Ask HN: YAML or Markdown for Personal Notes?

2 pointsheigh9mo ago4 comments

I've used, Evernote and yes it was okay, until I realised I do not want my data out there in the wild. This was maybe back in 2015.

Since then, I use Notepad++ for everything. Save things here and there and it's really unorganized. I feel shame because I am actually a mega-organised person...

So... I tried Obsidian. Wasn't my tempo.

Now I am at organising my notes by text file by the following format: /Notes/Year/Month/Y-m-d.txt

I am seeing myself naturally moving towards Marking-Down my notes, which I like. But it brings me to the question: which is better to use for future use-cases in terms of software and tooling?

4 comments

begemotz9mo ago

I am not sure what the question here actually is -- the title compares apples to oranges (e.g. Obsidian uses YAML for meta-data but markdown is the markup language). Then in the post itself, it sounds like you ask a question about how to organize your note storage. Separate questions with some potential overlap.

A couple of questions -- what didn't you like about Obsidian? Have you considered Emacs and Org-mode?

heighOP9mo ago

I think you answered my question, although indirectly. I thought there was competing standards (if that's even the right word, I don't know) for note-taking.

YAML is more for configuration and meta-data, so my original question didn't make a lot of sense.

You've helped clear my confusions so for that, thanks so much!

As for Obsidian, I just wasn't super keen having a whole extra app just for my note-taking. I like simple Notepad++ (or Geany, now that I'm moved to nix), as it can work on any files, not just text/MD/note docs.

dtkav9mo ago

Even if you don't want to use Obsidian, the file format of yaml frontmatter (yaml in a --- block) and then markdown below is a solid format.

ale_jacques9mo ago

https://noteplan.co, if you're on a macOS/iOS device.

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