Then maybe try a simple web search or event better, download and use Obsidian to see for yourself 
I downloaded Obsidian a long time ago. Yes thereâs a link graph, but I donât see much value there. They also have wiki linking where you can just type the name of the file you want to link to. I cannot think how you would do that with DynaList which doesnât have files, nor names.
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That is exactly my point: There is so much added value in having files + names + wikilink capabilities + graph database in an outliner style app.
The success of Roam Research and/or Logseq are good examples and I am sure our developers are more capable than the rest of the world.
I guess to be precise there are named files but it very much makes the program feel disjointed when you split things up.
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Dynalist will not have new features added. Obsidian will though. So, your best bet will probably to look into logseq outliner style functionality in Obsidian (perhaps ask their Plugins discord channel if someone has already made a plugin to add what you want)
I am a fully-equipped (sync, publish etc memberships) Pro Obsidian (as well as Pro Dynalist) user since day 1. IMHO Obsidian will never become a proper outliner as the basic structure and philosophy is different (Obsidian is a file-based whereas an outliner is block based)
Now that Obsidian is out of Beta, I was hoping our developers maybe decide to get their hands on Dynalist to evolve it for loyal users like me.
You sound very certain it will not change much - are you guessing or do you know this for sure?.. It is important for people like me to decide to keep the membership or not.
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are you guessing
Yes. Obsidian is a cash cow and Dynalist is a flop, so unless a sudden influx of new users discover how great Dynalist is, I donât see why developers would spend any time on it. Tech companies need to move fast and Obsidian has the momentum. I just paid for another year of Dynalist Pro personally since I donât want it to change, I just love the service.
Obsidian will never become a proper outliner as the basic structure and philosophy is different
I disagree. The paradigm of the outline fits if you contain it wholly in a document and forget about the graph.
I havenât used it in the last year, but I was
- adding new items to my Obsidian doc outline list via external apps (using shell append commands)
- moving lines up and down with hotkeys
- I remember some folks even straight up embedded logseq and edit it from ObsidianâŚI am foggy on the details it was a while ago.
Open a logseq document in Obsidian and start editing the list in both. It works. Their files are identical at the document level. Theyâre nested lists in plain text markdown. I have moved outlines to Obsidian, and it back to Dynalist again no problem. The issue is that the document editor of Obsidian doesnât have the snazzy features of Dynalist. But I do recall there being progress a year ago. I figured it would have been farther along by now.
Interesting perspective - I will think about this one. My take is different: I also just renewed with the hope of Dynalist evolving into a more stable Logseq / Roam Research.
As for outliner mode of Obsidian: I believe we can agree to disagree on this one. The smallest unit being the âfileâ for Obsidian prevents it becoming a true outliner. I always struggle to explain this, but let me just say that it becomes clear only after you start Logseq consistently and realize the power of âblock basedâ graph instead of the âfile based graphâ philosophy. So it is not about being able to open/edit obsidian files in Logseq or vice-versa. It is about the nature of a block based vs file based graph.
The difference primarily arises, i think, when it comes to linking within the outline. Markdown doesnât have nice ways of having permanent links to suboutlines that may move around.
The smallest unit being the âfileâ for Obsidian prevents it becoming a true outliner.
Hmm. Perhaps itâs just the way I came to itâas a tool for creating zettelkastenâbut I would have sworn that the smallest unit for Obsidian was the note.
Somewhere in the early 80s I began using an MS-DOS outliner called MaxThink. At first it confused me. Gradually I started using for more of my writing. Eventually it became a tool I could not do without. What I liked about it was the ability to organize and reorganize and re-reorganize text.
Then Windows came along. The developer attempted to develop it for a Windows-based graphical users interface just didnât work. It wasnât the same thing.
Zettlekasten appeals to me. But I still struggle with it. What appeals is the idea of letting structure emerge in the process of note making. What hangs me up is that it seems structure seems to be assumed, to be necessary in advance, in order to place a new note in the structure.
I have made very little use of Dynalist. I hadnât thought of it that way initially, but recently it occurred to me that I might be able to use Dynalist the way I did MaxThink. And further whether it might be possible to use Dynalist and Obsidian interactively. I have no idea how it might work, whether it might be more trouble than it is worth, but I do wonder.
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Never heard of MaxThink, even before Windows existed? Wow! Thanks for letting us know.
As an avid user of both, Iâm not sure if Obsidian and Dynalist can be used together interactively. To me Dynalist is the ultimate example of robustness as well as basic practicality of the outliner. My wish for 2023 is that it grows into a more graph based modern outliner, towards the direction of Roam and Logseq.
There used to be a lengthy document about MaxThink out their on the web written by another long-time aficionado. Went looking for it yesterday but couldnât find it.
The closest I could come was this exchange among a group of former MaxThink enthusiasts. (They would probably still be users if MaxThink had been successfully ported to Widows, macOS, or Linux.As would I.): https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=14262.0
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I want the same thing and like how you put it: âA well designed, intuitive outliner, everyone can use that treats links seriously.â
I think to do that, you have to have a 100% wysiwyg editorânot a 50% wysiwyg editor like obsidian, but a 100% wysiwyg editor like workflowy.
And right now, everything is markdownâexcept workflowy.
I for one think the reason workflowy is so popular, is because it doesnât screw around with markdown.
Anyways, cool thread.
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Thank you for the comment Robert; always a pleasure to chat with like-minded people.
Two questions:
- How does WYSIWYG editor help in achieving the objective of being âwell designed, intuitive outliner, everyone can use that treats links seriouslyâ?
- In what ways is Workflowy different from Dynalist?
Yalcin, As a long time user and admirer of Dynalist I agree totally with your take. DynaList is a very polished Outliner / Note Store but its implementation of linking seems to have been an afterthought, and a limited one at that. Perhaps thatâs why the developers went in to create Obsidian. A link in Dynalist presents merely a placeholder, relevant to the note or bullet you are in, but when you click on that link to get a fuller view, you move away from the original, and can easily lose the visual context of the original note, or worse yet, when you attempt to return to the original note, it is easy to lose your way. This question of âTransclusionâ where a bullet or other information kernel can appear in many other places seamlessly, adding context and value to the original note or item, is for me at the very core of a truly usable information system. I just downloaded Obsidian, but donât fully understand its data structure, so Iâm taking baby steps to avoid going up a wrong road with my many thousands of valuable notes before committing to a paradigm. If you misunderstand the possibilities, it can be extremely difficult to revert to a new way. Iâd love to hear your comments on the ideal note / information store structure.
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I think you want to talk about Obsidian structure?.. please confirm so weâre on the same pageđ
Yalcin, Yes indeed, Iâm referring to a suitable data structure for Obsidian. Since Iâm an absolute Newbie with the app, I was fascinated by your â⌠The smallest unit being the âfileâ for Obsidian prevents it becoming a true outliner. I always struggle to explain this, but let me just say that it becomes clear only after you start Logseq consistently and realize the power of âblock basedâ graph instead of the âfile based graphâ philosophyâŚâ would you care to expand on that some more? Cheers.
Ah yes, now I know what you mean. First and foremost: This (outliner vs non-outliner style note taking) is always a debatable topic; no clear conclusion, some enjoy outliners, some donât.
The outlinerâs smallest unit of information is a block (practically a paragraph: A block is created every time you hit âenterâ key). Smallest unit technically means a chunk of text that is treated as a sovereign unit (can be rererenced/linked to) by the software. From a semantic point of view the smallest unit is meaningful when you read it alone. Example: For a typical novel this usually means the smallest unit is the whole of the book itself: You do not understand much if you read a few paragraphs. A poem has much shorter smallest unit of information: You get the idea after you read a few stanza (a group of lines). For a dictionary, the smallest unit of information is the word + definition. You can take this small unit, use it anywhere and it is meaningful, does not lose any meaning when taken out of the dictionary.
For Logseq this is a block. For Obsidian this is a file.
There is more to the discussion but I hope this makes it somewhat clearer?
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Thank you. Your explanation makes the issue very much clearer. Of course, actual working experience with Obsidian will make my grasp so much better, so Iâm going to choose a few items and create a Vault to see how-or-if larger or smaller files or chunks of information become intelligible when linked. Succinctness of the results will be the acid test.
Iâve felt encouraged in the past couple of years by the general reliability of DynaList, and the forthrightness of its developers. Of late its performance has become questionable because of the sheer volume of work Iâve put into it. Erica quite straightforwardly said that memory limits can be a problem, and suggested that I split my work into separate files. That has helped a somewhat, but DynaList continues to crash (never fatally) from time to time, and the poor cursor response sometimes is hard to live with.
Because of those issues and its less than mature linking, Iâve decided to give Obsidian a try. I wonder whether obsidian would be able to read an OPML or txt dump of my Dynalist file?
My thanks to you for your clarity. Regards.
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