Minimal notetaking with Neovim and Obsidian.
Tags: neovim, notetaking, obsidian, developer
Published: 2024-04-01 06:50:44

## WHY?

Several years ago, I experimented with Obsidian for a while, finding it useful initially. However, as an advocate for free and open-source software, I discovered that Obsidian wasn't open-source, prompting me to abandon it.

### Present Situation

By 2024, I found Neovim to be immensely satisfying, although not for note-taking purposes. My needs were simple - I required a platform to jot down daily tasks, links, or to-dos, without any frills. While I attempted to use Neovim for this, the challenge arose when I wasn't always near my laptop. Hence, I sought a solution to synchronize my notes with my phone. My initial thought was to sync them using Syncthing (which I'll discuss further). However, I still needed to access the notes through a text editor on my phone, which wasn't ideal.

## Solution

One day, I stumbled upon a YouTube video featuring TJ DeVries using Obsidian for note-taking. I was intrigued - how could a core Neovim maintainer use Obsidian? Upon researching, I discovered that Obsidian offered a Vim mode, which delighted me. However, this didn't fully address my issues:

1. Even with Obsidian's Vim mode, I often forgot to open the app.
2. Despite the Vim mode, I still had to resort to using the mouse to navigate between notes. While Obsidian provided shortcuts, it felt cumbersome to learn them solely for note-taking purposes.

Then it struck me - I could edit the notes directly within the folder where the Obsidian vault was located, simplifying the process significantly!

## The Setup

### Laptop

I installed Obsidian solely to create the vault/folder in my home directory. I would then use Vim to access it and make any necessary changes, while Syncthing handled the synchronization in the background.

### Syncthing

#### What is Syncthing?

Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program that securely synchronizes files between two or more computers in real-time. Your data remains private, allowing you to choose where it's stored and whether it's shared with third parties.

I installed Syncthing on both my laptop and Android device, linking it to my Obsidian folder. You can find tutorials on how to do this by watching videos from creators like [Mental Outlaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uag8PJaO0N4) or [DistroTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LuV7Pl2YU).

This setup ensured that my folder was synced in real-time whenever both devices were online!

### Android

On my Android device, I installed Obsidian and Syncthing, selecting the previously created/synced folder from Syncthing.

Now, I could view and edit my notes wherever I wanted, with changes almost instantly reflected on my desktop too!

Moreover, this setup essentially provided two backups of my notes on separate devices!

I also considered creating a Git repository and writing a script to run a cron job for automatic backups on GitHub. After all, shouldn't Microsoft monopolize everything, right?!

## Conclusion

There's no conclusion - I'll continue using this setup indefinitely, or until I decide to explore something entirely different. Who knows what the future holds!