I had a major aha today with my #pkm setup. I love #iaWriter for its efficiency but sometimes long for #obsidian's live preview and extended #markdown features. Today I discovered I can have the best of both worlds. By pasting `obsidian://open?vault=<vault>&file=<file>` links into iA Writer, I can command-click on the link to open that file in Obsidian for editing. That lets me treat Obsidian as a wonderful Markdown editor without having to abandon my ultra-efficient IA Writer based workflow.

@TfTHacker thanks for the kind offer...I hadn't purchased your vault, but even if I had I'd consider it a donation to help support your good work. I actually used #obsidian for more than a year, but it never felt right to me. I guess it's like the Unix philosophy of having specific tools for specific jobs...#iaWriter lets me edit files, with quick search and easy navigation, which is just enough of a #pkm for me. I just need to avoid getting distracted by shiny new things...

I've been using #iaWriter as my #pkm of choice, but @TfTHacker's work on Cornell Notes looked tempting, so I decided to try switching back to #obsidian. It was a strange experience: the moment I launched Obsidian I felt a sense of dread (yes, dread!), like I was being caught in an all-encompassing tar-baby that did everything imaginable but turned my notes into something I no longer really owned. Like Microsoft's infamous "embrace and extend", I was losing control. So back to iA Writer I go...

Marvelous morning with Alison Bashford's An Intimate History of Evolution: The Story of the Huxley Family. #AlisonBashford #evolution #histsci #hisbio #histevo

And of course, my beautiful #PlanckEZ mechanical keyboard. A great tool for early morning distraction-free freewriting (coupled with the #IAwriter freewriting tool on my phone).

#PlainTextExperiment day 3: today I continued using #iaWriter to manage my #pkm. I did no tweaking today at all, and just used IA Writer to take a bunch of notes as well as run through my daily processes, as well as doing a bunch of note refactoring. It's all remarkably easy in IA Writer. The only issue I had was that some of my notes were in the wrong folder, but I soon fixed that. It feels totally natural now, and I don't miss Obsidian at all (though I might go back to it yet...we'll see).

@ellane thanks for the very encouraging update. It sounds like you're enjoying #iaWriter as much as I am...

Question: what do you mean by "make links active"? Can't you just hold down the Command key and click on a link to follow it? Not sure about previewing wikilinks, though...

#PlainTextExperiment day 2: today I continued using #iaWriter to access my PKM. I discovered the joys of split view on the Mac, which works really well for my workflow.

I also updated the scripts I'd written for Obsidian and made them work anywhere. I can even call them using #LaunchBar so for example I can type "che" into LaunchBar and it runs my checklist manager. A few keystrokes and I'm ready to use a checklist. So far, this new setup has been brilliant and I don't miss Obsidian at all.

#PlainTextExperiment day 1: Inspired by @ellane, I'm trying to use my PKM without Obsidian. I'm using #iaWriter as my editor of choice...eventually I might switch to #vim but for now IA Writer is working well.

I got the "Insert Current Time" shortcut working for my time logging, and have setup the app to quickly access the key parts of my PKM. I still need to figure out how to handle checklists and my daily templates, but so far I'm loving the simplicity of this approach.

@ia I try to write just about everything in #iAWriter. It just fits my way of doing things.

And iA Presenter is taking root in my weekly workflow (I've been using it for my class lectures).

Anyone have a good rec for a (preferably) open source alternative for IA Writer on Mac?

#recommendations #iaWriter #foss #mac