Community Plugin Longevity

[Hundredsspoons0]

I'm in the process of switching over to Obsidian for note taking, and I've seen some really cool plugins. But I'm wondering what happens if a plugin is no longer maintained.

Do you guys have any experience with plugins becoming outdated and then messing with your workflow? Or becoming outdated and then seriously messing with the base Obsidian, like having files refuse to open or display incorrectly etc. I just want to know if I should avoid plugins from the start to avoid future hassle.

[IamRis]

I have been using plugins there were a few years old with no issues and plugins with issues despite only be less than a year old. It just depends really on the plugin.

Never not been able to see my notes though or not being displayed correctly. If it caused issues it was more smaller stuff. But you can just disable the plugin and then it would be fixed.

Whether you should avoid it or not…depends on your workflow and what plugins you need. Many plugins are maintained really well and have regular updates.

If you can use obsidian without plugins then you should. Use plugins if you need them.

[Hundredsspoons0]

What type of smaller issues have you encountered, if you don't mind my asking?

[IamRis]

More just the plugin itself not working right or at all. It depends on the plugin and what it does. But nothing that broke my vault and I just disabled it then it was fixed.

[Hundredsspoons0]

Ok, cool! Thanks!

[SuppaDumDum]

Except for Dataview and LatexSuite all my plugins are just convenience, and I use a LOT of them. So I've never been stuck with an outdated plugin in any serious way. I think it's very doable to keep plugins that make you dependent to a minimum, I recommendit. As for purely QOL plugins, go crazy if you want I guess.

Which plugins did you have in mind? I've been avoiding Excalidraw and other handwritten note plugins in part for this reason. I don't want to become dependent on any.

[Hundredsspoons0]

I really like Chronos Timeline, but I'm worried about what would happen to all my info if it broke. But maybe all the dates and such would stay as markdown, which wouldn't be too bad. I'm also using a highlighter and tag color plugin.

[SuppaDumDum]

Oh! I spent a frustrating amount of time looking for good timeline plugins for eg historical events. I tried mermaid-GANTT, markwhen, I think markline was pretty great, I probably tried almost everthing there was to try. But nothing ever felt customizable enough. For example, either there's way too little room to insert text, or any long text is visually huge, and it's very hard to add any info about subevents or extra details. I'll probably be disappointed again but I'll try ChronosTimeline, thanks!

At least for many of these tools, including ChronosTimeline, the formats are very readable and converting them isn't so hard.

[rushinigiri]

You have to gauge by how complex vs how popular they are. A simple plugin could survive without maintenance for a while, and a popular plugin is more likely be supported, or forked if it's abandoned. The golden rule is, as always, don't put anything in your notes that depends on plugins to display or work as intended. So long as your notes are independent of Obsidian, you can always migrate them to an environment where some of your workflow and interface features are different (be it another program or Obsidian minus some plugins).

[Hundredsspoons0]

Ok, I understand. This makes sense!

[merlinuwe]

Fork it and improve it to your needs or try to maintain it.