Obsidian is one of my favorite software applications.
First of all, it's totally free! Yes, there's an option to donate to the Developers, but everything is totally unlocked (except for some of the extensions you can add-on, but we'll get to that in a moment).
It's fast, and supports Markdown formatting, which means that I don't need to access a menu or tool bar to bold something. It has table support as well, which is a bonus that even Notepad doesn't offer... at least, I don't think it does?
Speaking of formatting, you can totally control the look and feel of your editing using Themes. There's a PDF export function, and you can enhance it with one of the extensions (totally free). What's more is that you can totally customize the formatting of your PDF output using CSS! And this affects every document inside your Vault (directory of files).
There's internal and external hyperlinking. You can literally create your own Wiki! And you can (apparently) include entire PDF documents (like books), and Obsidian can act as a master database for all the information that you've assembled-- kinda like that Ancients Database thingy in the television series Stargate Atlantis.
Let's talk about extensions, because there are hundreds of them, and a fairly active online community to get help with Obsidian itself as well. There are so many add-ons that I use, and I haven't even truly scratched the surface of what Obsidian is capable of! Like, I don't even remember is image support is native to Obsidian or not, but I can insert images into my document without any issues.
I don't have to worry about remembering to Save my document. It's automatically saved after every keystroke. Obsidian works on every platform (that I'm aware of), Windows, Iphone, Andorid, I think even Linux! And you can sync between devices (that's a feature you get when you "donate" to the Developers-- or you can just use another free utility called, FolderSync.
Let's talk about workflow.
You've got your Vault, which is nothing more than just a directory/folder of files. You can operate multiple Vaults, each one is self contained. Creating a new Note is as simple as clicking on the New button. Type a title, and that's the name of your file. You can also create sub-folders inside your Vault. Now you've got a hierarchy to organize your work! You can drag Notes from one folder to any other just by long-pressing and dragging (yeah, I know, I'm flip-flopping between the Windows and Android interfaces). You can have multiple documents open using a tabbed interface, on the Desktop, you can view these documents side-by-side (I'm not sure about more than three, but my huge monitor supports at least three). I find this is really helpful to keep my story consistent, because I write in fragments, snippets of scenes and I bounce back and forth between characters, plots and whatnot.
Remember how I said you can create your own Wiki by using Internal Links? Another feature that's built-in to the core of Obsidian is the BackLinks function. While I haven't used this yet, I could create a web of inter-related documents and just quickly click on a link shown on the right-most panel. As I develop my story more, I'll be adding this information so I can quickly jump back and forth as needed.
If you're interested in Obsidian, you can find it here.
First of all, it's totally free! Yes, there's an option to donate to the Developers, but everything is totally unlocked (except for some of the extensions you can add-on, but we'll get to that in a moment).
It's fast, and supports Markdown formatting, which means that I don't need to access a menu or tool bar to bold something. It has table support as well, which is a bonus that even Notepad doesn't offer... at least, I don't think it does?
Speaking of formatting, you can totally control the look and feel of your editing using Themes. There's a PDF export function, and you can enhance it with one of the extensions (totally free). What's more is that you can totally customize the formatting of your PDF output using CSS! And this affects every document inside your Vault (directory of files).
There's internal and external hyperlinking. You can literally create your own Wiki! And you can (apparently) include entire PDF documents (like books), and Obsidian can act as a master database for all the information that you've assembled-- kinda like that Ancients Database thingy in the television series Stargate Atlantis.
Let's talk about extensions, because there are hundreds of them, and a fairly active online community to get help with Obsidian itself as well. There are so many add-ons that I use, and I haven't even truly scratched the surface of what Obsidian is capable of! Like, I don't even remember is image support is native to Obsidian or not, but I can insert images into my document without any issues.
I don't have to worry about remembering to Save my document. It's automatically saved after every keystroke. Obsidian works on every platform (that I'm aware of), Windows, Iphone, Andorid, I think even Linux! And you can sync between devices (that's a feature you get when you "donate" to the Developers-- or you can just use another free utility called, FolderSync.
Let's talk about workflow.
You've got your Vault, which is nothing more than just a directory/folder of files. You can operate multiple Vaults, each one is self contained. Creating a new Note is as simple as clicking on the New button. Type a title, and that's the name of your file. You can also create sub-folders inside your Vault. Now you've got a hierarchy to organize your work! You can drag Notes from one folder to any other just by long-pressing and dragging (yeah, I know, I'm flip-flopping between the Windows and Android interfaces). You can have multiple documents open using a tabbed interface, on the Desktop, you can view these documents side-by-side (I'm not sure about more than three, but my huge monitor supports at least three). I find this is really helpful to keep my story consistent, because I write in fragments, snippets of scenes and I bounce back and forth between characters, plots and whatnot.
Remember how I said you can create your own Wiki by using Internal Links? Another feature that's built-in to the core of Obsidian is the BackLinks function. While I haven't used this yet, I could create a web of inter-related documents and just quickly click on a link shown on the right-most panel. As I develop my story more, I'll be adding this information so I can quickly jump back and forth as needed.
If you're interested in Obsidian, you can find it here.
