[HN Gopher] Show HN: MdSilo - A knowledge silo runs in your web ...
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Show HN: MdSilo - A knowledge silo runs in your web browser
 
Author : ihndan
Score  : 79 points
Date   : 2022-01-17 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
 
web link (mdsilo.com)
w3m dump (mdsilo.com)
 
| ihndan wrote:
| Hi, hackers and writers:
| 
| Excited to introduce mdSilo on Hacker News, it is a Zettelkasten
| note-taking app runs entirely in your web browser, free and open
| source.
| 
| We believe connection is good in thinking. mdSilo supports
| [[BackLinks]], ((Block Reference)) to connect everything in
| writing. On top of that, we also believe that the digital garden
| is better not a walled garden. So mdSilo opens a window and
| builds a bridge for each digital garden. We can connect with each
| other via {{ PubLink }}. Just like links to liaison points
| between private digital gardens, a liaison point can be a shared
| wiki page of any systematic knowledge generated from different
| digital gardens spontaneously.
| 
| Here are some of the features that mdSilo offers:
| 
| - WYSIWYG editor, Markdown support, Live Preview like Typora;
| 
| - PWA and Local File System Access support to make it functions
| as same as native app on desktop;
| 
| - Side menu, Hovering toolbar, hotkeys, Slash command to make
| writing and formatting fun;
| 
| - #HashTag and nested notes to help organize your writing;
| 
| - View your writing in different ways: Page Stacking View, Graph
| view, Chronicle view, Task view...;
| 
| - Connect everything in your writing by BackLink, Block
| Reference, Direct/Indirect Mentions, etc.;
| 
| - Import or export your notes at any time as Markdown files or
| Json;
| 
| - Full-text search;
| 
| Like an online IDE, mdSilo is a vscode.dev for notes, a good free
| and open source alternative to Obsidian, Roam Research and more.
| 
| mdSilo puts privacy first. No registering is required, no
| installation is required, You are writing locally, you fully own
| and control your data even the code(it is open source, anyone can
| inspect it and make it even better together).
| 
| Official site and demo: https://mdsilo.com/ The source code repo:
| https://github.com/danloh/mdSilo-web
 
  | 692 wrote:
  | this looks very good, but I'm I being daft?
  | 
  | I cannot see any instructions on how run it locally?
 
    | ihndan wrote:
    | Thanks and sorry for confusing you, You can go to live demo
    | from home page, the live demo is also a help docs.
    | 
    | To run locally or to open local folder, your web browser
    | should be Chrome or Edge which supports File System Access.
 
      | 692 wrote:
      | many thanks,
 
| tethys wrote:
| I was wondering if/when Firefox would implement the File System
| Access API. Mozilla's official position [0] implies: Not anytime
| soon, as they consider it harmful, mostly due to security
| considerations.
| 
| > There's a subset of this API we're quite enthusiastic about (in
| particular providing a read/write API for files and directories
| as alternative storage endpoint), but it is wrapped together with
| aspects for which we do not think meaningful end user consent is
| possible to obtain (in particular cross-site access to the end
| user's local file system). Overall we consider this harmful
| therefore, but Mozilla could be supportive of parts, provided
| this were segmented better.
| 
| The GitHub issue discussing this position is now closed [1].
| 
| [0] https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#native-
| file-s... [1] https://wicg.github.io/file-system-
| access/#security-ransomwa...
 
| webwanderings wrote:
| I recently started using Obsidian after playing with several
| others. I think I'm going to stick with Obsidian as it has good
| number of people around on an active basis. Your product looks
| pretty fast and sharp but it is hard to trust browser-based
| workload for such a personal and subjective activity.
| 
| The note-taking market is very crowded. I think note-taking has
| already delivered its original slice bread. Pretty difficult to
| continue to reinvent the same and expect a different result.
| However, I do think, that going back to the basics of HTML
| (instead of continuing with the markdown) may break the ceiling a
| little further.
| 
| Any case. Good luck with your offering. It looks good and acts
| well.
 
  | dennisy wrote:
  | Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say that HTML
  | would break the ceiling a little further?
 
| jerjerjer wrote:
| WYSIWYG markdown editor is such a rarity.
| 
| How do I run it locally/on my server?
| 
| Is it possible to make some of my notes public but RO?
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | if your web browser is Chrome or Edge, which supports File
  | System Access API, you can open/edit your local files under
  | your permission.
  | 
  | no Publish feature currently, we can hope it in the future. you
  | can export your works as plain text Markdown files.
 
| domador wrote:
| This comment is not about MdSilo itself... but the design style
| on the linked page looks too much like certain splog-like landing
| pages I've come across (namely "this domain is for sale" pages.)
| Since I opened a bunch of Hacker News links all at once, I almost
| closed MdSilo's tab when I came across it, out of instinct.
| 
| Depending on how you spread the word about MdSilo, that may not
| be a problem. If it is a problem, though, you may wish to address
| it.
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | Thanks for your suggestion, I will tackle this next, Thanks.
 
| ihndan wrote:
| And works on local Markdown
 
| RichardChu wrote:
| Hey, the creator of Notabase [1] here, which it looks like MdSilo
| was based off of.
| 
| Your project looks cool! Always interesting to see how other
| people tackle note-taking. Thanks for keeping it open source.
| 
| I'd encourage people to check out Notabase as well, which offers
| an alternative vision and UI which some people might like better.
| You can use it hosted, or self-host it yourself -- the code is
| open source [2].
| 
| Best of luck with MdSilo! :)
| 
| [1]: https://notabase.io
| 
| [2]: https://github.com/churichard/notabase
 
  | pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
  | > Thanks for keeping it open source.
  | 
  | Not really an option to do otherwise, thanks to the license
  | (AGPL).
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | Thanks Richard! :)
 
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Reminds me of HackMD (https://hackmd.io/)
 
  | maelito wrote:
  | Hackmd has no live preview. Huge difference !
 
    | jklinger410 wrote:
    | Yes it does.
 
| delgaudm wrote:
| Is this an alternative to Obsidian?
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | Yes, It could be, and it is free and open source, with a
  | WYSIWYG editor
 
    | nvrspyx wrote:
    | Just to add, Obsidian had a recent update that introduced a
    | WYSIWYG editor.
 
    | HellsMaddy wrote:
    | It's open source? You should have a link to the repo on the
    | website.
 
| chipironcin wrote:
| Is there a way of self hosting the application in a server and
| have it access the data stored on that server file system? (aka
| runnings it in the cloud).
| 
| Thanks for distributing the fork and contributing to the note
| taking apps landscape!
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | You can try Notabase https://notabase.io/, which is better for
  | self-hosting.
  | 
  | if you prefer mdSilo, need to toggle the Offline mode false in
  | code and use the third-part services: vercel and supabase
 
| [deleted]
 
| walden789 wrote:
| Looks cool! Does Json-import mean it can import from Roam? Does
| it support Attributes and Attribute-Tables (like Roam)?
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | It cannot. I need to do some research.
 
| threatofrain wrote:
| Any plans for Latex by any chance?
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | Latex or Diagrams like flowchart still in mind, will not be
  | soon.
 
    | blintz wrote:
    | I had a pretty good time setting up Katex
    | (https://katex.org/) on my personal blog. It's fairly
    | straightforward and supports most of the set of LaTeX people
    | use in shorthand notes/blog posts. Having all the rendering
    | happen on the client is a big win too.
 
| riffic wrote:
| there's a lot of good stuff happening in this space. Nice to see
| another option out there.
 
| kikkoi wrote:
| Does actually data sitting under local folder, but seems isn't
| there web browser automatically update changes to the notes when
| edit notes same folder with vscode?
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | try to re-open/reload the folder?
  | 
  | Will tackle this issue, Thanks
 
| danShumway wrote:
| Other than pricing and being able to write without an account,
| what would you say is the biggest difference between this and
| Notabase?
| 
| Has anything with the format changed since the fork that would
| prevent people from moving data between them?
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | Thanks to Richard. mdSilo is based on Notabase:
  | https://notabase.io/. You can move data freely.
  | 
  | The biggest difference between Notabase or any other networked
  | note-taking apps is that we introduced a new feature: {{
  | PubLink }}.
  | 
  | try it out for more details.
 
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Sounds interesting. How is keeping a reading list tackled? I
| currently use Obsidian.
 
  | ihndan wrote:
  | maybe can utilize the HashTag?
 
  | boringg wrote:
  | Just looked at Obsidian - seems interesting and the graph
  | connection seems neat but also a bit shiny object like. Do you
  | find it particularly useful?
 
| [deleted]
 
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(page generated 2022-01-17 23:00 UTC)