starting fresh, I might look at things that using markdown or org-mode formatting instead. logseq (https://logseq.com/) looks pretty interesting there.

Sorry! Long answer.

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.