PTPL 106 · Digital Freedom Requires Intentional Use of Paper, Plain Text, and Plugins

Plus a brief overview of the Notebooks app

Plain text, Paper, Less (PTPL) Productivity Digest, text-based image by Author

This week: Your future digital freedom relies on how you store your information today. Is your focus on the notes, or on who they’re helping you to become? The Notebooks app looks lovely, but be aware it might make minor changes to existing Markdown notes.

After receiving some good-natured flak on social media recently about the way I’ve been gravitating toward paper lately (in light of the name of this series being Plain Text; Paper, Less), a few thoughts have come to mind.

• I grew up in an era where paper was used for everything, and important documents were written in triplicate. My goal today is to use less paper, opting for a digital path where it makes sense. To enjoy the process and benefits of putting marks on a physical sheet as sustainably as possible. I aim to conserve as many trees, and as much money and storage space as I can, while using the tool that fits both the job at hand and my needs / inclinations.
• There are many good ways to record information in digital form, and on paper. Fanatically holding to one or the other will inevitably distract from whatever truly deserves to be your main focus.
• Creating and storing words in the universally readable format of plain text is the ultimate form of future-proof flexibility, no matter where that data ends up next — leading to the next point:
• Proprietary apps can be used without concern when the same information is safely stored in an open format.

This past week I’ve heard two people on Mastodon declare they’re embracing the Dataview plugin in Obsidian for the first time, and one person on the Obsidian forum offering a respectful case against doing so. The latter is an important message, inviting all app users to be intentional about their practices. Here is a quote from that forum post:

I want a well of multidisciplinary knowledge that makes sense to me, I want a place to think & grow, & I want something that I can have with me regardless of application & device. … in other words, …I want my information to be mine & free. Those values just so happen to align with the reasons Obsidian exists. If you happen to feel the same way or have similar values as me, think about your actions & whether they ensure your notes are future-proof.

One last thought on this:

Where is your focus — on the notes themselves and the process of creating them, or on who they’re helping you to become?

Have you seen the Notebooks app? It’s more like iA Writer than Obsidian, though quite different from both. Notebooks lets you mix file types, though this may get confusing if you haven’t yet mastered the app’s learning curve (I haven’t).

For example, in the first few minutes I spent with Notebooks I wasn’t able to get existing wiki links in my Obsidian vault to work. The links were live, but the app was expecting them to be html. Wiki links made in brand new notes worked as expected.

After a very brief play with this app I noticed that —

• Embedded images display correctly
• You can choose your own font
• It can compile files into various formats
• Like iA Writer, it can display an inline table of contents (Obsidian’s is better as it’s in the sidebar)
• Audio files play within the app, but not as (same as iA Writer) — another win for Obsidian
• There’s no immediately apparent auto-complete of wiki links
• Markdown sections don’t seem to be foldable
• Width of text is determined by width of window; I prefer being able to set maximum width of text no matter how wide the window is
• Notebooks escaped every single link and bullet in my Obsidian-created file! link became \link Find and replace restored things quickly, thankfully

My initial impression is that Notebooks is not for me. I find Obsidian much more enjoyable to use, and can’t see anything in Notebooks that makes the learning curve feel worth the time or the price.

Notebooks is expensive, and iOS and Mac versions must be purchased separately. Fortunately there’s a free trial so you can test it first and decide for yourself.

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