Updated 09262023-160152
[0716YYYY-153953] David Blue#1917 folks, I am not being huffy or confrontational but it's gonna sound like it...
I've been around Obsidian for the course and played with it a bit, but having really gone into Drafts pretty hardcore this year, I was hit by this meat of MacStories brief description of Obsidian:
At its core, Obsidian is a Markdown text editor. Just point the app to a folder on your iPhone or iPad and you're ready to get started. The app is based on web technologies, which means it is highly customizable. Obsidian supports a theming system, with a wide variety of themes provided by the app's vibrant community of users and plugins to extend the app's functionality. The app's primary views are its editor and preview mode, which can be split into multiple panes both vertically and horizontally. Obsidian also supports saved workspaces that allow users to open a predefined group of notes easily, commands for quickly opening documents and accessing the app's features, along with extensive, customizable keyboard shortcut support. Of course, notes can be linked internally, allowing for the creation of a wiki-like web of documents.
Aside from "web technologies," this is a description of Drafts basically word-for-word.
I promise I'm not here to ask to be convinced or whatever - I use everything lol - but I do have a new question that I actually haven't seen answered elsewhere...
What sort of feature vacuum prompted the creation of Obsidian? Or just... General motivation?
[0716YYYY-154103] Eleanor#3466 I don't think the obsidian developers are mac users, so I imagine part of it is that Drafts is an apple-ecosystem app?
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[0716YYYY-154240] Eleanor#3466 I don't know enough about Drafts to speak to anything else, as I am also not a mac user.
[0716YYYY-154242] Leah#9156 I'm both a Drafts user and an Obsidian user, and I find them to be very different workflows.
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[0716YYYY-154249] David Blue#1917 I'm not a mac user either so I definitely see that, yes. but surely... collaborating with/consulting agiletortoise before making a feature-identical equivalent just for platform reasons?
[0716YYYY-154347] David Blue#1917 ah I see. that's insightful, thank you. my "pushback" would be... there are so many different ways to configure Drafts that I don't even know of one defining workflow but...
[0716YYYY-154447] David Blue#1917 frankly, I was interested in obsidian in the beginning because it was not fundamentally just a jumble of modules like Drafts felt, back then.
[0716YYYY-154501] Leah#9156 Perhaps I don't use Drafts like others do, and I've only ever used Drafts on iOS… but I honestly would never have even considered the two to be similar functionality. Perhaps I'm missing something.
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[0716YYYY-154538] David Blue#1917 well, notably, at least since I've started using it again, every one of the features mentioned in that pullquote has been added.
[0716YYYY-154619] David Blue#1917 idk I don't want to waste y'all's time and I really appreciate your thoughts... I should probably do more digging before I say anything more.
[0716YYYY-154708] David Blue#1917 wait!!! one more thing! @viticci are you still active in here? I know you're busy, but...
[0716YYYY-154716] Eleanor#3466 based on my experiences with Scrivener for Windows, the idea of porting a mac app to windows to deliberately try to mimic it is HARDER (and often leads to a horrible experience for windows users) than starting from scratch and building what you want with your own community and own culture and own preferences 😅
[0716YYYY-154908] David Blue#1917 omg yeah I had no idea until a very patient Shiny Frog dev walked me through it lol (they make Bear.)
idk... Drafts is a very strange piece of software made by one guy. Obsidian has turned out very different than I personally expected.
[0716YYYY-154935] ryanjamurphy#7924 Drafts added Backlinks six months after Obsidian and Roam became a thing… developers try to skate in the direction of the users
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[0716YYYY-155105] bosie#8742 Drafts and obsidian don’t overlap much
[0716YYYY-155117] David Blue#1917 i don't wanna get into a conversation of whodunit first lol. but that didn't occur to me so thank you.
[0716YYYY-155427] David Blue#1917 alright... if you say so .. I haven't had time to truly explore obsidian again yet so I'm gonna shut up until then.
I just wanted to point out that specific description cuz... well, it sure seems like they overlap for what Federico's using it for, anyway.
[0716YYYY-155555] ryanjamurphy#7924 I disagree on all kinds of counts, but especially on the fundamentals: Drafts uses a proprietary data structure, it isn’t API-first, it isn’t multi-platform, and it isn’t supposed to store text long-term
[0716YYYY-155622] ryanjamurphy#7924 I would have loved to see Drafts adopt some of Obsidian’s principles ages ago, but that isn’t what Greg wants for Drafts
[0716YYYY-155716] bosie#8742 Drafts supports scripting and whanot, isn’t really a markdown editor, it is a snippet editor as the base for executing code on it
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[0716YYYY-155812] Sams_Here#7066 When the mods are done defending Obsidian, in the Obsidian server ...bump #2 (4:16, and now 4:58) @Licat or @Silver: simple question... no answer yet. Thanks. https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/694233507500916796/865674825413296148
[0716YYYY-155821] Kaelri#6025 Yeah, there are a ton of tools in this space and the differences between them can be really subtle & hard to squeeze into the elevator pitch. That feature set also overlaps a lot with Bear or Notability or Notion or Simplenote or even (gulp) Evernote. I rarely have any good sense of how one of these apps behaves before I try it.
[0716YYYY-155922] Eleanor#3466 I haven't been ignoring you. I don't know the answer. Sorry!
[0716YYYY-155923] Blund#5241 Will Obsidian ever go open source?
[0716YYYY-155945] Eleanor#3466 check out this thread 🙂 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515
[0716YYYY-160004] bosie#8742 Cannot imagine that…
[0716YYYY-160016] Blund#5241 Very unfortunate 😦
[0716YYYY-160017] viticci#2323 Haha, always! Very busy writing but I always lurk and discover things here ☺
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[0716YYYY-160019] ryanjamurphy#7924 see also notational velocity, probably about 20 years ago
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[0716YYYY-160024] Blund#5241 Thanks! Forgot about that thread
[0716YYYY-160025] Sams_Here#7066 But, but... but you have an answer for everyone!
[0716YYYY-160040] ryanjamurphy#7924 hahah I don't think there's a way, no
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[0716YYYY-160043] Licat#1607 No, not that I know of at least
[0716YYYY-160244] Sams_Here#7066 Maybe not an answer, but an aknowledgement is key.
[0716YYYY-160312] Sams_Here#7066 Thank you. I will post a feature request in the forum.
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[0716YYYY-160332] Eleanor#3466 Unfortunately, if I responded to every post I saw and didn't know the answer to, it would get very spammy, very fast.
[0716YYYY-160432] Sams_Here#7066 I would take a "not sure" over 🦗
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[0716YYYY-160512] Silverica#8456 the hashtags are sorted by match quality right now
[0716YYYY-160520] Silverica#8456 won't alphabetical be confusing?
[0716YYYY-160522] Sams_Here#7066 You were not the only mod answering questions during this time frame. I bumped it 2x's and still nothing.
[0716YYYY-160729] BigChungus#8457 children learn at a certain age that mommy heard them the 1st time, and the silence was the answer
[0716YYYY-160743] Blund#5241 I think sorting alphabetically isn't possible atm
[0716YYYY-160749] Blund#5241 There might be a plugin for it though
[0716YYYY-160750] Sams_Here#7066 Are users aware that this is how it's being sorted - by match quality? I was not making that connection. Maybe I'm programmed to see lists as alphabetical until guided otherwise.
[0716YYYY-160834] BigChungus#8457 alphabetical lists are rare in 2021, everythings smart now
[0716YYYY-160851] Blund#5241 more like everything spies on you in order to be smart 😆
[0716YYYY-160904] BigChungus#8457 enable your tracking cookies
[0716YYYY-160906] Sams_Here#7066 @Licat and @Silver unacceptable and not the first time.
[0716YYYY-160919] Kaelri#6025 dude. :-/
[0716YYYY-160939] BigChungus#8457 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brLNcJeSAhw
[0716YYYY-160944] Blund#5241 I mean to be fair I don't think the discord is technically even for questions
[0716YYYY-161001] Sams_Here#7066 I'm out.
[0716YYYY-161006] Blund#5241 at least not according to the moderators (while i think it would be easier just to have a support channel here tho)
[0716YYYY-161016] Licat#1607 ~~We don't owe you an answer or an explanation. Please don't ping us like that again.~~ Ok maybe that was a little too strong, apologies!
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[0716YYYY-161113] Sams_Here#7066 I don't owe you any more support. Fair enough.
[0716YYYY-161121] BigChungus#8457 have a good nap
[0716YYYY-161136] Licat#1607 We are happy to help when possible, but we are not your personal tech support.
[0716YYYY-161208] Licat#1607 This server is welcoming and many people tries to help, but if nobody is answering, there must be a good reason
[0716YYYY-161212] BigChungus#8457 what if someone pays you $10,000 on catalyst
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[0716YYYY-161353] BigChungus#8457 jk my paypal is open tho any time of night, just put the question in the payment memo field
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[0716YYYY-161406] Licat#1607 Normally if you aren't getting an answer, it's not only because people don't know, but they also probably because most aren't running into your issue
[0716YYYY-161414] Blund#5241 Yeah
[0716YYYY-161420] Blund#5241 usually people are glad to help if they can
[0716YYYY-161631] Licat#1607 I replied to the wrong post earlier, but if you have issues with member behavior, DM a mod is the best way
[0716YYYY-161653] Silverica#8456 let's all have some patience and peace for a Friday night shall we ❤️
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[0716YYYY-161956] Kaelri#6025 You know what, just for that, I'm gonna go bump up my Catalyst license to the next tier!
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[0716YYYY-162049] Blund#5241 What are the benefits of having a Catalyst license?
[0716YYYY-162103] Silverica#8456 early access to desktop/mobile versions
[0716YYYY-162103] BigChungus#8457 love in your heart
[0716YYYY-162110] Silverica#8456 and a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart
[0716YYYY-162114] Blund#5241 the real correct answer 😆
[0716YYYY-162128] Blund#5241 Nice! Fair enough 😄
[0716YYYY-162540] james.d#1029 Hi everyone, I'm new here. Thanks for devs and users for making such a cool app and healthy community!
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[0716YYYY-162701] james.d#1029 I have a question about something on desktop app that i don't see mentioned on the forum, is this an ok place to mention it? just looking for a quick response
[0716YYYY-162752] BigChungus#8457 ya generally this is where that goes
[0716YYYY-162845] james.d#1029 ok thanks. im using non-wikilink mode. with absolute paths
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865706544036052992/Screen_Shot_2021-07-16_at_17.28.28_PM.jpg
[0716YYYY-162900] james.d#1029 (for compatability with other apps)
[0716YYYY-163013] james.d#1029 when i make a note and use double brackets, everything looks good, as expected
[0716YYYY-163041] james.d#1029
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865707033365184552/Screen_Shot_2021-07-16_at_17.30.37_PM.jpg
[0716YYYY-163101] james.d#1029 and when i move the note to a folder, the link updates as expected
[0716YYYY-163134] james.d#1029 but, the title ALSO updates
[0716YYYY-163144] james.d#1029
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865707295496863814/Screen_Shot_2021-07-16_at_17.31.39_PM.jpg
[0716YYYY-163219] james.d#1029 repeat the process (after the move). and this time the title is back to the original
[0716YYYY-163227] james.d#1029
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865707478099427358/Screen_Shot_2021-07-16_at_17.32.23_PM.jpg
[0716YYYY-163319] james.d#1029 is that the expected behavior? i dont want the path reflected in the name
[0716YYYY-163400] BigChungus#8457 looks like a bug to me make a post on the bug forum if you like
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[0716YYYY-163438] james.d#1029 oh i hope it is! its been driving me kinda crazy. i keep switching the settings back and forth
[0716YYYY-163449] Licat#1607 No that's definitely a bug
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[0716YYYY-163506] Silverica#8456 yeah that title should always be short
[0716YYYY-163528] Silverica#8456 although I'm curious why you're using absolute rather than relative for compatibility @james.d
[0716YYYY-163536] Silverica#8456 other apps don't know where vault root is, right?
[0716YYYY-163645] james.d#1029 well. good question. since ive tried all the combinations multiple times, with varying results... maybe i settled on this one because it was not reproducing the bug. its hard to say. im rather new to markdown and only using obsidian for a couple weeks
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[0716YYYY-163650] Licat#1607 yup just confirmed, a patch will be out in the next insider
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[0716YYYY-164017] james.d#1029 just confirming now that both absolute and relative seem to have the same bug for me. sometimes i think the settings mentioned here dont stick, but i hesitate to say that because that is much more likely due to crazy user
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[0716YYYY-164059] Licat#1607 yup, the bug is related to link updating in any markdown links
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[0716YYYY-164117] Licat#1607 just that shortest unique links don't have the path in them so it doesn't trigger the bug
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[0716YYYY-164629] james.d#1029 i feel like i ruled this out already, but having trouble reproducing the reason. relative paths seem to work fine in devonthink AND devonthink to go (mobile). getting them to play nice is my main goal.
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[0716YYYY-164720] Silverica#8456 I would recommend relative links if possible
[0716YYYY-164722] Silverica#8456 more portable imo
[0716YYYY-164729] Silverica#8456 doesn't matter if you change vault root too
[0716YYYY-164745] james.d#1029 interesting. thanks for the tip. i had it in my mind that they were more fragile for some reason
[0716YYYY-164946] Oshino#0098 Question:
[0716YYYY-165029] Oshino#0098 Is it currently possible to achieve an animation seeing how my graph view evolves over time?
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[0716YYYY-165116] Oshino#0098 This would be both cool and informative
[0716YYYY-165228] Silverica#8456 not over time but in some order
[0716YYYY-165255] Silverica#8456 open graph - command palette - start timelapse
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[0716YYYY-165524] Silverica#8456 ☝️
[0716YYYY-165822] james.d#1029 i rediscovered the problem i was having with relative links. not reliably updating.
[0716YYYY-170324] james.d#1029 yknow it might just be a problem im having with either type of link
[0716YYYY-170326] Oshino#0098 Thanks for replying. Since Obsidian works with markdown files, there is no time information stored along with my notes(without specific plugins), right? I see it.
[0716YYYY-170739] james.d#1029 its a 20 sec video. just shows how both relative and absolute can cause missing images in devonthink. the markdown links in obsidian dont update when the note containing them moves
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865716337657511976/Screen_Shot_2021-07-16_at_18.04.29_PM.mov
[0716YYYY-170751] james.d#1029 [vid shows how one image is missing, then note moves, then other image is missing]
[0716YYYY-171133] Jiaming 家鸣#7256 Is there a way to write a embed code block in the list
I try this but the list in preview is not foldable
- Item 1
'''python
print(hi)
'''
- Item 2
(I don't know how to escape backtick in Discord so I use single quote for demonstration purpose)
[0716YYYY-171708] Jiaming 家鸣#7256
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865718722474934302/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-171726] Jiaming 家鸣#7256 Another is like this but it mess up the edit mode a little bit
[0716YYYY-171741] Jiaming 家鸣#7256 But the preview mode looks better
[0716YYYY-171742] Jiaming 家鸣#7256
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865718866549014569/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-171838] Silverica#8456 there's file creation time, although it might not be the most accurate (e.g. if you copy files over)
[0716YYYY-172533] idea.list#9220 In this case your code block is a continuation of list item "Item 1..."
[0716YYYY-172551] idea.list#9220 Alternatively you can write it like this:
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865720916251639838/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-172623] cotmax#5996 this work, but it's kind of fragile and sometimes the parser doesn't like it it really depends
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865721052718301234/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-172641] idea.list#9220 Not perfect, but code block remains code block in edit mode
[0716YYYY-173209] Jiaming 家鸣#7256 Thanks everyone!
[0716YYYY-174954] Wafthrudnir#6502 Mind to share which font did you use here?
[0716YYYY-175539] mycall#6053 Is there any way to move the text to the left most side?
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865728418146418709/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-175653] idea.list#9220 Yes, disable 'Readable line length' in the Editor settings
[0716YYYY-175724] mycall#6053 Thanks!
[0716YYYY-175732] idea.list#9220 PragmataPro https://fsd.it/shop/fonts/pragmatapro/
[0716YYYY-175932] Wafthrudnir#6502 Thanks! 😊
[0716YYYY-181932] kazoo#0328 Anybody know if there's a way to customize the sort order of folders? Beyond heuristics (like alphabetical, creation date, etc). I was thinking of just naming them 00_Name, 01_Name, etc
[0716YYYY-182015] cotmax#5996 that's how you can do it
[0716YYYY-182019] Zarkov#8768 This is called Johny Decimal System
[0716YYYY-182046] Zarkov#8768 Take a look https://johnnydecimal.com/
{Embed} https://johnnydecimal.com/ Home A system to organise projects. https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/XB0UMevDXhwlJKb_VxBxoF1rQ-lT5gDlz9_7nhcIcp0/https/johnnydecimal.com/icons/icon-192x192.png
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[0716YYYY-182049] kazoo#0328 Ah, gotcha
[0716YYYY-182054] kazoo#0328 It'll have to do!
[0716YYYY-182319] Zarkov#8768 Speaking about it, how can I have the folder icon in my obsidian if my theme doesn't have it? CSS magicians 👉 👈 help this fellow here
[0716YYYY-182348] kazoo#0328 One last question, is there a hotkey for swapping between Edit mode and Preview?
[0716YYYY-182428] kazoo#0328 OMG, the command palletee
[0716YYYY-182432] Zarkov#8768 Go to your hotkeys
[0716YYYY-182436] Zarkov#8768 and create one
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[0716YYYY-182446] Zarkov#8768 I think the name is "toggle edit/preview mode"
[0716YYYY-182447] kazoo#0328 Awesome!
[0716YYYY-182455] Zarkov#8768 mine is Alt+E
[0716YYYY-182545] kazoo#0328 Dang every day I learn new ways in which this tool is great
[0716YYYY-182552] kazoo#0328 Bravo devs
[0716YYYY-182619] Zarkov#8768 My thoughts exactly, looks like that the more you know the more it makes sense to use.
[0716YYYY-185803] Chetachi ❤#1268 This comment may help you out 🙂 https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/702656734631821413/864565920675135568
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[0716YYYY-190949] Zarkov#8768 You are tha woman! thanks a lot, looks so good
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865747081619439626/unknown.png
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[0716YYYY-192109] Chetachi ❤#1268 No problemo! 😉
[0716YYYY-192540] Eleanor#3466 😭 it's incredible how much time I just wasted to figure out that "or" is case sensitive in Obsidian Boolean searches.
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[0716YYYY-193516] BigChungus#8457 booleans must be screamed in capital
[0716YYYY-194212] Zarkov#8768 Tell me more about it. I think I'm not aware of
[0716YYYY-194351] Eleanor#3466
This works: ( "city" OR "cities" OR "urban" ) -path:80 -path:70 -path:12
But if you search: "city" or "cities" it will return files with the word or in them.
[0716YYYY-194419] Zarkov#8768 oh got it.
[0716YYYY-194521] Zarkov#8768 Does anybody knows why I cannot manage to make the core template plugin to work?
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865756023201857556/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-194604] Eleanor#3466 it fires on file creation not when you enter it I think. I don't know if that helps at all.
[0716YYYY-194627] Zarkov#8768 I just made it with the template hotkey, but nope, not working
[0716YYYY-195222] Zarkov#8768 sad
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865757787203305472/vHaJRzgvuI.gif
[0716YYYY-200924] cotmax#5996 did you set the format in the settings?
[0716YYYY-201247] Zarkov#8768 nope, I let it as it was
[0716YYYY-201412] Zarkov#8768 Edited it now, but still nothing
[0716YYYY-202226] cotmax#5996 hmm I'm not sure, I just tried again and it's working for me
[0716YYYY-202715] cotmax#5996
I guess you could just use the full version to test, make it date%3AYYYY-MM-DD instead of date
[0716YYYY-202957] Zarkov#8768 Didn't work as well, thats weird. I'm sure I'm making something wrong
[0716YYYY-203038] cotmax#5996 how do you trigger the template insertion? from the icon or something else?
[0716YYYY-203157] Zarkov#8768 Wait, I was using templater
[0716YYYY-203201] Zarkov#8768 not template
[0716YYYY-203211] Zarkov#8768 🤡 sorry
[0716YYYY-203247] cotmax#5996 ah well that would do it lol
[0716YYYY-203645] David Blue#1917 uh I just wanna say after finally spending some one-on-one time with the iOS app… holy hell… very, very impressive and ambitious. I would also like to sincerely thank the team for universalizing keyboard shortcuts customization on iPhone as well as iPad. (this is such a crusade of mine that I literally have a little trophy to give you in the coming weeks.)
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[0716YYYY-211540] WagtailBob#8797 Thanks for the answer. Weird stuff definitely happened this morning - massive delete of 70+ newer files. The iPad had been on airplane mode. Maybe when I put it back on wifi the server saw the older files as newer.
[0716YYYY-221826] Connor96#2597 Hi, all . I'm confused why this thread spending very high memory ?
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865794546520686612/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-222254] cotmax#5996 are you using the better word count plugin? it has a problem currently with high cpu and memory usage (licat found a fix but the author need to correct thing)
[0716YYYY-222335] cotmax#5996 the other thing that sometimes use ram is the graph but that depends on your files/graph
[0716YYYY-222336] Connor96#2597 wow. 3 days ago ,I used "Better word count plugin".
[0716YYYY-222356] cotmax#5996 yeah it's very new since it broke like that lol
[0716YYYY-222427] cotmax#5996 in my case I disabled the feature that collect stats and deleted the vault stats file in the root and it fixed the issue
[0716YYYY-222903] Connor96#2597 I closed "better plugin", "Vault sats" , “Graph view" , and some. but still
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865797220640096306/unknown.png
[0716YYYY-223006] Connor96#2597 I don't know how to find which plugins cause high memory
[0716YYYY-223934] cotmax#5996 yeah it's always hard to tell the best is probably disable all of them then re-enable one at a time though 200mb is not too bad (depending on your vault and stuff)
[0716YYYY-224447] Connor96#2597 I closed all plugins , even core plugins, but still....😆
{Attachments} https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/694233507500916796/865801180289302549/unknown.png
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