Obsidian Canvas uses a new JSON-based file format that we have open-sourced under MIT license. You can see the spec here:<p><a href="https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-api/blob/master/canvas.d.ts">https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-api/blob/master/canva...</a><p>Just like all other files in Obsidian, canvas files are your own and local to your device. You're still linking to your own Markdown files which are just as future-proof as ever.<p>We decided to create the .canvas format because there wasn't any pre-existing canvas-type format we could find that fit our priorities around longevity, readability, interoperability and extensibility.<p>The .canvas format is designed to be as easy to parse as possible. We've already seen a few plugins take advantage of it, and we hope that more tools will become available that can use the .canvas format.
As evidenced by a link to AlternativeTo on their own site, this space has a lot (145+) of competition [0]. At some level, I worry about using things much more complex than a text file, because of portability and longevity. It's enough of a pain transitioning between Google and Microsoft (and back) every few years based on various jobs.<p>I have files from the late 1980's that I can still read, but only with Libre Office because Apple's supplied apps can't read old MacWrite files.<p>Some people swear by OneNote or Notion or Keep or various mind mapping software, but keeping things cross platform and simple is a challenge. I was never an Evernote person, but it sounds like that turned into a bit of a debacle. These tools work for now, but will they work 5 or 10 years from now?<p>[0] <a href="https://alternativeto.net/software/obsidian/" rel="nofollow">https://alternativeto.net/software/obsidian/</a>
One thing that's really missing for me from Obsidian is a view similar to that of Google Keep. Like sometimes I want to drop a small note "my stuff is in locker 2130" or "Look into Open Library <> WikiData linking percentage" and then easily be able to see it again in a few of all notes most recent.<p>A thread on Reddit give me a small hope this update may do that but I don't think so.<p>PS: I'm aware of the daily notes viewer, and that's what I currently use for most of these situations. But it doesn't help with having a simple way to see contents of all recently created notes.<p>Edit: this is something I mostly want for mobile
I just shifted from Logseq to Obsidian over the last couple of weeks. One of my reasons for doing so is that while Logseq does technically store your notes as local markdown files, there's so much added on top of that, that I can't really open my notes folder in Typora/[markdown editor of choice] and have a smooth experience reading my notes. The underlying format might be open, but there was still lock-in. Obsidian seems much better for that - there'll always be a tradeoff between features and portability, but I do prefer Obsidian's balance.<p>I wrote a very rough Python script to help me move my graph over to Obsidian - if anyone else is in the same boat, feel free to try it out <a href="https://github.com/NishantTharani/LogSeqToObsidian">https://github.com/NishantTharani/LogSeqToObsidian</a>
I've been concerned about Obsidian sync. IIRC, data goes to AWS servers but where does it go from there?<p>From reading the Obsidian website, they seem a tiny company. However, it is unclear where they are based and, therefore, what legal obligations they are operating under. What more, Obsidian has so far avoided the levels of compliance that allows for adoption by big businesses.<p>I love me some Obsidian but I'm mindful that, using their services, I just don't know how my data is being treated.<p>I realize vaults are encrypted locally. However, do we know that our vault secret isn't shared with Obsidian? Sure, it's (mostly?) an Electron app. But just how transparent and accountable is Obsidian about their operations?
Coupled with a dynamic plugins ecosystem, this is going to be a game changer (even in an already somewhat crowded market [1])<p>For example, (future) plugins for advanced filtering and automatic layouts [2] will certainly help manipulate very large canvases.<p>[1] Most of it is online/collaborative (<a href="https://infinitecanvas.tools/gallery/" rel="nofollow">https://infinitecanvas.tools/gallery/</a>) though so it is not exactly the same.<p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbLZvHDPqI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbLZvHDPqI</a>
This looks like Obsidian's first move away from using some dialect of markdown? The .canvas files appear to be human readable json, but certainly not as readable as markdown. I'm excited to try this out, but I hope this isn't a trend towards using proprietary formats.
I am amazed how Obsidian adds new features that are exactly what I was looking for. I already liked using it with the Kanban plugin, and I think adding such support for graph/diagram-like notes is the last piece of the puzzle for many users.
While the feature itself was interesting, adding such a feature made alarm in my head. I don't think this is necessarily a good trend. Please Obsidian needs to be very, very cautious about adding such large features.<p>I won't forget why I, and many others, gave up Evernote. It did too much, not too little.
I would kill for some sort of integration between Remarkable and Obsidian. Both are excellent tools and the Remarkable is great for sketching on the go. I just wish I could keep both in sync somehow.
Feels nice and solid!<p>One thing I immediately wanted was key commands and fast clicking to create cards like FigJam <a href="https://www.figma.com/figjam/" rel="nofollow">https://www.figma.com/figjam/</a> This is an amazing tool for brainstorming and collaborating during meetings.<p>It looks like we can't assign key commands for the canvas actions yet. That will make it much faster to work with.<p>Imagine:
- C then click to place a card. This would go into text edit mode inside the card right away. (currently it gets snaggled up with VIM mode requiring me to go into insert)
- I then click to place an image, then the asset search dialog opens
- N then click to place a Note, then note search dialog opens<p>When you are brainstorming you want to add cards really quick. Deleting, moving, cloning should all be really immediate. I'm sure this can be easily achieved.<p>Thank you so much for Obsidian!
This is fantastic development, something that really makes a difference in how you can use Obsidian. I got notified from LogSeq group that they are also introducing whiteboard, so clearly innovation is happening at really good pace.<p>There is more room for innovation, as these "thinking spaces" are still inflexible and I expect to see more good things. Obsidian has huge advantage that is open and you are never scared to lose your work in somebody's walled garden.<p>To me, this is more important then any VR or anything like this as it helps us use computers to think and collaborate, augment our abilities. What were original reason for making computers, not just enslaving our attention in dopamine loop.
Is there anyone else's brain doesn't work well with canvas like mine? It looks unorganized to me with "group" and "arrow". Unlike structural design like we are used to on daily basis like "order" (left-to-right + top-to-bottom), "index" (several kind of nav). When I look at this type of canvas my brain is confused where to start, what's the order because it looks like a mesh. I guess this is for popular brains?
This is cool, but the killer feature I'm looking for is a UI that matches the functionality of grit <a href="https://github.com/climech/grit">https://github.com/climech/grit</a>. Grit itself isn't particularly functional for every-day use, but its write-up in the readme is excellent and the DAG hasn't been realized by any existing task tracking software (as far as I'm aware).
Obsidian Team, help me out here. What are some actual use cases for canvas? Specifically, how does this enhance the user's ability to record, synthesize, and recall their ideas? I am a huge Obsidian fan, I fully understand what canvas does and how it's used. But I don't get the point. I see the team devoting lots of energy to this feature, so I assume I'm missing something.
I honestly cannot grasp how is it possible for the Obsidian team to consistently release such high quality software on a regular basis, almost for free and with such a small team.<p>Just incredible, and if anybody from Obsidian reads that, you have my utmost respect.
I really like <a href="https://kinopio.club/" rel="nofollow">https://kinopio.club/</a>. This canvas is definitely a step in that direction. I hope they (or a plugin) support a feature parity too
I really don’t get Obsidian and why HN seems so obsessed with it. Can anyone please enlighten me? Why do they call these notes “a second brain”? How is this “a new way of thinking”? What are you people even writing that requires this? It just seems silly, honestly. What am I missing?
That’s fantastic. Are use obsidian somewhat casually, but this could turn it into a bit more of a daily driver.<p>I just wish that their sync service was less expensive, say $30, instead of $100. Because that’s the difference between being willing to pay for sync vs using any number of computer sync services (be a dropbox, Google Drive, or anything else) to get synchronization that is good enough that committing to either $10 a month or $100 a year just doesn’t seem worth it for the incremental gain.<p>I don’t know, it’s a difficult balance to strike between customers that need it enough to pay their current prices, and more casual users a bit on the borderline like me who are no power users enough to pay that much. Price elasticity is not an exact science and it’s entirely possible they have already filed in the optimum amount for it.<p>Although I wonder if there might be room for a tier that was quota driven. For example a certain amount of megabytes of data or number of notes or some other combination of factors, and charge around three dollars a month.<p>Basically I would like to give them more money to use their sink service, but I might be in too small of a user group for it to be worth it for them to try to target me and others like me with a specific type of plan.
Dear Obsidian team.<p>Thank you from my heart. As a designer, I have visual thinking, which requires clear representation of relationships between information objects.<p>No more fiddling with mind-map apps which cannot offer this level of integration with my vault.<p>Now I finally have focused workflow.<p>Thank you again.
The only thing I am missing from Obsidian is PDF annotating as Logseq has it. Basically, you open a pdf and whatever you highlight you can copy as a link and put on any page. Then, clicking the link opens the pdf back up at that spot.
I've been wanting a tool like this forever - ideally you can enter/exit these scopes/contexts so that everything above fades away. I like to think about problems in these scopes and then have the ability to "zoom out" to collect/link things, without disturbing the internal contents. Kinda like the C4/icepanel stuff but without so much pomp and circumstance.
That is fantastic! I've never been satisfied with Draw.io at a cross platform option for this after getting so comfortable with OmniGraffle in my OSX days. Can't wait to take this for a spin.
Tangent: the Dataview plugin for Obsidian makes it possible to query both the data and metadata of your notes using both an SQL variant and JavaScript and render the results in all kinds of ways. Powerful stuff.<p>Whenever a product allows for end-user extension using actual code it always unlocks so much potential. Even if it’s just for the power users.
With the caveat that I'm very far from a power user, I'm struggling to picture how I'd use this. Not as in I think it's a bad idea, but rather it looks cool but I believe I don't quite understand it.<p>I think the following is an example of an intended use case? Can anyone confirm/deny?<p>For my work related notes, there's some hierarchical structure to them even though it's hard to see that at the note level. There's all the projects for my work, and then for each project there are notes, and sometimes those notes have notes, etc. I think what Canvas would do here is let me create a visual board for all of the notes related to my work that'd make it easier for me to visualize the whole, drill in/out in particular areas, etc? Does that sound right?
I really wish the UI worked like excalidraw, the interface is seamless and something Obsidian could take ideas from. the end result could have been an SVG which makes it compatible with every other software out there.
This is awesome! I only recently started using Obsidian and have been liking it a lot, especially since there's even a (rough but usable) drawing/sketching plugin so I can kind of get the same experience as I used to have with One Note. This Canvas thing doesn't seem like it has stylus support or anything like that, but it's still super useful.<p>Also, I noticed that the flatpak version is currently outdated. Anyone know when that will get updated?
A lot of notes apps seem to be adding some type of visual note-taking (is that the right term?)<p>Logseq now has a whiteboard feature that is similarly powerful.
One thing that bugs me with Obsidian: I cannot create a link to a specific obsidian vault on desktop (Windows). The thing is I often take small notes and opening an Obsidian (or any other app) is usually too much work for me. Instead, I prefer to create file shortcuts on desktop to just double-click them later when I want to access the data.<p>The thing is Obsidian vault is not represented by a recognizable file; it's a folder. So there is nothing to click at to automatically open it in Obsidian and consequently there is no way to create a shortcut on desktop that would open the specific Obsidian vault.<p>Yes, I know, I can launch Obsidian app and start from there but it is too much hustle when you have several frequently used vaults.<p>Also, the standard F2 shortcut for the usual item renaming does not work and it adds friction.
Just started using obsidian a couple of days ago and am amazed at how awesome it is. Tbh there were only 2 things I thought were missing for my particular workflow and this was one of them, so yer am super happy that it's now been implemented :)<p>For reference the other is the ability to view and edit any regular text based file (i.e. .R / .cpp / .py) within the client rather than having to open a separate editor.<p>Must admit am super impressed at how much the team has achieved and how high quality everything is given how small the company is.<p>Though must admit, I do miss the ability to do literal space formatting of notes like I could do in onenote but that's more of a markdown / html limitation than a obsidian issue.
I was searching for something like this a few months ago, when i saw an srtist creating endless zoomable-art by using "infinte canvas".<p>But this polished solution tops any of my expectations.<p>You've put so much effort in it - just wow! And perfectly presented.<p>We owe you something for this!
I've been using Obsidian and enjoying it quite a bit - thank you for making this, and for making it freely available!<p>I figured that I've give this a spin but can't find it in my local install of Obsidian. I've got 'auto update' turned on (so I _think_ I'm up to date) and I can't find Canvas listed in the Core or Community plugins in the Settings panel within Obsidian. FWIW I'm using the "Commander" plugin to customize my left sidebar (so it might be hidden from me if it's supposed to show up automatically).<p>I must be missing something - how do I get access to this awesome and cool new feature? :)
Obsidian has given me everything I had dreamed of in terms of organizing tools, and now this is the cherry on top! I tried so many mindmap software (many paid!) and they all fell short 20 different ways, this is great to see!
Marginally related rant.<p>Why on earth is the macOS download a 153 MiB ZIP file that expands into 363 MiB of stuff? Why does every Electron app have to come with its own copy of Electron? I miss the times when Windows came on seven 1.44 MB floppies and you did not even need all of them because they mostly contain drivers for hardware you didn't have. Actually I don't miss the time, swapping floppies was annoying.<p>But really, is the amount of space, bandwidth and clock cycles we carelessly waste really justified by the gain in productivity and achievable complexity?
OK, this is nice. I've tried (and failed) to use Obsidian in the past because I have 8000-9000 Markdown files with frontmatter metadata and nested folders that I just can't get it to work with (they are typically called index.md in a nested folder structure, with separate sections and media assets in the same folder), but I also use Xmind extensively for my personal projects, so this has tickled my fancy.<p>As long as I don't end up with a single folder with hundreds of files, this seems interesting enough to check out.
I'm going off on a tangent, but while we have you markdown geeks here: does anyone have any experience editing it with Vim? Do you recommend any plugins or similar?<p>The only real problem I have with markdown is that if I have editor soft-wraps, Vim doesn't work that well (I can't properly navigate soft-wrap lines, because there is a mismatch between what I see and what the editor understands as a line). If I do hard-wraps (new-lines), then the doc loses copy-paste portability to something like Docs.<p>Anyone know how to solve this?
Very cool. I was just listening to a podcast recently from one of the Heroku founders who is working on an iOS (for now) infinite canvas app too.<p>I'd love to hear from anyone that has used infinite canvas in their workflow and found good use cases. Does it work well for teams collaborating on projects? I worry it could just turn into a more difficult to navigate wiki that's organized in a scatterbrained way--like it only makes sense to the person who made the most stuff in it.
I tried Obsidian last year but wasn't enough of a value add for me to make the switch from my normal note taking program.<p>Now I have to give it another go. This looks amazing.
My new year resolution is to move from Notion to Obsidian. I found Notion unreliable in some situations and tbh, I'm not using the mobile application at all.
This is something I'd love to see built into the OS. I don't want multiple desktops as much as I want the ability to zoom around a giant desktop.
This looks like finally an alternative to OneNote. Since every page in OneNote is like an infinite page or canvas, I use it at work to dump info freely anywhere.<p>The tabs and folder interface helps organizing those notes. But now when my notes are increasing OneNote don't offer a lot to organize these. Its bad at linking the notes too.<p>This looks a very good alternative with open specs. No other tool had this kind of canvas like OneNote before.
Very nice! Happy to see this evolution coming from Obsidian, it seems like a more natural way to organize concepts and ideas.<p>One question: It seems it could be troublesome to have to move / resize everything when adding a new card once a canvas is already quite busy. Is there something like auto-layout in the work, to handle these situations? (like to automatically re-layout cards and groups once adding a new item in between)
This kind of feature would obviously not be able to be implemented into a (easily readable) markdown file, so, as Obsidian is willing to go to the proprietary open format route, could someone please consider adding usable tables as a feature? Even simple stuff like multiline cells would greatly increase the usability of the tool. The current table experience even with the community plugins is... not ideal.
You know, this actually seems like an interesting opportunity to use this locally as a superpowered CMS for my statically generated site. I’d have to figure out how to create a linkage that can be translated to my Next-based resource URLs, but at least this would give me more to work with than just my text editor to manage my markdown stuff.
I've been doing mind mapping using excalidraw, but it lacked an easy way and visual way to link cards. This Canvas solution might simplify things a bit, though I wonder how much "freeform", unconstrained doodling I will be able to do using this. At the current point using simple excalidraw diagram might still be preferable.
Is it possible to draw in Obsidian (with a tablet/touchscreen)? I’d really like a digital app for algorithms work but so much of it is based on doodling graphs and automata and diagrams. I really like the idea of progressive annotation of such doodles with a note-taking app, but I need to be able to doodle in the first place.
Obsidian is by far my favorite note taking app of all time. I always try new ones for specific stuff to see how each can improve my productivity daily, but I always stick with it for all my most important things. This canvas product being opensourced and migrateable is great specially for users that try different things like me.
Cool, can't wait to try it out. Would love to move to obsidian fully, as of now I'm also using Joplin for my main set of notes.<p>btw this plugin really reminds me of a piece of software that I had seen here sometime. An infinite zooming/nesting of notes was the main concept of it, does that ring a bell for anyone?
I'll have to see how much this affects or benefits my workflow, but I'm testing it against my Bachelors Capstone Project, and it seems really cool to be able to create an Overview that visually creates relations between my various notes relating to the project.<p>Very cool! I love Obsidian more every day.
Looks like something I've looked for for a long time! Will def try it out.<p>Can also recommend the excellent app Pureref, which is an infinite canvas for pictures. Does not compete with this though, different use cases.<p><a href="https://www.pureref.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.pureref.com</a>
I've heard about Obsidian for a while but never got around to using it. Does anyone know if I can take notes and highlight on a web page and include that onto canvas? That's what I'm looking for, notes close to the source as possible.
Wow I didn’t know I could love obsidian more. I’ve been using kinopio.club for this and obsidian for notes. Being able to plot stuff visually really helps me plan long term (especially helpful for my ADHD)<p>Excited to see it is JSON too! Cannot wait to try :)
This has convinced me to try obsidian at work. I already use plaintext markdown as daily journaling. So the migration was as painful as appointing my journal folder as a vault, Let’s see if I can make good use of the canvas.
Is it strange that they made a whole bunch of thick clients for what should have been a browser based product?<p>Least they made a Linux client, good on em.<p>Edit. Read more, I get the clients now. Wow. Its so rare to see products think about not locking in.
if you want try something for capturing your ideas on mobile, you can try TinyUX.<p><a href="https://www.tinyux.app" rel="nofollow">https://www.tinyux.app</a><p>It's grid based, low-fi, for visual ideas like wireframes.
It's on all your devices and of course: mobile
What a thing you did crate here is astonishing nad will make me think for a while. In the while i will make use of this. Thank you all <3
Similar to Scapple
<a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview" rel="nofollow">https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview</a>
I wonder if Apple will try and integrate Apple Notes (I know you can already add text but I mean existing notes in the other native app) in the new Freeform app to try and compete with this
Any self-hosted sync options? i.e. Run my own service in docker container, and provide my own database, be it a blob storage like S3, R2, Backblaze or SQLite?
How could you do this all this time, me not noticing?!
THIS is the interconnected mapping for humans i had in my spare room of braincells, that were still alive at that time.<p>It is okay because living in a sim brings peace to the NPCs. How can one or a group progress so smooth an idea.<p>Just one thing: how fast this app starts is a less of a blink.<p>Speechless. Congrats and i step down on my knees for this.<p>When Sony says: it's not a game -then this is: not a app in the ordinary way. Needs no praise or downvote. This is something completly different.<p>'Got to remind myself: breathe in - and breathe out.
its gotten too much love <3<p>```
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A true gamechanger for me. The way you all did thing - it drives me speechless. I need my time to step up to it. Thank you, brothers and sisters of mercy!