Knowledge Management Tools (obsidian.md users within)

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taco show: Oct 6, 2011; motherforker

Alright do y'all have multiple vaults or just one giant one? I need to track life stuff, school stuff, and work stuff.

The work stuff does not really overlap with the other two at all. Honestly, the grad school stuff is also kind of stand alone too but I already take notes on my personal computer where my life stuff lives right now. I was originally thinking that vaults = notebooks in OneNote but I keep reading that you should really only have one vault...?

ALSO do y'all just have a folder you're dumping embedded files into? That's kind of how I'm doing it right now but it seems really messy lol

# ? Oct 29, 2025 14:33

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# ? Dec 16, 2025 18:59

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Klyith posted:

Bases can't pull checkboxes / lists out of matching notes. So you can't do the thing that's my #1 use for dataview: combined ToDos from multiple sub-notes in a master task list. There's also the stuff dataview can do with JS, which goes way further, but I'm perfectly happy to ignore.

And personally, I have a strongly negative reaction to Bases because doing anything really useful with it means putting yaml or json headers on your notes that it can operate on. So now you're not just making and tagging / linking notes, you're making a database record at the top of each one. A database that you have to maintain by hand.

I can imagine projects / scenarios that warrant that type of effort, but I think a lot of people will underestimate how nasty that can be in a long-term, not-well-planned collection.

So IMO dataview is still worth using over Bases, if you aren't throwing so many notes at it that it chokes. Dataview can still be fast on large vaults, but you need folder hierarchy and tags that cut down the number of files it has to parse. In particular a lot of "daily note" tracking is probably better done with Bases if your use generates a lot of notes that are very similar.

Still separate from bases, I'm curious if you have used Tasks and what that buys you vs pure DataView? https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Introduction I assume that when I write this I'm using tasks and not dataview right?

code:

```tasks
> not done
> sort by due date
> due before 2025-10-29
> path regex does not match /^_Templates/
> tags include #tasks
```

(My Periodic Note Daily Note throws that at the top of every day's note of overdue tasks)

taco show posted:

Alright do y'all have multiple vaults or just one giant one? I need to track life stuff, school stuff, and work stuff.

The work stuff does not really overlap with the other two at all. Honestly, the grad school stuff is also kind of stand alone too but I already take notes on my personal computer where my life stuff lives right now. I was originally thinking that vaults = notebooks in OneNote but I keep reading that you should really only have one vault...?

ALSO do y'all just have a folder you're dumping embedded files into? That's kind of how I'm doing it right now but it seems really messy lol

I have a single vault, but part of the vault is a separate git repo so I can use Obsidian to edit Markdown for it's documentation. A job I have is basically a top level folder so if I was working at ABC and then moved to DEF Inc. I'd have a folder structure like:
ABC/Meetings
ABC/Contacts
DEF/Meetings
DEF/Contacts
etc...

Given how small my field is having cross job contacts like that is useful. I've hired the same guy at 4 places so far and will probably continue to do so in the future.

https://github.com/Sergei-Korneev/obsidian-local-images-plus handles embedded files for me. When I paste something if there's Links to images on line it'll download them and put them in a folder I set up and then rewrite the page to refer to the local image not the hosted image. This combined with Obsidian Web Clipper Handles most of what I need. If I remember even doing a callout link to a pdf will have the PDF saved locally which I use as part of product registeration pages to make sure I have the manual locally.

# ? Oct 29, 2025 14:56

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

taco show posted:

Alright do y'all have multiple vaults or just one giant one? I need to track life stuff, school stuff, and work stuff.

The work stuff does not really overlap with the other two at all. Honestly, the grad school stuff is also kind of stand alone too but I already take notes on my personal computer where my life stuff lives right now. I was originally thinking that vaults = notebooks in OneNote but I keep reading that you should really only have one vault...?

IMO multiple vaults are good when you know there is absolutely no overlap between them.

I have several vaults, but the one named "Personal" covers life, work, docs, personal projects, and everything IRL. The reason is that I use Obsidian for task management, and that means there is overlap (on the limited hours of my life).

If you're using Obsidian as a pure note-taking / writing / brain-dump application, then separate vaults for different IRL stuff would be fine.

taco show posted:

ALSO do y'all just have a folder you're dumping embedded files into? That's kind of how I'm doing it right now but it seems really messy lol

I put files into the folder hierarchy in the relevant subfolders, but that's because I have organized folders and don't do a lot of images or media stuff. PDFs and SVG diagrams are about all (and the SVGs are all from the drawio/Diagrams plugin).

Hughlander posted:

Still separate from bases, I'm curious if you have used Tasks and what that buys you vs pure DataView? https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Introduction I assume that when I write this I'm using tasks and not dataview right?
code:
```tasks
> not done
> sort by due date
> due before 2025-10-29
> path regex does not match /^_Templates/
> tags include #tasks
```
(My Periodic Note Daily Note throws that at the top of every day's note of overdue tasks)

Yeah that's Tasks. The analogous dataview code might be something like:

code:

```dataview
TASK
FROM #tasks
WHERE !completed and due < date(today)
WHERE !contains(file.folder, "Templates")
```

But the due date function is a bit clunkier: your task needs to have metadata in the form of "do this thing [due:: 2025-10-29]" rather than an emoji calendar and date.

I have never used use Tasks because:
a. I think when I started using Obsidian in 2022, Tasks didn't have as much gather & filter ability
b. Dataview does other stuff as well
c. I don't like all the rigid formatting Tasks does, I'm a free spirit
d. hate the emojis

OTOH I actually haven't been power-using Obsidian as much over the past year, after some major life change things. So I've just been sticking with the things I've got and not doing any changes / investigating what's new in the scene. I had no idea that Dataview has stopped development until Badly Jester posted about Bases.

# ? Oct 29, 2025 17:15

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Klyith posted:

IMO multiple vaults are good when you know there is absolutely no overlap between them.

I have several vaults, but the one named "Personal" covers life, work, docs, personal projects, and everything IRL. The reason is that I use Obsidian for task management, and that means there is overlap (on the limited hours of my life).

If you're using Obsidian as a pure note-taking / writing / brain-dump application, then separate vaults for different IRL stuff would be fine.

I put files into the folder hierarchy in the relevant subfolders, but that's because I have organized folders and don't do a lot of images or media stuff. PDFs and SVG diagrams are about all (and the SVGs are all from the drawio/Diagrams plugin).

Yeah that's Tasks. The analogous dataview code might be something like:
code:
```dataview
TASK
FROM #tasks
WHERE !completed and due < date(today)
WHERE !contains(file.folder, "Templates")
```
But the due date function is a bit clunkier: your task needs to have metadata in the form of "do this thing [due:: 2025-10-29]" rather than an emoji calendar and date.

I have never used use Tasks because:
a. I think when I started using Obsidian in 2022, Tasks didn't have as much gather & filter ability
b. Dataview does other stuff as well
c. I don't like all the rigid formatting Tasks does, I'm a free spirit
d. hate the emojis

OTOH I actually haven't been power-using Obsidian as much over the past year, after some major life change things. So I've just been sticking with the things I've got and not doing any changes / investigating what's new in the scene. I had no idea that Dataview has stopped development until Badly Jester posted about Bases.

I don't use tasks with Emojis 'cuz I could never figure it out. Tasks actually has a 'Play nice with dataview mode' which would for me would look like:

code:

- [ ] #tasks Traefik v3 + Authentik Plex replacement (due:: 2025-12-19)

IE: Exactly what you'd use in pure datadog, and having it gives automagic autocomplete in tasks IE: just a ( would complete to due:: with a dropper for today/tomorrow/yesterday

# ? Oct 29, 2025 18:10

Queer Grenadier: Jun 14, 2023; THIS GUY HAS A POOPY BOOM BOOM

HE NOT WARSHING HE HOLES LOL

I have a vault for all my personal notes and insights. I made a separate one for all my imported highlights from Readwise app so my thoughts and insights are separated.

I go to the highlights vault like a library. If I make new insights or notes from my review, I�ll export them to my personal vault.

# ? Oct 29, 2025 18:30

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# ? Dec 16, 2025 18:59

Badly Jester: Apr 9, 2010; Bitches!

Klyith posted:

I had no idea that Dataview has stopped development until Badly Jester posted about Bases.

I'm sorry I killed your plugin but I'm assuming it's either because the author wants to finally make headway on Datacore, or working at Palantir is taking up too much of his time.

# ? Oct 29, 2025 18:43

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