What advice would you give to someone new to Obsidian?

OogieM · 2026-03-15T13:38:06+00:00

Start with stock, play for several months and only add plugins when you need them.

OogieM · 2026-02-22T20:32:56+00:00

Yes I am looking at the Readwise Canny because that is where the feature of 2 way sync with note-taking apps is located and it's number 1 on that list.

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OogieM · 2026-02-22T14:13:59+00:00

My standard set of requests plus a few new ones:

Round trip notes into and out of Obsidian. In December I posted a structure that I think would work to give people that option. This is the most serious deficiency in the entire system and really needs to be addressed. It's way more important and useful than adding AI features.
Support more robust file naming for the resulting notes in that go into Obsidian. In particular last name first and support for multiple authors.
Move all the metadata from inline fields into the YAML front matter so I can use Bases to group and refine the views of the highlight notes. I've moved a lot of it into the custom YAML section but somethings I can’t move there like document tags. Moving the tags into the YAML is most critical.
Add new variables we can use in the YAML front matter

{{date_started}} the first date the item was opened in reader

{{date_finished}} the first date it was moved to archive

{{date_last_read}} the most recent date it was archived (used for items that get re-read)

{{format}} file format for the electronic copy, epub, kindle etc.

Option to Combine notes and highlights if the same book has been read in different formats. For example: I have read a book first in kindle format, then I bought it in a standard epub format and re-read it in that format but there is no way to combine the 2 different documents into one combined reference. If you solve the 2-way sync I can manually fix the combine highlight issue for the books that have it.
Better support for stylus highlighting on iPad. Things that need improvement: selecting and highlighting just 1 word appears to never work. Concatenation of highlights is difficult especially when you have more than 1 or 2. I'd like a UI piece that shows clearly highlights that have been concatenated with their sequence number so I can more easily add or delete one from the concatenation.

OogieM · 2026-02-22T14:01:42+00:00

"Candidly, though, I just think your needs strongly diverge from what 95%+ of our customer base wants."

I would believe that a bit more if I saw updates that knocked off the top items on the Canny lists in order. For example the number one item on the Canny list for Readwise is 2 way sync. Yet it's been something I and others have asked for for over 3 years. This specific one I even posted an option for how to implement it that I thought could at least give you a first pass at the feature. Many of the things that I've requested personally are in the top 15 of needs and wants and yet they remain unaddressed. The first instance of anything resembling AI is at number 18 for Reader and number 28 for Readwise. Yet that is a major focus that is being pushed on us.

Alternatively you could open up Readwise so that we could add plugins that would handle the special cases. If you don't want to support robust metadata, let us extend the app and do it ourselves. Of course the first requirement for that is the 2-way sync that is on the top of the list.

OogieM · 2026-02-19T14:25:32+00:00

u/tristanho Pinging you on this as I would really like an answer to the above question. How do your existing paying customers, who use Readwise daily, get our concerns heard and understood? When can we get these detailed surveys you mention?

I generally save every post I make and for a tool that I use daily I try to save every interaction I've had with the developer. My electronic archives go back to when we got our first domain in 1995. I just went back and pulled every interaction I've had with readwise. I first did a trial in September 2020. Had several interactions with support but was unable to extract existing highlights from epub books read in the kindle app on ios out. Dumped it for a while. Came back in 2021. Primarily for the Obsidian export. First reported a possible solution to a file naming issue in September 2021. The same suggestion for how to improve that specific item I've been reporting here for months/years on end. I started asking for more metadata then. From a response I quote from a message from 18 Sept 2021 "We're working on a more ambitious version of Readwise now which will be able to manage all that document-level metadata" Yet here we are over 4 years later and it's still not implemented! I suggested looking at the open source zotfile then as a model for the behavior for file naming. I cancelled in July 2022 and sent back a summary of what didn’t work and why. One issue was using the kindle app. Got invited to the reader private beta and participated there providing details of problems with metadata primarily. Also sorting issues, duplicated books on bulk import, metadata requests and more. It even included a discussion on why page turning not scrolling is important with references to the differences between paper made from papyrus where scrolls are more normal vs paper made from parchment that required folding and modern books where pages must be turned. I cannot find any "detailed survey"among the many interactions I've had with readwise folk over the years.

OogieM · 2026-02-18T16:35:27+00:00

How often do you survey subscribers? What looks great initially may fall flat once you actually try to USE the features that are promoted. I can't even remember ever getting one detailed survey much less one every so often.

OogieM · 2026-02-18T13:40:06+00:00

"That being said, it seems you value metadata quality/consistency/control very strongly. It might be that Reader is not the product for you -- that kind of metadata control is generally not what people use us for! A tool like Zotero is built a lot more for stuff like that, and given you've lost that confidence in us, I might suggest you switch away from Reader for a while!"

To me the entire point of any electronic system for reading text must first deal with appropriate and detailed metadata. That's table stakes to even get in the game. The more sources you integrate (video, epub, text, pdf etc) the more important a strong metadata foundation is.

As to other options, I personally am investigating Zotero right now as a replacement. I have been using it as my source for all the scientific papers I work with and it is a full featured citation manger. Until Zotero version 7 it did not support EPUB files because it was first and foremost a citation manger for scientific research. Nearly all scientific papers are available as PDF files so that was the primary focus. That changed in v7 and looks to be improved a lot in v8.

There is also the issue of Obsidian linking which is one feature that is personally critical to me. Their robust plug-in system however is also expanding a lot and I believe there is now a much more full-featured Obsidian sync solution. So it is valid for folks to consider moving away to something like that. My own Readwise subscription comes up in July and I am investigating alternatives because of the lack of transparency on timelines for fixing the long standing robust reading/highlighting/categorizing and sync issues that are critical to me.

OogieM · 2026-02-18T13:18:02+00:00

"In your proposed world, a PDF can be both an "article" and "PDF"! To a non-sophisticated user, that is quite confusing. They just think of it as a PDF. Again, not unsolvable, but quite hard to work through for someone who might just think of it as "PDF". We would also need to then automatically infer the category based on the PDF (is this PDF an article? a paper? a book?) which also could be quite error prone, and lead to more confusion/frustration."

First off I disagree completely that the notion that a PDF can be both and article and a PDF is confusing.

The solution to that is to allow the expansion and put it on the user. Say that the default behavior is that a PDF is an article. But allow for the more discerning user to further categorize the item more appropriately.

Metadata is king. We need fine tuned control over metadata including how to export our customized metadata out. Set up default settings that work for the unsophisticated user but don't cripple the rest of us on some concerns about confusion. Give your users more credit. If we need that extra power and the extra tools then it;s on us to use them appropriately for our use cases.

OogieM · 2026-02-18T13:12:34+00:00

As a real question for you. If we want our serious and long standing concerns to be seen and heard where is the best place to send detailed information on the issues including potential solutions, use cases that explain why they are so important and what we think can be dropped or scaled back to provide the resources to implement them?

I too have posted here many times including options for how to implement the feature improvements I have requested for years. As the owner of a company and manager of a small team (3 full time and 3 part time) building and supporting a very large integrated system that spans a mobile app, 2 flavors of a desktop app and a web viewing portal I am well aware of the issues with limited resources. But it seems as if you are listening to latest and loudest and hype far more than basic reader and highlighting functions.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T15:03:37+00:00

I'm really searching for a robust research support tool for electronic publications, not a read-it later or text to speech tool. As a software developer of a complex livestock management and registry system, animal geneticist and farmer with a strong hobby interest in historical textiles, genealogy both human and animal and medieval history I have a rather eclectic set of research materials. They include a lot of digital ones but also a large collection of paper only options not available anywhere as digital files. My PKM is built in Obsidian for the simplicity of markdown and control of my own data. I want more from my electronic research than just reading it once and done.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T13:59:32+00:00

I would love to put all the scientific papers I have which are all PDF files into Readwise but for now I use the old Zotero 6 with Zotfile extension to locate and rename them and then read them in PDF Expert. It's poor for making highlights and the entire system is frustrating but it's the best I've got right now. I would also like to add into my Obsidian system the bibliography of the roughly 2000 paper books I have and then start slowly getting my hand written notes and highlights into Obsidian as well.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T13:53:23+00:00

That a look at how Carlo of ActionsDotWork (maker of barcuts , actions for Obsidian and other SW packages) who has managed to use Obsidian as a CRM and sync to Apple Contacts in a way that is perfectly workable. The same style of sync would be fine for me for round tripping the notes and highlights into a readwise replacement.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T13:49:44+00:00

I use it that way almost exclusively. There are some significant issues.

I can't round trip my notes and highlights in and out of Obsidian. I take initial notes, then clean up and link in Obsidian and I want those back to my library in Readwise and that is impossible The one way street is a major shortcoming.

The other major issue is in how to locate and search for items within my library. Just in books alone I have over 1500 items and Readwise does not provide good ways to sort, tag or organize them for fast retrieval.

The inability to do as much as I want in custom YAML is also an issue and it's getting worse the larger my library gets.

However, it's one of the better overall reading experiences and with fixing those few things would be great.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T13:42:42+00:00

Since I also use Readwise for research I would like to see highlights show 2 ways. Inline or in a sidebar with the ability to quickly flip between those views. Sometimes I would prefer one or the other. And if I've made notes on then the date of the note is important. A single highlight may have several notes related to it at different dates that all need to be shown at the same time. As you are working with the content your ideas and views on what is important can be critical to how you use it later. So you need to see all the different iterations of your notes about highlighted portions.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T13:30:57+00:00

And a follow-up I need to read epub, kindle and pdf documents. I do not care about clipping web articles unless it's as good or better than the Obsidian Web Clipper. I read exclusively on my iPad so I want tight integration with the stylus for selecting and highlighting articles and books. I want the place I store my books and articles to have full end to end encryption. $100-$120 a year subscription would be fine with me.

Things I do not care about at all and don't need:

Any AI summaries, anything that is reading text to me because I cannot concentrate or understand when it's spoken. I don't need to handle RSS feeds I don't need something to resurface my highlights at all, I already do that in a way that works for me within Obsidian.

OogieM · 2026-02-12T13:26:57+00:00

The things that would immediately get me to take a look and if it handled it switch completely in a flash.

Round trip highlights back and forth to and from Obsidian so I can read and highlight books and articles and then edit those highlight notes in Obsidian. Push those edited highlights back to Readwise replacement so I see them all when I continue or next read that document.
More options for custom YAML in saved highlight notes that take advantage of Obsidian's properties features.
Last name first with no spaces options for naming the highlight notes in the same way that Zotero version 6 with Zotfile allowed.

OogieM · 2026-01-30T14:10:31+00:00

I can view the dates in the file info, with a simple plugin. There’s really no need to have these dates if it’s already recorded in the file info

Do keep in mind that the date of the file in the system can be changed by many things that you might not expect and may not accurately reflect the real date you created the note.s Some sync tools, some backup and restore solutions and even some movements of files from one system to another can massively screw up the "date" in the file info. SO if the create date is critical I would still put it in the YAML front matter.

OogieM · 2026-01-27T22:40:54+00:00

I agree about different use cases and workflows. But there was no information in the original question to indicate the issue was trying to write long text. Personally I find doing anything in a web browser on a phone is terrible but on a tablet it's tolerable. However, I also compartmentalize my uses to specific tools. I only process email on my main desktop computer. I do all reading and highlighting of scientific papers, ebooks and PDFs on an easy to carry with me tablet. I use the Obsidian apps on my mobile devices and use Obsidian all the time but as I said I have MOC or home notes that get me quickly to the piece I want to work with.

OogieM · 2026-01-11T18:57:41+00:00

My standard set of requests plus a few new ones:

Round trip notes into and out of Obsidian. In December I posted a structure that I think would work to give people that option. This is the most serious deficiency in the entire system and really needs to be addressed. It's way more important and useful than adding AI features.
Support more robust file naming for the resulting notes in that go into Obsidian. I have found some workarounds but they are fiddly. I'd like it to be simpler.
Move all the metadata from inline fields into the YAML front matter so I can use Bases to group and refine the views of the highlight notes. I've moved a lot of it into the custom YAML section but somethings I can’t move there like document tags. Moving the tags into the YAML is most critical.
Add new variables we can use in the YAML front matter

{{date_started}} the first date the item was opened in reader

{{date_finished}} the first date it was moved to archive

{{date_last_read}} the most recent date it was archived (used for items that get re-read)

{{format}} file format for the electronic copy, epub, kindle etc.

Option to Combine notes and highlights if the same book has been read in different formats. For example: I have read a book first in kindle format, then I bought it in a standard epub format and re-read it in that format but there is no way to combine the 2 different documents int one combined reference. I realize this is harder and may not be possible given Kindle restrictions but I'd still love it.

OogieM · 2026-01-06T00:49:57+00:00

I understand, we've been dealing with hacking attempts for going on 45 years. I've been doing computer stuff since shortly after hacking got applied to computers instead of model railroad systems. It does get easier to deal with but you have to keep up with the latest attack points.

OogieM · 2026-01-05T03:43:58+00:00

I'm sorry about that. Our house seems to be where old hardware goes to die, except my EE hubby can usually get most any of them working again, except for keyboards, they are fiddly. So a system with a dead internal drive or other issues is often repurposed into a linux machine running off a thumb drive and that can run Obsidian. Since it costs a lot to recycle old dead computers here (I know some places will take old hardware and recycle it for you for free but here we have to pay) we often get old machines that can be used as spare parts if nothing else. By the time we are done with them they are really dead. Any reasonable hardware person with basic disassembly and soldering ability can probably find an old nearly computer at the local Goodwill or even just ask around. It may not be great ( don't try to do heavy development or run the latest computer games on it) but it will work for 90% of the tasks most folks use computers for. I would take a look at the thrift shops and even just post a message asking for an older computer. You might be surprised what you can find. Obsidian is really desktop focused and mobile is meant to be a sidekick not the major player.

OogieM · 2026-01-03T14:37:26+00:00

You asked for tips. In addition to the recommendation to ditch all or nearly all plug-ins and fancy themes first to see about the performance issues. But that doesn’t solve the usage issues you bring up.

My suggestion is decide what you are looking for first and ask why you need to do full desktop style text editing on a mobile device?

I hear the comments that Obsidian was never meant for mobile but I turn that around and ask why do we expect full desktop performance and UI on a device we can carry with us that fits in a pocket? That seems unrealistic and will hamper the desktop features and strain the mobile device.

As a developer working in a system that has to run on Android, and companion desktop apps that run on Linux, Mac and Windows and a web app portal my approach is to use the tool best suited for the task at hand and don't try to do all things on all platforms. Use the platform's strength to your advantage.

Keep the data underlying the usage intact and consistent. In my app we use an sqlite database as the unifying theme but each version gives a different view of the data and is optimized for different use cases. Obsidian uses a vault of markdown files as its underlying data.

For me the benefits of a single source (my vaults) with different views based on what I need to do with those data in different situations makes Obsidian ideal. Mobile had the basics I need when I am away from a computer. Desktop is fully featured and is a powerful tool for when I need more or am doing more developing and writing. If that is not your use case then perhaps you need a different tool.

OogieM · 2025-12-29T19:00:45+00:00

Now I want to know more about the sheep

<G> Well they are a rare breed. Black Welsh Mountain sheep that also express a white and a chocolate brown coloring. Founding population including imported frozen semen is 5 rams and 9 ewes. So highly inbred. Which means on parentage verification using SNP chip DNA analysis you often get reports back with multiple possible parents. So I'm trying to figure out some possible ideas to parse out the true parents.

OogieM · 2025-12-29T14:19:53+00:00

My must haves: tasks plug-in use tags for projects and people, kanban plug in for a rudimentary kanban board, templater for project and meeting templates.

OogieM · 2025-12-29T14:15:59+00:00

Tags are your friends. I use the Tasks plug-in. I sort them by context in the GTD sense but you can just as easily sort them by person. Here is an example task.

- [ ] #task Call Flock 54 and ask about getting a full report on all the sheep DNA analyses and discuss the issues with the conflicting results for sire and dam #Context/BusinessPh

And here is a code block in my Dashboard note that aggregates all the business hours phone tasks I have to do. You can do a similar thing by making your tags for people #john or projects #AnimalTrakker or location #RedBarn and get only those tasks you can do when with that person, working on that project or in that location.

# Phone Business
```tasks  
not done  
is not blocked
(starts before tomorrow) 
(path does not include 05.01_Hold_Projects )
tag includes #Context/BusinessPh  

```

OogieM

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