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How I Recreated (and Improved) My Obsidian Note-Taking Workflow in Neovim

I go over the reasons why I switched from Obsidian to Neovim, I also compare the features in the two tools and explain what features I like about neovim vs Obsidian

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By Christian Arzu
17 min read
How I Recreated (and Improved) My Obsidian Note-Taking Workflow in Neovim

Contents

Table of contents

YouTube video

Pre-requisites

  • If you don’t want to watch the video above, and you already have your own neovim config, and want to quickly get started and follow along in this tutorial
  • Run the git clone commands below to clone my dotfiles in your .config directory and we will run my config below
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mkdir -p ~/.config
git clone git@github.com:linkarzu/dotfiles-latest ~/.config/linkarzu/dotfiles-latest
  • Open the newly downloaded neobean config with:
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NVIM_APPNAME=linkarzu/dotfiles-latest/neovim/neobean nvim
  • You can create an alias in your .bashrc or .zshrc file to run my config
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alias neobean='NVIM_APPNAME=linkarzu/dotfiles-latest/neovim/neobean nvim'
  • Then to run this config, just run neobean
  • If you don’t even have neovim yet, of course you will need to install it first, so if you’re just getting started, I have a video for you:

If you like my content, and want to support me

  • I create and edit my videos in an M1 mac mini, and it’s starting to stay behind in the editing side of things, tends to slow me down a bit, I’d like to upgrade the machine I use for all my videos to a mac mini with these specs:
    • Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
    • 24GB unified memory
    • 1TB SSD storage
    • 10 Gigabit Ethernet
  • If you want to help me reach my goal, you can donate here

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  • The following links will be in the YouTube video description:
    • Each one of the videos shown
    • A link to this blogpost

How do you manage your passwords?

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Did I use Obsidian?

  • Yes I did, it used it for many months, I spent countless hours configuring it, testing out different plugins
  • Before talking to my wife about Neovim, I used to talk to her about Obsidian every single day, letting her know what a great tool it is and how much I loved it
  • Below is a screenshot of some of the Obsidian plugins I used

Image Some of the Obsidian Plugins I used

  • From the image shown above, some of my favorites are:
    • git - as it allows me to auto push my obsidian notes to github
    • imgur - allowed me to upload images to imgur instead of storing them locally
    • tasks - allowed me to manage my tasks for the day or future dates
    • typewriter scroll was nice too, it kept my cursor centered
    • vimrc support allowed me to use vim motions in obsidian
  • Other features I loved about Obsidian:
    • The daily note
    • Backlinks (allows you to link notes together)
    • Outline
    • That it allowed me to view and paste images

Why did I start moving away from Obsidian?

  • I spend most of the day in the terminal, that could be SSHd into a remote server, making changes related to my configs and when I met Neovim I spent almost the entire day in it
  • It’s rare that I’m not inside Neovim nowadays, I’m just switching between my different projects, in case I need to go to the terminal is just to run a quick command or something, but other than that, I’m always in Neovim editing some sort of file
  • Back when I started with Neovim, I still needed to switch to Obsidian to look at my notes and also to take notes, the main reason was because Neovim did not allow me to view images, well, actually this was skill issue on my side because I didn’t know how to set it up.
  • I also pasted images in Obsidian, and I didn’t know how to do that in Neovim, I didn’t even know if it was possible or not
  • So I had to be context switching the entire day, going between my terminal and Obsidian
  • And if you do the same, you are 100% certain that it’s disruptive for your workflow, why? Because even though you can use vim motions in Obsidian, they’re not as advanced as the things you can do in neovim, like for example I can replace the double quotes “in this sentence” for parenthesis using gsr"( when I’m in neovim, and I cannot do that in Obsidian (or maybe now its possible, not sure)
  • So I wanted to do my note management in Neovim, but I couldn’t because of images, until I discovered that kitty, using the kitty graphics protocol allows you to view images in the terminal, and there’s a neovim plugin that allows you to view images in neovim, and also, there’s another plugin that allows you to paste images in Neovim
  • So now I can paste images in Neovim in different formats, including avif, png, webp, etc. I have a pretty advanced keymap that even allows me to set the format and resolution of the image when pasting it

Folds in Neovim

  • I fell in love with folds in Neovim, I created some keymaps that allow me to fold all the level 2 headings in a file (zk) or for level 3 headings zl, unfold all the headings with zu, etc
  • I also have other keymaps to jump between headings, if I press gk and gj, and all the headings are unfolded, I can jump through the headings
    • I don’t use this much anymore, my preferred way of navigating markdown files is folding all the headings and jumping to the one I want, and sometimes I use the outline plugin that you’ll see below
  • To understand what I mean by folds, look at the image below, this is the current article I’m working on, but with all the headings folded

Image Markdown file with all the headings folded

  • Below is an image of the exact same file, but with all the headings unfolded

Image Markdown file with all the headings unfolded

Outline plugin

  • I loved the outline plugin in Obsidian, I used it a lot, the huge downside for me is that I had to be using my mouse to navigate through headings, it was possible to do it with the keyboard, but it was not as intuitive and easy
  • So I installed a plugin in neovim which takes care of this, and its easier to navigate in it compared to Obsidian
  • I have a video about it in which I cover it:
  • For this I use a “plugin” called Marksman
  • artempyanykh/marksman
  • Using LSP protocol it provides completion, goto definition, find references, rename refactoring, diagnostics, and more. In addition to regular Markdown, it also supports wiki-link-style references that enable Zettelkasten-like, note taking
  • If you’re using the lazyvim distro like I am, and you want to install marksman, install the lang.markdown LazyExtra
  • I don’t have a video dedicated to Marksman yet, some folks have requested it, so I’ll release it in the near future, if you’re interested in this, let me know in the youtube comments

How to view images in Neovim

How to paste images in Neovim

How to upload images to imgur from neovim

  • This is something that I did a lot back in Obsidian, I didn’t have a way of doing it in Neovim, so I created a custom keymap
  • The nice thing about it, is that I configured it so that the images that it uploads are stored in my personal imgur account, but that’s not necessary, you can upload the images in an unauthenticated way as well
  • I cover the entire setup in the video below:

How to Create and open the daily note in Neovim

  • I did use the Daily note a lot back when I was using Obsidian, I tried to keep a journal, but I failed miserably, but I do use the daily note every day though, now it’s more like a scratchpad for me
  • Let’s say that I need a place to quickly write something down, I use the daily note
  • In my case, I have a keymap hyper+t+r that takes me to the daily note, when I execute this keymap a few things will happen:
    • Create a daily note with the date-day for example 2024-06-30-Sunday inside the obsidian_main/250-daily/2024/06-Jun directory
      • If the directories do not exist it will create them
      • If the daily note doesn’t exist it will create it
    • Create a new tmux session with the note name in detached mode and start neovim with the daily note
      • If a tmux session with that name already exists, just switch to it
  • I created a dedicated video explaining how the daily note works and how to set it up:

How to mange tasks in Neovim

  • If you notice on the right hand side of each one of my videos, I keep an app that I called skitty-notes, which is basically a customized version of my Neovim setup running in the kitty terminal
  • I keep tasks there that I need to complete for the day, during a live stream, etc, so I mark them as done and I want them gone from that section
  • I have 2 ways of completing tasks, with <Leader>x to just mark them as done, and my most used one Alt+x to moved them to the completed section including the date and time in which they were completed
  • I can then search for all the completed or uncompleted tasks in a project by using <Leader>tc or <Leader>tt respectively
    • You don’t need to leave the tasks in a specific section, just leave them scattered around throughout your documents and you’ll be able to find it with the keymaps I listed

Script to auto-push to GitHub

  • I created this script, remember that you can find it in my dotfiles, it automatically pushes the changes I have in my obsidian github repo every 3 min
  • ~/github/dotfiles-latest/scripts/macos/mac/400-autoPushGithub.sh
  • File can be found here: mac/400-autoPushGithub.sh
  • I’m not going to cover the script in this blogpost, but if you want me to create a video about it, let me know in the youtube comments

Markdown preview in Neovim

  • I use this plugin in case I need to print a markdown file as a PDF or also, in case I need to scroll through a file in a smoother way
  • I can print the PDF in dark mode which looks cool as well

How to enable vim motions in Obsidian

  • You need to go here in the obsidian settings, and specify the name of your vimrc file

Image Specify your vimrc file name

  • In my case, I already had a vimrc file, and I wanted to use the same in Obsidian, so I created a symlink, here’s the part that does this in my zshrc file
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create_symlink ~/github/dotfiles-latest/vimrc/vimrc-file ~/github/obsidian_main/.obsidian.vimrc
  • Notice that this points my actual vimrc file, which can be found here in github: vimrc/vimrc-file
  • ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Remember to star my dotfiles ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • So if you want to use your existing vimrc file, you can do something similar

What about the Dataview Obsidian plugin?

  • I was never a fan of the Dataview plugin in Obsidian, as it makes my markdown files and also myself rely too much on a tool that I don’t know I’m sticking with for the rest of my life
  • Imagine me adding all the Dataview annotations and queries in markdown files in Obsidian, but then decide to move to another markdown tool, all of that will probably not be useful anymore. And this actually happened, I moved to Neovim for markdown, but since I decided not to use Dataview from the beginning, I don’t have to worry about compatibility

If you use Dataview and find a Neovim alternative, feel free to share it with other users in the YouTube comments

What about Excalidraw in Neovim?

  • I don’t use excalidraw extensively, I know that the Obsidian plugin is really cool and it integrates really well
  • If I need to draw something, I just open excalidraw in the browser and go from there
  • It seems this MF just putting excuses for the things he don’t use
    • nah bruh, frfr, I don’t use it and when I do I just open the browser

What about the Obsidian Mobile app?

  • I suck at taking notes on my phone, so I never do that, I hate it because I’m really slow and I make way to many typos
  • Also, I rarely use my phone to review my notes, but in case that I ever need to do it, I use the github mobile app
  • Remember that I auto push my obsidian repo to github, so I can review the notes in the mobile app
  • The GitHub mobile app allows you to view the notes in a nice HTML format

Image Markdown file on the GitHub mobile app, raw version

Image Clicking on the “View as HTML option”

Image Same file but in HTML view

You can also directly edit a file within the github mobile app and commit the change

What about Obsidian Graph view?

  • I’m pretty sure some folks love how the Graph view looks
  • Up to this day, I have not found a valid use case for it, personally, it’s just something aesthetic and to me brings no value
  • Some could say that it helps you understand how your notes link to each other, like neurons in your brain, to which I respond:

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  • But hey, maybe I’m just old and boring and some people to find it useful and like it, remember that this is just my personal opinion

How to search for files in Neovim compared to Obsidian

  • There are dedicated Neovim plugins to search for files, I used Telescope for a long time, I loved telescope with all my heart 🩷, but I’ve moved to the Snacks picker plugin recently
  • If you want to understand how I navigate files in Neovim, I have a video:

My entire markdown workflow

  • I cannot cover all of the markdown stuff in do in Obsidian in this article, because I’ve configured so many keymaps that do many different things, but if you like what you see so far, I’d recommend you to check this video:

It seems you’re shitting on Obsidian, do you hate it?

  • Hell nah, it’s just that I moved on, it has a special place in my heart, I used it for a long time, there’s many many notes that I took in Obsidian
  • The only thing is that Neovim adapts more to my workflow and it allows me to stay in the terminal, which allows me to move faster
  • Obsidian offers really nice features, for example if you don’t want to deal with github to sync your notes across devices, they have a paid feature, called obsidian sync
    • The only problem I see with that is that all these open source loving MFs are just cheap ass MFs that don’t like paying for stuff. MFs don’t even like donating a dime
  • Obsidian also has a feature that allows you to publish your knowledge base or documentation on the internet, similar to this blogpost you’re looking at right now, their solution is called Obsidian publish
    • The only difference is that I host my blogpost in github pages using a jekyll theme, but if you don’t want to go through all that setup, Obsidian publish is the way to go

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