Obsidian + Zettel Notes
Obsidian + Zettel Notes
Mobile Quick Capture is important to prevent you from losing your best ideas. Learn how to set it up on your phone today.
I may be preaching to the converted on this but I was looking to solve two problems:
- Being able to chuck down a quick note in Obsidian on mobile which can take far too long to open. I'd tried suggested solutions like Loqseq but it still felt a bit clunky.
- Import a webpage as markdown on mobile
The latter requirement took me to Zettel Notes and then I discovered that you can just add your Obsidian archive to it and so you also have Mobile Quick Capture too, as the post link says:
Zettel Notes checks a lot of boxes. If you need a more flexible solution for Quick Capture, and an open-source one at that, check out Zettel Notes.
Zettel Notes is impressively flexible and versatile. It supports Markdown, synchronization through many different platforms, all forms of media including audio and video, keyboard shortcuts, properties, templates, and much more.
If you want an app that rivals even Obsidian in features, then Zettel Notes may be for you.
With a little bit of setup, it also makes a great quick capture app. All you have to do is install it, configure it to your Obsidian folder, and you’re off to the races!
I did notice a few oddities in setting it up: it’s not set up perfectly for Obsidian, so you may have to fine tune it a bit to get it working like you want. See the documentation for details.
Zettel Notes is not as easy to set up as Fleeting Notes, but it is the swiss army knife of note taking on Android. If you’re serious about Quick Capture, I recommend giving it a try.
Pros:
Quick startup
- Highly configurable
- Can do almost anything you could want
- Good privacy policy
Cons:
- Harder to setup initially
- More of a learning curve
I haven't noticed too many downsides and while I wasn't previously prepared to fully commit to Obsidian in my note-taking app journey (having started with Evernote many years ago), Zettel Notes has helped seal the deal. It's already speeding up my note-taking on the go and just become my go-to app for markdown files. I can then switch to Obsidian when I need all the bells and whistles.
Seems like Obsidian could easily address this need [on Android] by adding a widget feature. Allow the user to pin a note to the home screen like Google Keep, or tap the widget to open a lightweight markdown editor which saves to a new file in the vault.
For myself, I either jot things down in a Note to Self thread in Signal or text it to myself in Slack, but its not an intuitive workflow.
Seems like Obsidian could easily address this need [on Android] by adding a widget feature. Allow the user to pin a note to the home screen like Google Keep, or tap the widget to open a lightweight markdown editor which saves to a new file in the vault.
From the linked article it does sound like they are aware of the issue and will come up with a fix. For now, I'm happy with ZN but we'll see.
Damn. Android only.
The article does suggest iOS options for Mobile Quick Capture - Drafts and Shortcuts. Might be worth a try.
This is so incredibly useful. Thank you.
No problem, I've only been using it a month or so, and haven't really dug into all features yet but there's a lot to like - the markdown editing is very smooth (with lists, including check boxes, automatically generating on a new line) and I've started drafting longer Lemmy posts in it too.
I have some niggles, like the YAML "note_type: task" producing a much nicer check box list but it seems to stop line wrapping. I'd also like checked items moved down the list. However, the developer is, apparently, approachable so I may drop them a line or note.
I've been using Quillpad for quick notes and Obsidian for everything else. I do wish I could point Quillpad to the same local folder on Android where my vault is.