kepano

kepano

@stephango.com

making @obsidian.md

8.7K followers756 following578 posts

One week later, Pele is already in dozens of apps including Obsidian 1.15! Many improvements this week: - Even faster rendering! - Math resolver support: KaTeX, MathJax, Temml, etc - Gradients in sankey diagrams - Fewer edge crossings in diagrams with subgraphs - Sub, sup and inline code in labels

On a personal note, I am so grateful for all the love Pele received! I truly did not expect it. My hope was to get a few bug reports ahead of the Obsidian release. It's wonderful to see it adopted. I take this as a great responsibility. If you added Pele to your app feel free to share it below 🌋

Obsidian voice capture is amazing. It's perfect for taking notes while you're walking or riding a bicycle. Works offline, and even when your phone is locked or while multitasking in other apps.

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Obsidian 1.15.0 (early access) is now available to Catalyst members - Mermaid diagrams use our new engine, Pele, which renders up to 500 times faster and uses your theme's colors and fonts. - Voice capture on iOS: transcribe voice notes as you speak, even from the Lock Screen. - and lots more!

This is Pele, my new rendering library for diagrams and charts, compatible with the latest Mermaid syntax. - 100-500× faster than mermaid.js - 6× smaller bundle - No dependencies - Easy to theme - Responsive to device width - Open source (MIT) Try it at pele.run

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Pele [ˈpɛlɛ] is of course named after the goddess of volcanoes and fire. Many thanks to @kumavis.me for kindly donating the NPM package name!

This is Pele, my new rendering library for diagrams and charts, compatible with the latest Mermaid syntax. - 100-500× faster than mermaid.js - 6× smaller bundle - No dependencies - Easy to theme - Responsive to device width - Open source (MIT) Try it at pele.run

In pursuit of making Obsidian insanely fast and cohesively designed, I always found the Mermaid library to be too big, too slow, and too hard to theme. Pele will be the new renderer in the next version of Obsidian, but you can start using it now! github.com/obsidianmd/p...

ludicrous is not fast enough, I am going for teleportation

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Obsidian 1.14 is now available with five major improvements: 1. Edit Markdown files outside your vault 2. Preview files using macOS Quick Look when the app is closed 3. Instantly add notes with Quick Capture on iOS 4. Kanban and new grouping options in Bases 5. Highlight colors

I don't know when I'm going to use these seventy year old flash bulbs my grandpa gave me, but the packaging is too cool to throw out

I have always loved reading annual reports like Stack Overflow, State of JS, etc, so we created our own survey and will share a public report by the end of the year. As always, Obsidian doesn't collect usage analytics or personal data, and this survey is anonymous.

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Obsidian October is back! This year we're launching "State of Obsidian" a survey about how you use Obsidian that we will compile into a public report for the community. Take the survey: 2026.obsidian.md

kepano reposted

Obsidian 1.14.3 (early access) is now available. - New Group menu in Bases lets you control columns in Kanban. Also works with tables, lists, cards. - Added macOS Quick Look, so you can instantly preview Markdown files even when Obsidian is not open. And lots more!

the workflow is getting super smooth

Obsidian@obsidian.md

macOS Quick Look is in Obsidian 1.14.3 (early access) so you can instantly preview Markdown files even if the app isn't open

you asked for it, so here it is!

Obsidian@obsidian.md

You can finally edit any Markdown file without moving it into your vault! 🤗 Works for all formats Obsidian supports. Available with Obsidian 1.14.2 (early access).

"so it's just a cookie but with chocolate chips in it?" it sounds like a dig at first, but it's one of the highest compliments you can receive in the understandability of something you created

This is Knap. It's a new language I created that turns data into Markdown. Knap should feel familiar and comes with a wonderfully pleasant syntax to modify and format plain text.

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This is Knap. It's a new language I created that turns data into Markdown. Knap should feel familiar and comes with a wonderfully pleasant syntax to modify and format plain text.

it looks like they had fun adapting this quote from the 2016 article "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny": "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to."

In Obsidian 1.14 the new quick capture launches faster than the iOS animation takes to complete (currently available in early access)

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Obsidian 1.14.1 (early access) is now available to Catalyst members for desktop and mobile. - iOS: New Quick Capture widget instantly launches a capture with configurable location and template. - Accessibility: Mobile app now scales with your system's preferred text size.

kepano reposted

Obsidian 1.14.0 (early access) is now available to Catalyst members for desktop and mobile. - Kanban views! - New quick capture widget for iOS (demo below) - Support for colored highlight syntax using emoji ==🔵blue==

I'm looking for someone with high attention to detail to collaborate with on Obsidian, but it's so hard to find good Android developers 😢

everything → Markdown very smooth

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Save your data to local Markdown files you own forever, and can access completely offline. Obsidian now helps you migrate from all the major proprietary formats including Notion, Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep, Apple Notes, and more.

kepano reposted

Save your data to local Markdown files you own forever, and can access completely offline. Obsidian now helps you migrate from all the major proprietary formats including Notion, Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep, Apple Notes, and more.

@pngwn.at I was wondering if you're still using the NPM package name knap and if not whether you'd be willing to donate it for a project I am working on? Cheers!

first test of any markdown app: the dreaded multiline code block in a nested list of mixed rtl/ltr directionality

kepano reposted

Obsidian 1.13.6 is now available to all for desktop and mobile! - Added swipe-to-close tabs in the mobile tab switcher - Improvements for Settings keyboard navigation and when app is fullscreen - Improved "Undo close tab" behavior. Tabs now reopen in the correct tab group.

My open source html→markdown library Defuddle is suddenly getting a lot of downloads over the last month

if you're using Airtable by Bending Spoons™ consider backing up your data in the unlikely event that the API gets nerfed or maybe even (gasp) paywalled

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Good news, everyone! We made it easy and free to convert your entire Airtable workspace to durable Markdown files that you own and can use offline. Obsidian Bases supports all your views, filters, and formulas. Your data is yours, take ownership of it.

kepano@stephango.com

Thanks for reaching out. Do you mind if I share this email on social media to gauge the reaction from our community?

As with past "paper cuts" releases, Obsidian 1.13 is not super flashy but it includes hundreds of small improvements and bug fixes that make the overall experience a lot smoother.

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Obsidian 1.13 is now available to everyone on desktop and mobile! - Added search and keyboard navigation to settings - Images are easier to resize and zoom - iOS share sheet lets you save content from other apps without opening Obsidian - Many bug fixes and performance improvements

The extent to which Claude specifically is being promoted by bot accounts on GitHub and social platforms smells fishy. It forces me to wonder how much of it is an organized campaign and who is paying for all the tokens.

Moderating the Obsidian Reddit has become a nightmare. It looks like at least 50% of the activity is coming from bots. For now we've been able to somewhat successfully curb it with various automated rules, but the volume is only increasing.

formats evolve over decades, apps over months, intelligence is evolving every day in terms of pace layers "file over app" defines priorities: invest deeply in proven formats, and don't expect anything at the intelligence layer to last very long

This update fixes some particularly thorny and longstanding bugs on iOS and Android when dealing with very large Markdown files. You can now scroll smoothly in Live Preview on iOS and use "Select all" on Android. Should be able to handle massive files without a hitch.

Obsidian@obsidian.md

Obsidian 1.13.2 (early access) is now available to Catalyst members for desktop and mobile. Adds image zoom on desktop and resolves bugs: - Fixed "Copy" button on large code blocks - Fixed scroll stuttering in long files on iOS - Fixed "select all" in long files on Android