Hello :)
There isn't any community about note taking where I could post my question and no this is not a "What's the best note taking app" question...
I'm getting tired of maintaining my Obsidian vaults... Somehow I'm fighting to get it right and obsidian seems to fight back. I've got 4 vaults of the same subject and I always end to make a mess out of it and make a fresh one... Also my notes a scattered in all direction and the more my knowledge base grows the less I seem to be able to find something...
This is probably a me problem rather than Obsidian issue. The way I'm taking notes are not compatible with Obsidian. IMO Obsidian's defaults configuration are bad and visually not appealing. Sure customization in Obsidian is "endless" but digging in the HTML code to change the style or adding plugins to somehow get something visually appealing seems more like a chore than actually taking notes.
Here I'm again roaming the web for a Note taking app the could fit my needs and after trying a lot of different apps (please don't suggest the already well known apps... I have probably already tried it...) I couldn't find something that fits my workflow.
The only one that looked great and simple was osmosnote but it isn't maintained anymore. There's also dendron but it's in maintenance mode. So there goes the only ones that looked promising from my perspective.
After giving it more thoughts, I was looking for something that could:
- Keep my scripts updated
- Simple markdown text
- No database
- Local first
- Open source
- If webapp self-hostable
- Back-linking
- Keep track of changes
Except for back-linking, a self-hosted Forgejo with git seems to fit all my needs, however I'm not sure if this is the right tool and I'm scared that in the long run I will mess it up the same way I did with Obsidian.
Does anyone here has some experience and is taking notes that way? I'm really curious on your experience and maybe your thoughts if it's feasible ? Practical ?
Please don't suggest Org.mode or Emacs ! They look very cool and very promising but they are WAY to much overkill ! And they also implement a totally new way of taking notes... Relearning on how to take notes will probably give me the last hit on abandoning to document anything !
Thank you for any helpful input !
I use obsidian, forgejo, renovate bot and some hugo websites as part of my knowledge garden. I am very happy with my setup, but i think "overkill" probably would describe what i have built. it has organically grown, and some less technical folks in my life follow a slimmed down version of this. I keep a note called _focus that i go to when i am overwhelmed. It contains my "seven W's", which are links to separate notes which are purposefully kept simple
Whenever i am overwhelmed or feeling like my process is not working, this focus note helps keep me on track. It seems like you may benefit from a similar process.
Forgejo is great! it helps me keep track of different software i use and follow. It is where i store my obsidian vault (i only use 1). Git lets me sync across devices, keeps history (which gives me confidence to press delete which is very important), and i can use pre-commit hooks to run vale to enforce some limited linking behavior. ie some terms i want to ensure i also setup as a back link any time i write them down. It is also somewhat trivial to have bots interact with the markdown files and commit.
My main hugo site contains recipes. it is a submodule now, but was just part of the same repo at first. Another is a manual for how to build my home lab from scratch. I consider these sites part if my "Express" in Tiego Forte's CODE method. CI builds and deploys them, and then i scan a qr code i put on my fridge to jump to the recipes website quickly. I can also (manually) print the sites to keep a meat space copy of this crucial and well structured info.
Renovate keeps some stuff up to date. Specifically it keeps hugo/its dockerfile and the standalone python/go apps i have written for myself and others (and stored in separate repos) up to date. I do keep codesnippets in my obsidian vault, which renovate does not help with because those are small one/two liners.
What else... imo a monorepo is better for retrieving information than if you split it out. Forgejo search does not work across repos, and imo even if you used a provider that does, it is always more complex to have to look in many places vs 1. I would advise you try putting all your personal scripts in one place rather than spread them around. I only give my apps a seperate repo when i am ready to share them with others and i need that clear boundary for access.
I also recommend writing down things in your daily note first, and only moving or putting structure around it after you need to retrieve it. Basically reduce the friction with entering info in (also remember to summarize info, dont dump whole articles and such in) and allow yourself grace and time to retrieve it.
Your comment made me curious of forgejo, so I looked it up. At first glance it just seems like self-hosted project repository. What kind of benefits does it give, in terms of note taking?
directly for note taking? none. I find it helpful from a more holistic "knowledge garden" or "second brain" perspective because so much of the info I collect and act upon is related to code. I can store git repos that I find interesting and add tags to help me find that random FOSS software that I saw a lemmy post about months ago. I have a few search urls that make use of these tags in my obsidian vault (which is stored on the same forjgeo instance) to help me find all the software I have collected related to my interests or specific projects. I use continuous integration/deployment to keep the hugo sites up to date and enforce some rules with vale. It is also generally helpful to have my own copy of software just in case it gets pulled from a public repository.
I see, I was wondering what git repo functionality has to do with note-taking. Thanks a lot!