The Holy Grail of Neovim Note Taking

I've been exploring note taking for years, but as a Vim user who's trying to make it work for every bit of text I write, it always made sense to me that the two should be connected. With Obsidian, I feel like I finally made it happen.
⚠️ If you wish to support this channel and are interested in a deep dive into building a second brain with Neovim, I have a workshop dedicated for that here:
learn.omerxx.com/courses/seco...
🎓 My course: learn.omerxx.com/courses/seco...
📰 Become a better engineer in just 3 minutes a week: newsletter.omerxx.com
⌨️ Tech I use: kit.co/omerxx/my-battle-station
LINKS
▶ Building a Second Brain Book: amzn.to/3RZtMGk
▶ github.com/omerxx/dotfiles
▶ github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim
⏱ Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
00:24 - Second Brain
02:03 - Obsidian
02:47 - Obsidian.Nvim
03:00 - Vim in Obsidian's UI
07:09 - Obsidian within Neovim
11:00 - Eliminating Distractions
13:02 - The Graph
13:16 - Summary
#productivity #secondbrain #notes #notetaking #secondbrain #neovim #terminal #system #program #dev #devops #software #sysadmin #sysops #linux #terminal #console #cli #keyboard #commandline

[@SimGunther]

The second brain can only be good if the first brain is in working condition

[@devopstoolbox]

😂😂😂 Where were you when I wrote the script??

[@BCsJonathanTM]

😆😂🤣😅😭

[@mikereynolds1368]

That's the rub isn't it :)

[@chimmychingo6703]

Are you suggesting taking amphetamines?

[@mgmartin51]

Who are you calling senile?😊

[@jasona716]

I came across this video at random, I'd no idea taking notes has become so involved! It seems you could lose yourself for months honing the perfect note taking environment, the procrastination potential is enormous!! 🤣

[@devopstoolbox]

If I’m very honest this is what this channel is all about 😅

[@jerbear7952]

That is very true but one thing often overlooked about obsidian is it can actually be used in a very sloppy way. Just slop ideas down anywhere with some tags and you can easily search it later. People try to over complicate things

[@devopstoolbox]

@@jerbear7952 this is actually a great take which I agree with. Just note the small conflict - if you have tags, sure it’ll work, same if you have links, or a structure. One is enough. But given our “sloppy” nature 😉 it’s best if you have a few layers to make sure you can still be lazy by finding your notes in the future!

[@BeckiTrue]

I've been working on setting up my environment to get it like this, and it really is beautiful and low friction. High friction upfront. I think @devopstoolbox ' s workshop will reduce the time required to get it setup though

[@sphyrnidae6749]

Your content is truly condensed to pure gold! I really watched ALL your videos now. Please DO NOT STOP making dev related content! Cheers from Germany.

[@devopstoolbox]

Thank you so much!! 🫶

[@adamhaney9447]

Great video! Ive been using obsidian for a while, but just started with Neovim and NvChad. I look forward to getting nvim and obsidian working together.

[@ishaankapoor933]

I have been following your channel since a while, and I am a long term neovim user. I started using obsidian this Christmas and somehow got the vimrc plugin to work tonight. And BOOM you released this video 4hrs ago. P.S. keep making this great content. Love from India

[@devopstoolbox]

Oh man! Incredible! Thank you so much for the kind words! Feel free to come back if you want to discuss things 🙏🏽

[@BeOnlyChaos]

I've been using workflowy for note taking, ever since I discovered it. I love the lists of lists concept. I never have to wonder where I stored a particular note, since there is only 1 tree. That said, as soon as I'm sitting at a computer, I love doing everything inside neovim. So I'll have to give Obsidian a try.

[@jizhang2407]

Thanks for sharing another amazing video. As a user of Obsidian and Neovim, this tutorial proves "1+1>2", and it's pure gold to me.

[@tiriyoncontinuum9519]

your nvim setup is just beautiful! I am an avid user of Obsidian, and I do all my work in vim (now migrating my workflow to nvim). One thing I really love about obsidian is the canvas core plugin. It lays out my thoughts best. So unfortunately, I can't 100% write within nvim. Maybe with a nvim window and a canvas window I can manage that, but obsidian itself is not too bad when you have a vim keybinding.

[@devopstoolbox]

IMO it doesn’t have to be one or the other. They complement each other exactly because of cases like yours!

[@7XStriderX7]

This is amazing! Thank you!

[@devopstoolbox]

🎧 20% Off of Brain.fm! www.brain.fm?via=omerxx

[@moo6080]

I LOVE Obsidian! it even has a plugin for Vim keybinds!

[@berzanmikaili]

Love your channel! I think nvim orgmode and neorg are also interesting options

[@devopstoolbox]

Thanks! I agree, covered Neorg in a video not too long ago but obsidian ticks all the boxes for me

[@theherk]

Yes neorg is excellent. Aside from its usefulness, I think the project itself is interesting and covering ground well.

[@Bliss467]

The one thing I do love about Notion is the databases and expression columns, but they do make me think I should instead just use a real database and sprocs or python or something, but I also,love how clean notion looks. It’s just so slow, and yeah, insular.

[@devopstoolbox]

100%! Inline DBs in notion are killer! You do have “loom” that you can use in obsidian which is super nice. Notion are amazing with visuals but it’s just too much of a “product”. You don’t have control, it’s slow, they dictate how you access, and moving away to another system puts you in the mercy of their export capabilities. Not to mention the safety of my notes when they’re stored on my machine / cloud storage of my preference when using something like obsidian

[@mikereynolds1368]

​@@devopstoolboxnail on the head with notion. You can make it look super sexy but to get to that point is a pain in the ass. Then all the vendor lockin afterwards makes it worse.

[@Dezzy601]

There are a few plugins that you can use to sort of recreate notion databases. DB Folder and Projects.

[@casperon7]

Dude, awesome channel, great video, love it.

[@devopstoolbox]

🙏🏽

[@EbenduToit]

Thank you for the great video!

[@ncpeaksean4278]

This guy transmit calm and good vibes and I really like this channel.

[@wchorski]

would appreciate some thoughts on how to not to or how to un mess your vault. I started Obsidian very quickly, and slowly realizing what mess I've made in my vault. Would be very helpful to see your organization. The why and how you organize your file tree and link vs tags

[@devopstoolbox]

Funny enough, since I couldn’t pack this into a video, I made a workshop. It’s paid content but I put a lot of work in it and you’re welcome to check it out and ask questions if you have any: learn.omerxx.com

[@musicwindy3024]

Wow dude, my brain is starting to split 😮

[@devopstoolbox]

😂😂

[@samyak039]

TIL about the @@ binding, and my brain just exploded. You can't imagine how much time I could have saved if I knew this earlier.

[@WilliamParkerIII]

I’m gonna have to reread the book. I’m so glad Readwise pushed this out on the newsletter this is a gold mine

[@devopstoolbox]

It is :)

[@neilclay5835]

I got the Obsidian Tasks plugin working with calendar today. It wasn't hard to do, the docs are great - it just meant a reorganisation of some of my notes. Anyway, that is incredibly powerful. Obsidian is incredible.

[@devopstoolbox]

Oh wow! This is next on my list. I was wondering how / if I can actually create a useful task management system there

[@neilclay5835]

@@devopstoolbox Oh and there's also a really good Kanban plugin for Obsidian. My only gripe with Obsidian is that it's not a terminal app, but I strongly suspect that that's just me being a snob 🤔😝

[@devopstoolbox]

@@neilclay5835 I agree 😅 Given that it’s just Md files I guess it’s just waiting for someone to pick the idea up

[@Gnarlington8]

How did you do it?

[@WokeSoros]

Nobody talks about dendron anymore. In my opinion, it’s superior to obsidian…runs as a vscode plugin or you can run it in the command line and integrate with vim…doesn’t have the same plugin support as obsidian, but if you use it in vscode you can combine it with any vscode extension, meaning it’s fairly limitlessly customizable, but has the same basic frontmatter setup as Obsidian. I tried obsidian and ended up putting my obsidian vault in my dendron vault and using dendron for writing, obsidian for publishing… I’m not a neovim user yet, but I suspect it can be with some effort be basically as customizable in vim by calling it in the command line as well and combining it with neovim plugins. Now…the real stumbling block seems to be…I keep reading that physically writing notes is much better for retention, so I might need to re-invent my process starting with a notebook and transferring to digital to refine and review. Basically dev, testing and publishing with notebook > dendron > obsidian.

[@JordanShurmer]

Thanks for the video. this looks really promising

[@devopstoolbox]

🙏

[@jorge28624]

the lengths some people go to avoid switching to GNU Emacs to use org-mode :)

[@devopstoolbox]

😂 In my defense - I still want to be able to use obsidian’s UI for many reasons. If I’m only “stuck” in nvim that defeats the purpose

[@buntun3670]

bruh!

[@buntun3670]

the internet has some healthy people after all,....@@devopstoolbox

[@gusslx]

No (proper) mobile support is a big no for me :(

[@SpaceCatKungFu]

@@gusslx You use neovim on your phone? I have obsidian on my phone and it works great! Free sync with syncthing.

[@sergioquijanorey7426]

I love the obsidian plugin but for myself I find a leaner way. Just use base nvim standard plugins (telescope, lazy, treesitter, lsps, ... you get the idea) and use Marksman lsp, which provides with most of the mentioned functionalities. Only thing I am missing in my setup is getting a list of backlinks. Great video as always :D

[@devopstoolbox]

Nice! And yes, the plugin adds mainly that functionality. But having the power of using vim on the same workspace (bc it’s just Md) is so refreshing coming from notion…

[@sergioquijanorey7426]

Oh yes, for sure! And having Obsidian for reading / editing notes on the phone is perfect @@devopstoolbox

[@Luclecool123]

You can easily write a small python script to scroll through all the MD files in a directory and append/update a list of backlinks at the top of every file

[@sanchay9]

@@sergioquijanorey7426 i'm guessing you use obsidian sync for that

[@fixpoint]

@sergioquijanorey7426 I, too, like a leaner approach, so I’ve been using vim with the ‘zk’ tool, which includes ‘zk-nvim’, a nvim plugin that uses the its own ‘zk’ lsp to provide linking-including backlinking. Combine that with a markdown lsp and it’s a complete package. With ‘zk’ you can build templates, etc .. and with the ‘zk-nvim’ plugin’s API, if you know Lua, you can build some really neat workflows in vim. As an example, I’m a manager, and I take LOTS of notes for the 20 people I hold one on ones with. Each week, I invoke my custom command, which opens a new meeting note. With my integration, telescope opens and prompts me for a meeting name. It presents all unique meetings from the past, so I’ll effectively see one item for each person in the list along with one item for any other recurring meeting (staff meeting). Then I select the person, a template opens with the title already set to the person I’m meeting with. So, creating a new meeting note, is one binding to launch my custom ZkMeeting command, and only the number of key presses required to fuzzy search a name. It’s so fast. Then, I have another integration I wrote as I wanted to be able to quickly reference previous notes for that person. So I have another custom command to pop open in telescope all of the past meetings for that person with a preview, so I can quickly review my last week notes or older notes when talking to them this week. It’s the best note taking system I’ve had for years.

[@boopfer387]

Long time obsidian user i had no idea thank you!

[@J_a_k_e_]

I wanted to use obsidian but I didn't want to use a separate application to take notes that didn't have the vim motions. I'm using vimwiki but I'll give this a go now. Thank you very much.🙏💯

[@devopstoolbox]

Vim motions + .vimrc file make obsidian as good as it gets at least for motions!

[@CharlesBaker66]

I watched this video once. I'll watch again to glean as much as I can, but I was wondering if you had a step by step set up guide for this wonderful looking combination of NeoVim and Obsidian?

[@devopstoolbox]

Thank you! I don't have a dedicated guide but my entire configuration is open at dotfiles.omerxx.com. If there are specifics that interest you feel free to come back with questions and I'll do my best to help!

[@thatbox]

Populate the NVME slot, add a NIC or two, and you've got a killer server and router right there. Good get.

[@mumk]

o m g your nvim setup is stacked

[@devopstoolbox]

I’ll take that as a compliment 😅

[@RichardONeil]

Thank you for the video and dotfiles to get started. I am not getting the checkbox behavior, open bracket to create links to other files and different colors for #,##,###, etc. Can you think of anything I may be missing? The Obsidian plugin is definitely running, because I have the commands available and they seem to be working to create new notes, etc. Thanks again!

[@devopstoolbox]

Do you have cmp installed? If you do, the plugin integrates with cmp and triggers it, you can change the setting for how many characters actually trigger the completion, try opening two brackets and type two chars and see what happens

[@conceptrat]

Looks a bit like Freemind/Freeplane that I started using many years ago. Only think it didn't have was vim plugin. But used XML for storage.

[@husseinyoussef6998]

what is the search plugin you use in 6:15 and the command line one on 6:25? I like the UI look, would appreciate it:)

[@devopstoolbox]

Both are noice.nvim by folke, which rerenders the command line :)

[@DanielZapata-jv4ux]

First off what a fantastic video! I am definitely going to use this plugin since I love obsidian, but always prefer to edit text in neovim so this is perfect for me :) Quick question, how do you get it so those check mark boxes are rendered like that? For me i can't even see the - [ ] i just see nothing but what text is next to the checkbox, let alone what you have which is way cooler

[@devopstoolbox]

Thank you! I guess this is having nerd font installed and a terminal that supports them (I run wezterm). You’re also welcome to check out my config at dotfiles.omerxx.com if I missed anything!

[@ShortSnoph]

@@devopstoolbox Thanks for this! Was looking for your config. Even with treesitter and a load of other vim plugins, I am missing some nice features displayed in your video.

[@devopstoolbox]

@@ShortSnoph let me know specific ones I’ll try to help

[@digitaldisruptlabs]

Your videos are always amazing. I love Obsidian, but I discovered Capacities. So, I'm trying to get use to it. Looks pretty solid. When did you change to the Moonlander? I noticed you started using it since few videos ago. Do you still using your HHKB? How do you feel about the change? Cheers!

[@devopstoolbox]

I did switch just a few months back when you noticed :) the hhkb is unmatched in typing experience, the Moonlander is amazing in the fact it’s split, orthilinear and configurable with layers macros etc. so I’m not going back but if I could put the topre feel ok the moon lander it’d be the PERFECT KB

[@digitaldisruptlabs]

@@devopstoolbox I would die for a topre feel on my UHK as well

[@nicholaswatching]

My setup is pretty much combined with syncthing for syncronization: all markdown notes, live grep within notes, and using "gf" or gF if there's a line number to go to related files since that's already in vim and neovim. I could probably improve that with a tree view. On mobile, termux + neovim works if it's in internal storage.. working on moving it from external storage. For now on mobile, markor / neutrinote is what I use for viewing markdown, but I will look into Obsidean and logseq and the plugin showcased. Looks like a useful plugin.

[@devopstoolbox]

An interesting stack! TBH while the mobile version of obsidian is great, I feel that icloud is slowing it down. If I had a faster alternative I'd consider it. Sometimes you just want to take a quick note without thinking too much or waiting for a platform. That's one of the key concepts in the second brain book - remove friction

[@d3lirious]

@@devopstoolboxI don't know the details of the secondbrain methodology but if you want a quick portable inbox I suggest you reduce your requirements to simple text capture. Then I'm sure you can find a simple hack; some automation on your phone that takes a free text field and pushes it via folder sync/api/mail/... to an inbox on your PC for later processing. To me , this is so infrequent that I just take a not in my MS Todo app on my phone and then copy it when on PC.

[@devopstoolbox]

@@d3lirious this is exactly what I was thinking

[@NXTaar]

Hi, great video about the topic! What terminal and color theme do you use in the video? Is that MacOS or Linux? I want to replicate that frosted glass look in my setup...

[@devopstoolbox]

Hi! Thanks. I’m running Wezterm with Catppuccin on macOS . The frosty glass though is an editing trick. That said, you can get it with wezterm config

[@NXTaar]

thanks!@@devopstoolbox

[@d3lirious]

@devopstoolbox, you're the one that convinced me to invest in a neorg setup ... now you're telling me you moved to obsidian? Aaargh! Kidding aside: I left Notion for nvim+neorg 5 months ago and I'm happy I did. With time and practice, my assumptions about what I needed have evolved; I'm as starting to be really interested in atomic notes (zettelkasten inspired) and Obsidian seems to have an awesome setup for that. Also: the sync with android app is a massive feature. As someone else remarked in the comments already: my only gripe is that it's not a terminal app. Believe it or not but I actually prefer the look and feel of neorg in the terminal. More importantly, I will have to make sure I can make my Obsidian flow as quick and keyboard driven as nvim which is just incredible at that point. On the plus side: the obsidian configuration community looks massive. It completely dwarfs what's available for Neorg tweaking.

[@devopstoolbox]

Haha! I mentioned in the video I believe- I still use Neorg from time to time for specific project needs but to build a system like a second brain it requires more firepower. With the Neovim plugin I think it makes it as good if not better than Neorg given the visuals and ability to combine Neovim goodies when writing. I even created a course going through the concepts and configs: learn.omerxx.com That said - these things are so personal, there’s really no one size fits all type of solution. But if you’re sold on Neovim and quick frictionless note taking and like having control sync, mobile control etc, I think Neovim and obsidian are really the holy grail 😉😉

[@d3lirious]

Any tips on migrating a neorg repo to markdown @@devopstoolbox ? I've been using neorg export but I don't know how to apply to a whole dir structure.

[@Simone41403]

Great video @Devops Toolbox, I was wondering if you have been able to visualize images directly nvim while using obsidian plugin. I know it's possible as quarto distro does it, but can't get to configure image.nvim to do it. Please let me know if you got the hack! thanks and continue with the great content!

[@devopstoolbox]

Thanks man! I don’t think I ever tried doing it but I’ve heard many people did. I can try it out sometime and see what comes up though

[@Simone41403]

@@devopstoolbox Thanks, I managed to have image.nvim working but it doesn't show pictures pasted via obsidian plugin.

[@sgomezj_]

Would you do a neovim configuration setup video. I love that you have the upper bar aesthetics :D

[@devopstoolbox]

I feel like it's inevitable :) in the meantime feel free to see my configuration here: dotfiles.omerxx.com

[@AmitErandole]

What are these studies that you mention at the beginning? Can you link to them please?

[@devopstoolbox]

The original study was done on 2008 but for some reason the university removed the paper itself from their website. There’s lots of news and data around it: www.zdnet.com/article/americans-consume-100000-words-of-information-each-day-study-says/ www.blog.askwonder.com/blog/information-data-media-consumed-in-day-average?format=amp There was a more recent study, I’ll get the book references this week and try to get it for you

[@AmitErandole]

@@devopstoolbox thank you for those links. Was kinda hard to google it out

[@MatthewCaldwell]

What's the bar at the top of your nvim? I was looking through your dotfiles to try to find it but I couldn't find anything

[@devopstoolbox]

Tmux? 😉

[@devopstoolbox]

Check my tmux video!

[@MatthewCaldwell]

@@devopstoolbox Oh! I'm so used to my tmux status bar being on the bottom I didn't notice it. I still need to go back and redo my tmux config some weekend. I downloaded someone else's ages ago and have never gone through and set it up myself. I just finished fixing that same mistake with neovim. I'll check your tmux video.

[@raymondong349]

hi, nice video! may i know what is the plugin within neovim for the cmdline and search popup?

[@devopstoolbox]

Of course! noice.nvim

[@raymondong349]

@@devopstoolbox awesome! thanks so much. love it

[@botondkalocsai5322]

Obsidian looks nice. Does it support latex mathematical expressions? It is very important for anyone who takes notes and works in STEM. Also does it support instant rendering / previewing of latex math expressions in neovim?

[@devopstoolbox]

I’ve been asked and I’m not sure. Maybe it has a plugin, but I don’t have these requirements so it was never an issue

[@chethelesser]

6:20 What's the plugin to get such a beautiful Cmdline with syntax highlighting?

[@devopstoolbox]

This is github.com/folke/noice.nvim!

[@chethelesser]

@@devopstoolbox Thank you, wow that plugin is more than I anticipated :)

[@kuroisan2698]

have you ever tried langs like Latex or even better Typst ? I feel it gives full control since it is in fact a programming language

[@devopstoolbox]

Nope, I've been asked about it a few times here in the comments but can't say anything about it (yet)

[@Chalisque]

Something about TeX, and with it LaTeX, which you'll see if you read Knuth's book TeX the program, is how careful he was in designing TeX so that any compliant build of TeX on any hardware will generate _exactly_ the same DVI output as any other. Things like using fixed point arithmetic with smallish integers to ensure that problems with different floating point formats wasn't a problem, and while he originally wrote it in Pascal, it deliberately used no advanced features of the language so as to make it relatively straightfoward to port to a non-Pascal language like C. Typst, on the other hand, I doubt is anywhere near religious about reproducible results as TeX. The thing is, I can take LaTeX I wrote in my postgrad days 20 years ago, and it compiles exactly the same today as it did back then. I can trust that LaTeX in 20 years time will still do the same. For scientific papers and such I think that is a very important thing. As for notes: you can embed simple LaTeX formulae. And if you want typeset results, LaTeX is a good way to go. But for quickly writing notes, often Markdown with \(formulae\) is much quicker to write. And conventions like [[double brackets]] for hyperlinks is nice. Obsidian is basically close to a personal wiki.

[@naimneman]

Great video! I tried installing this plugin within my NvChad config and, sadly, I couldn't make use og the ObsidianOpen command since I use Sway which uses Wayland; if someone knows how to work this out that would really help me. Oh, and also I use multiple Vaults in Obsidian, but I don't know how to swap between them inside nvim. When I run ObsidianWorkspace it only prints the same Vault, even if I'm writing in a note from another vault. Thanks and sorry for the long testament!

[@Chalisque]

I used Obsidian for a bit. Then wrote my own wiki that uses markdown with automatic converting WikiWord's to links, like the original WikiWikiWeb, with custom code blocks repurposed as a general formatting tool (basically if I and a method to the renderer class, that takes the contents of the fenced block and spews out the appropriate HTML). It has versioning (for authenticated users, along with editing and a few other things), though I rarely need to look through previous versions of pages (but it is a feature of a typical Wiki). I have a few of them, one publicly viewable for notes I'm happy to share publicly, and the result suits me fine: there isn't the sync'ing issue that one gets with Obsidian as it just runs in a browser. Moreover, knowing the code, I can, and often do, just plumb in features where I want them. Backend is vanilla PHP, frontend vanilla Javascript. I can copy/paste between vim for more detailed edits, which I'm fine with.

[@devopstoolbox]

Everything sounds perfect expect for the last part. Funny as it may sound, copy pasting in and out of editors is the small friction that’s definitely breaking my habit in the long run and why I’d give up on the idea 🤷

[@re.natillas]

Hey man, loving your videos. I'm facing this weird error whenever I open nvim out of the SecondBrain folder I have set in my iCloud directory as you have: ```  Error 12:56:02 notify.error Obsidian.nvim 'Users/renatillas/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/SecondBrain/Templates' is not a valid directory for templates ``` The Templates folder is in my system with some example.md created there. Do you know what may be happening?

[@devopstoolbox]

Thanks! Not 100% sure but make sure you have the templates dir configured properly in the plugin, here’s mine: github.com/omerxx/dotfiles/blob/master/nvim/lua/plugins/obsidian.lua#L36

[@re.natillas]

@@devopstoolbox Solved! The problem was that I did not put an slash before the obsidian path. Got it working right away

[@niksingh710]

i love neorg and the dev of neorg is so chill and a nice guy i mean he is great. i just feel nvim community doesn't have a good markdown concealer if you feel it and think creating one it will be nice open source project i would love to contribute in that

[@devopstoolbox]

True! The dude is awesome. He also made a nice "getting to know vim" series recently. But the fact that I can't access my files with my mobile and being locked to a rather niche format was problematic for me. I still use it for single-project notes from time to time

[@niksingh710]

@@devopstoolbox don't know why youtube keeps deleting my replies I guess it is because of a url m putting Try calendar.nvim from itchyny It will require gcp project with api access to calender and taska but then Google tasks and Google Calendar works nicely in neovim ......

[@d3lirious]

@@devopstoolboxI'm not so worried about writing my notes from any device but having read access from my phone is essential. Have you considered generating a static website using hugo or pandoc and syncing it using syncthing or GDrive/Dropbox? I know I have :-) Just can't get it to work yet.

[@matthias2447]

Did you consider Logseq as an alternative to Obsidian? Keep up the high quality of your videos - great content!

[@devopstoolbox]

Not really TBH. Does it offer the same suit of features making it accessible via Neovim, sync, Md, and the rest? Always interested in trying new stuff but I fear my second brain is too busy with finding a home rather than functioning as a notebook 😅

[@ky3ow]

@@devopstoolbox logseq is like obsidian with more stuff out of the box, like task management and note queries. I don't know about using it with neovim, some dude made LSP(logseqlsp), you can try to make it work. Logseq has sync feature like obsidian sync, but app is file-based so you can sync with whatever you want. Also logseq has sick pdf annotation tool, i can't find obsidian plugins that are so good for pdf annotation

[@Adrian_Galilea]

@@devopstoolbox I don't think it can, btw every single md implementation is custom, so even tho they are md not necessarily100% compatible, and they way logseq works it isn't compatible in fundamental ways with your way of using md probably.

[@devopstoolbox]

@@Adrian_Galilea True, but the differences are usually subtle and if you make use of the fundamentals it’s generally ok.

[@Adrian_Galilea]

​@@devopstoolbox In the case of logseq and the way it structures things I don't think this applies, which was the original question. I haven't researched this in depth tho, speaking from memory. I've been digging the rabbit hole for a while now, orgmode, asciidoc, markdoc, mdx... way too many options, still none that I fully like, I don't think markdown is enough nowadays, plus I don't like it's syntax, but it's totally fine. Such an interesting topic.

[@isaacvicente]

What a great video! Please, make a setup video: how did you configure all of this? Also, it would be great for non-Apple users on how to sync notes between devices (mainly Linux + Android).

[@devopstoolbox]

Thank you! Are you referring to setting the sync via iCloud? Because that’s really the one bit you don’t see, the rest is in the video and pretty straight forward - after the plugin is installed it needs a workspace and that’s about it. About other sync methods - IIRC it works great with others like google drive so should be similar although I haven’t checked. Give it a go and let me know? The git integration will of course be similar

[@samcassidy2441]

Syncthing has you covered. Completely free P2P folder syncing, works perfectly with android and Linux for obsidian

[@ArcRain]

Does this plugin support link to blocks? For example [[page^text]], when I enter it in this way, it will only prompt to create a new file.

[@devopstoolbox]

So, this `[[foo#^Bar]]` works, but only via obsidian's UI. When I follow links from other notes I'm getting to the top of the note always. I'll explore this a little bit

[@ArcRain]

@@devopstoolbox Thanks😘

[@nicklasnilsson8217]

What keyboard was that in the video? Looked nice

[@devopstoolbox]

ZSA Moonlander

[@vioxify]

I've being using notion, but latelety i have beeb a bit upset with the "input lag" and the time small actions take in this platform (even on a beefy laptop). I'd probabky give this a try.

[@devopstoolbox]

Let me know how it goes !

[@a11aaa11a]

I was shocked that someone who used nvim would use notion, but then you said "obsidian has vim motions so you'll feel right at home" and wow, guess we get very different things out of vim. There's like....wayyy more that I use from vim than that.

[@devopstoolbox]

Vim motions are incredible and adopted by so many tools, as a vim user I’m always on the lookout for solutions that have integrated or at least make the option accessible enough

[@philipcollier7805]

Vim motions in Obsidian are nice. Half the time, though I use Neovim + MarkdownFlow plugin to edit notes in my vault.

[@devopstoolbox]

@@philipcollier7805 same!

[@heroe1486]

​​​@@devopstoolbox He was telling you that vim motions alone weren't sufficient for him and he wouldn't feel home just because a tool had them as an option.

[@devopstoolbox]

@@heroe1486 sure I get that (that’s way most of the video is about actually using Neovim as the note taker) but to me, having vim motions in the UI itself makes a world of difference

[@ekkyarmandi]

AstroJS supports front-matter. So anyone can use the notetaking method of this video and host their own blog.

[@ScottPigeon]

Something bugging me about obsidian isn't it doesn't support anchor links when you export to pdf. Only external links work. So far, it's the best thing I've found though for exporting pdfs with consistent style and code snippets.

[@devopstoolbox]

Interesting, haven’t tried or thought about it.

[@joannapan9729]

How about a system for digital note taking with a stylus? I couldn't fond anything that works on all my devices:( (android phone, e-ink tablet)

[@devopstoolbox]

I gotta be honest - I would LOVE to have a device purely for note taking. Can’t justify the expense and using a paper notebook (the one in the thumbnail)

[@czarnygwlef]

your obsidian looks slick! What sort of templates you use? I assume it's custom, can you share the config?

[@devopstoolbox]

You mean the appearance / colors or the actual templates for notes?

[@czarnygwlef]

@@devopstoolbox appearance / theme / colors :)

[@devopstoolbox]

Ah! I use "Obsidian Nord" as a theme :)@@czarnygwlef

[@siyuanma6075]

7:17 How did you get the cmdline popup?

[@devopstoolbox]

Noice.nvim!

[@sabiqulhoque8394]

Thank you for this video. This has inspired me to use obsidian with emacs using the obsidian.el package. I've been using the two separately and found that obsidian's vim emulation was ok but not perfect.

[@devopstoolbox]

Interesting! You’re the first 🙏🏽 Waiting to hear how it goes!

[@jpdub45]

I got my moonlander last month! Which switches did you get?

[@devopstoolbox]

Cherry blue, but got myself GATERON Milky Yellow Pro now which are miles better

[@4hmza]

If Vim is the chad of IDEs, then Obsidian is the Chad of note taking apps

[@gallo.s.chingon]

can you make a video on using this setup and pushing to your blog/website?

[@devopstoolbox]

The video was supposed to cover the setup :) What are you missing?

[@subbunittala2012]

i attendded the workshop to obsidian of yours ..i'm facing issue on how to open the searched md file using neovim in the windows with out using mouse ....skhd is for mac ..i need the alternative for linux ..i'm currently using WSL (windows subsystem for linux)

[@devopstoolbox]

I havn't personally tested but this one is a windows fork: github.com/LGUG2Z/whkd

[@subbunittala2012]

@@devopstoolbox thanks ...for the reply ..does.the skhd config will woek with minor changes in the dotfiles ?

[@devopstoolbox]

@@subbunittala2012 not 100% what it means but skhd if run as a background service, is watching the config file and adapts to any change immediately

[@ghgoodreau]

Does anyone know what plugin he's using at 7:22 to preview all commands based on what he's typing?

[@devopstoolbox]

Noice.nvim!

[@starmountpictures]

How do you get the cmdline popup to work?

[@devopstoolbox]

Noice.nvim!

[@starmountpictures]

@@devopstoolbox THANK YOU

[@wp6007]

It doesn't matter how old the brain is since everything is made with it in mind.

[@sebastianchmielewski6281]

Vimwiki works in Nvim too

[@devopstoolbox]

It does! I know people are doing great with it, I'm not a fan

[@VikasKumar-ps4rn]

Whats the difference in content between the course you are offering and this video?

[@devopstoolbox]

Great question! The workshop goes deeper into all the principles in the book like PARA and CODE, it includes my structure step-by-step and the way I’m using templates (with the templates themselves) and more things that are hard to pack into a short YT video

[@IMindiffernt]

How do you get obsidian to show keystrokes?

[@devopstoolbox]

When you turn on vim bindings you should see motions in normal mode. If you’re referring to the key strokes on the black box in the video though, this would be Keycastr

[@toluwalaseadams2323]

Please how can i automate the hourly git commits?

[@devopstoolbox]

Install the obsidian git community plugin and set the snapshot to run every 60 minutes. You can find the plugin by browsing from within obsidian but just in case your can find it here: github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git

[@subbunittala2012]

what about "images" or "screenshots" how it is renedered in neovim or obsidian ??

[@devopstoolbox]

No problem with images on Obsidian! Images need your terminal to be able to render them but if you *really* want you can make it work. When I have a lot of visuals I just use obsidians ui

[@subbunittala2012]

@@devopstoolbox thank you , just one more question ...if we move to another page swiftly using neovinm and obsidian (working as renderer) is open in the vertical window...does that action of the moving to another page will be reflected in the obsidian simeltaneous in real time ?

[@danstephenson4940]

anyone know what mech keyboard he's using at 10:48 ?

[@danstephenson4940]

found it - ZSA Moonlander

[@devopstoolbox]

Moonlander ❤️

[@EduardoRodriguezRocks]

What I find odd about obsidian is that is really hard to copy paste commands without having the markdown on the middle

[@devopstoolbox]

WDYM by that?

[@alifarukyucel]

Could you share your .bashrc file? It looks great

[@devopstoolbox]

Of course: dotfiles.omerxx.com :)

[@yugalkhanal6967]

Bro are you using NVChad?

[@devopstoolbox]

Nope :) Started with kickstart.nvim back when I converted to lua, then added lazy. That's pretty much it.

[@blocur]

So which one are you using ?? 2 months ago you made a video about Neorg saying that you're using it for your notes, now its Obsidian ...

[@devopstoolbox]

Yep, mentioned in the beginning of the video! Moved to obsidian for my second brain (from notion). Neorg was, and still is sometimes my engineering notes taking format when working inside a git repo.

[@maximus6884]

Notenook!

[@devopstoolbox]

🫡

[@emersonbarros6815]

0:18 Brazil almost mentioned

[@devopstoolbox]

🇧🇷

[@available_handle]

nvim and my mental resources ...

[@josh6657]

What about inkdrop

[@devopstoolbox]

I love Takuya but I can’t really say how they compare as I haven’t used it. Have you?

[@fun_iqp]

It's fantastic, I dumped Notion and any other similar crap months ago, and I won't ever EVER go back to that crappy f3"#$%"# haha

[@devopstoolbox]

😅

[@TheScrewdriver09]

Just one little thing, if you are an engineer Who has no knowledge of LATEX Code and Wants to add complex formulas [ usually calculus ] to his notes seamlessly, you would shit Bricks and jump though hoops to get anything done with obsidian. I understand that having your notes linked visually and spatially can be very useful but for mathematicians, physicists, Mechanical & Electrical Engineers who need this the most, but do not possess LATEX skills OBSIDIAN is USELESS, it just does not come any anywhere close to writing on paper.

[@devopstoolbox]

Yep, makes sense. I understand it’s not for everyone, as someone who works in software and trying to build a second brain to support all aspects of life including work, it suits me very well. For my sketches and diagrams I have a plugin that integrates Excalidraw. Not doing anything complicated like you as far as visualization go. As with every tool - there isn’t one size fits all (surely obsidian doesn’t fit everyone’s style). YMMV

[@amallukose3763]

Quarto is fantastic Plz look into that

[@princeofexcess]

Vim is sadly not fully supported. gf doesnt seem to be working macros are broken. I use it but i miss the neovim experience.

[@devopstoolbox]

Why not Neovim then? You could also always just go raw but definitely having the entire thing around makes life nicer

[@princeofexcess]

@devopstoolbox I use neovim for coding. I like the markup experience for notes. Do you have any plug-ins you recommend?

[@devopstoolbox]

@@princeofexcess I’m actually working on a video covering these as we speak. Don’t have a conclusion yet but stay tuned :)

[@shenghongzhong]

The video is good but i got lost in your flow. You used obsidian with vim support Then no any introduction to how you use neovim in obsidian???

[@devopstoolbox]

I spoke about the process and how I can use vimrc for the motions, and when I want the full Neovim environment I use the plugin which is also covered, but honestly it’s docs are doing much better job than me at explaining. If this is about my file structure you check out learn.omerxx.com But I’m not sure that was it

[@jim_fear_]

Yeah, it is superior indeed, but is there any way for some dumbass to learn new things and take notes/documentation that not require 6months of learning markdown or other crazy stuff, just ready to work in a day or two with no so steep learning curve? I dont have 6 months to learn taking notes, becouse i need notes now :(

[@devopstoolbox]

Ahhh come on it takes 20 min to get markdown not 6 months :) If you just want to take notes just take them! Use notion or the likes if you want linking and it can serve you perfectly. If you like writing within nvim and use it as an editor you can have a perfect setup with it alone. I made this in case you feel it's relevant, taking you all the way in 90 min: learn.omerxx.com

[@Otromundista]

you lost me at the first acronym

[@90damyan]

I wonder who was first. It seems to be exactly the same setup for both guys ;) kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHqqe2uEia15as0

[@devopstoolbox]

Haha yep I know this one :) I released mine about a month prior and even commented on his video! I love his content

[@90damyan]

@@devopstoolbox "great minds think alike"? :) cheers

[@NamasenITN]

Oh no! You completely misunderstood the story of the "grid cells" by the Moser Nobel prize awardees. Was it intentional?

[@devopstoolbox]

200K+ viewers and you’re literally the only one who noticed… The article mentioned was a mistake made by the editor. The intention wasn’t meant to mention cells firing when navigating open fields, of course, but how our mind prefers grid designs and thinking (relational data structures, sheets etc)

[@twilight9615]

emacs is life

[@devopstoolbox]

😎

[@d3lirious]

Not to start a flame war (I'm a nvim user) but if you want a full-featured decade old, feature rich, text-based second brain system ... they have it. No question. Would consider switching for that use-case only.

[@twilight9615]

​@@d3lirious I'm emacs user for 2 years and I use it only for org mode and note taking using and I prefer it over nvim for note taking use case because of the org mode features and GTD system which was meant and designed to use in emacs unlike neovim, which has org mode knock off packages like neorg, which limits org mode by 90% of features, and I also prefer the emacs-style keybinds because to type something I don't like to have multiple modes, I prefer having my ctrl key next to my 'a' key. org mode always worked without any issues in emacs cuz, as opposed to neovim.​

[@buntun3670]

and with doom emacs - you have vim motions by default - I did the switch about a year ago @@d3lirious

[@lorenzomizushal3980]

Searching for more efficient ways of taking notes they'll never see again. Why do people do this?

[@devopstoolbox]

Well, for the low chance this isn’t trolling - exactly for that reason: seeing my notes again! Which I have 😎

[@volodymyrkilchenko]

but obsidian isnt FOSS...

[@devopstoolbox]

Ok, but? It does its job well and for the most part - for free. The markdown is yours, so they can’t really take your data away or lock it somehow… the only thing they can do is start charging for their free tier which leaves you with the freedom to leave. That said, over time, I started preferring many other paid services where the author / owner is dedicated to it doing it commercially/ full time. A paid service isn’t necessarily bad. Regarding the source code being closed or open - as long as it’s plug able I’m good.

[@raskolnikov3799]

I like and use Obsidian, but that’s def the biggest downside for me. It’s crazy to me that it’s not open source yet

[@devopstoolbox]

@@raskolnikov3799 How is it a downside other than the obvious reasons? I mean, for daily use and practical purposes you get a free product, with one paid feature that you can easily replace on your own.

[@raskolnikov3799]

@@devopstoolbox haha I think I mostly just mean the obvious reasons. I don’t really care if it were to cost money, I just have a hard time trusting a proprietary app with so much information (a lot of ppl use Obsidian as a ‘second-brain’, entrusting it with basically every detail about their lives and research.

[@ooogabooga5111]

How much did you pay for the views bro.

[@devopstoolbox]

😂 If I just had the cheat code for KZbin to do that every time…

[@bb_poison]

Are normies just discovering markdown or what

[@JulianInsua]

My only beef with obsidian.nvim is that it doesn't allow linking to titles in other notes which obsidian itself does. Great intro to the plugin! Stealing some of that for myself 😊

[@devopstoolbox]

I totally missed that! Maybe worth letting the author know… And thank you 🙏🏽

[@JulianInsua]

@@devopstoolbox My pleasure! Your content helped me improve my setup 10x

[@BobiBobObana]

cherrytree (linux, windows, macos?) best nouts editor

[@devopstoolbox]

A bit raw to my taste, but we're not all the same ;)

[@LinuxForLife]

Why using this when u have obsidian that is amazing ? I do not get it.

[@devopstoolbox]

But I am using obsidian… You can’t enjoy every bit of Neovim within obsidian. You don’t have Neovims plugins and surrounding. Most short text I write in obsidian and longer ones I use Neovim directly on the obsidian vault