Are you happy with Dynalist?

[DavidTech]

I’m less and less happy:
I use it for noting code, snippets and ideas:

• the search is terrible, with two possibles search by document or entire dynalist
• the code format does not work, I lose formatting in python and I begin to be fed up with it
• the endless sublists does not work well to organize subjects, because the search is so bad it is hard to quick find topics

For me the bad support for code snippets and search becomes a deal breaker.

[Alex_Avenarius]

I’m in the process of switching from Dynalist to Shida’s & Erica’s newer creation, Obsidian, right now. The search is a whole lot more robust there compared to Dynalist, and code formatting should be flawless as well. You should definitely give Obsidian a good look.

Erica & Shida have said Obsidian is not meant to replace Dynalist, but I find that, in fact, for almost everything, it can replace it, and so I’m making the switch.

The piece of Dynalist functionality I currently find the toughest to replicate in Obsidian (or replace with other, but equivalent functionality) is to-do tasks management. (Something that Erica used to warn in this forum Dynalist was never meant to do anyway!) Obsidian, being a conglomerate of plain-text/Markdown files, as opposed to Dynalist’s database approach, will force you to re-think the way you capture your notes, but I find that it can eventually be done in Obsidian in ways similar to or even superior to Dynalist. And, the Obsidian Publish add-on is just fabulous – and there’s no such thing in Dynalist.

Paying $300 per year for both Obsidian (Sync & Publish) and Dynalist is too hefty for me, however, and so, with regret, I’ll in all likelihood have to cancel my annual Dynalist subscription when it comes up next on February 11th. (If there was at least some Dynalist discount for active Obsidian Sync & Publish subscribers, I might keep the Dynalist subscription, but paying the full $100 per year for software that’s no longer being developed? Nope.)

[David10]

If you’re looking for a ‘second brain’, nothing beats Personal Brain (at https://www.thebrain.com) IMO. Rather than trying to describe it here, I would encourage readers to go to the website and explore it.

I use it in combination with Dynalist.

[Alex_Avenarius]

Nope, I ain’t, and never have been, “looking for a second brain”. I suffer from so much work overload I sometimes have trouble locating my first brain, you know.

Or, to put it differently: I was convinced that for the last 5 years, Dynalist was my “second brain”. Hands down the most important software in my life!

Yet here I am, abandoning it now in favor of Obsidian, because that’s what Erica & Shida did as well. And it makes perfect sense.

Thank you for the Personal Brain recommendation, although I’m currently not looking at anything else. And, I bet Obsidian has at least some functionality missing in Personal Brain (vice versa, too, no doubt), because that’s exactly what you’d expect from Erica & Shida; for example, the Obsidian Publish functionality is absolutely terrific.

I have now concluded my research on the replacement of Dynalist’s to-do functionality (always only improvised in Dynalist, never really intended by Shida & Erica). It’s going to be Todoist for me, to the tune of $58 per year. Not exactly cheap, but it’s considerably less than the $100 per year for Dynalist. And, Erica & Shida & company will now be getting $200 per year from me, for Obsidian Sync & Publish.

(I also gave TickTick a good look, which is even cheaper at $35 per year, but I find Todoist to be the clear winner. I’ve just posted more about this on Reddit, in case anyone is interested.)