r/PKMS

▲ 56 r/PKMS+3 crossposts

Most of my workflow already lives in Neovim — code, prose, notes, scratchpads. The piece that always lagged was querying the notes. Plenty of tools let me grep them; almost none let me ask things like "all the drafts under tasks/q2 that link to people/alice" without leaving the buffer.

Turns out you can. IWE is a Rust binary (LSP server + CLI) that treats a directory of .md files as a queryable graph. Install once, use it from the editor over LSP and from the shell over :!.

The query language is small and reads like Mongo's:

iwe find --filter 'status: draft, priority: {$gte: 8}'

iwe find --filter 'author.email: {$exists: true}'

Frontmatter is the schema. Markdown links are the relationships — and there are two kinds, which the engine actually distinguishes:

  • An inline link in body text is a reference: "see also."
  • A markdown link alone on its own line is an inclusion link: containment. The linked document becomes a structural child of this one.

Each gets its own pair of operators:

iwe find --references people/alice # docs that link to Alice inline
iwe find --included-by tasks/alpha:0 # everything under alpha's tree (unbounded)
iwe find --included-by tasks/alpha:0 --references people/dmytro --filter 'status: draft'

That last line: drafts under the tasks/alpha subtree that also mention people/dmytro inline. Three relationships, three flags.

The same predicates drive iwe count, iwe update, iwe delete. Bulk-set frontmatter from the shell:

iwe update --filter 'status: draft, reviewed: true' \
--set status=published \
--set published_at=2026-05-02

update and delete require an explicit --filter (no accidental whole-corpus rewrites). --dry-run previews.

From inside Neovim, this composes two ways.

The same iwe binary is also a markdown LSP server, so the editing side feels like working in code:

  • gd — jump to linked notes
  • gr — find references / backlinks
  • K — hover preview of a linked note without opening it
  • Code actions for extract section to a new file, inline a referenced note, rename
  • Auto-complete for link targets as you type
  • Inlay hints showing parent context and link counts

There's a dedicated plugin — iwe.nvim — that wires the LSP up and adds Telescope integration with hierarchical path search (notes show as Journal ⇒ 2026 ⇒ Week 18 ⇒ Mon notes). Lazy / packer / vim-plug all work.

For querying, you don't need a special integration — the CLI is enough:

  • Output is plain text — pipe to jq, fzf, telescope, whatever.

Same install handles both: cargo install iwe and you have the LSP server + the CLI. The LSP runs against any folder of .md files; the CLI queries the same folder.

Side note: this also turns out to be a decent shape for AI agents. They use the same CLI you do, see the same files, and git log is your audit trail for whatever they touch.

Repo: https://github.com/iwe-org/iwe · Plugin: https://github.com/iwe-org/iwe.nvim

Curious what the heavy notes-in-Neovim crowd thinks, especially on the inclusion-vs-reference link split.

u/gimalay — 1 day ago
▲ 55 r/PKMS+2 crossposts

#013: My Hermes & Obsidian Setup and Use Cases

Wrote a deep dive into my Hermes & Obsidian setup.

It covers everything from what I actually use it for, what I've experimented with, the principles behind this evolving system, the breakdown of my entire setup, and tons of resources & tools & tips for getting started on your own.

open.substack.com
u/infinitely_zero — 1 day ago
▲ 2 r/PKMS

How do you like TickTick?

Claude is recommending it. I have like 4 very different professional/life roles. I need something where I can keep tasks and mark out time blocks for each. But mostly projects and tasks. Would ticktick be good?

UPDATE: I also just had Notion recommended to me, TickTick can bring in stuff from Notion - so then why would I need both? Or which one would I be entering a typical thing to do in?

Suggestions welcomed

reddit.com
▲ 27 r/PKMS+14 crossposts

Ask questions across your Markdown notes using a fully local Graph RAG engine. Built for Obsidian vaults, works with any folder of Markdown files. Extracts entity-relation triples from wikilinks & YAML frontmatter, retrieves answers via hybrid search (vector + BM25 + temporal). Multilingual. No cloud. Runs on Ollama.

https://github.com/benmaster82/Kwipu

u/WritHerAI — 1 day ago
▲ 3 r/PKMS+2 crossposts

Open Source Obsidian Agent Manager Program

Hey everyone,

I built a CLI program that brings NotebookLM like features into Obsidian through four specialized AI agents for audio transcription, fast research, deep research, and visual mind-mapping. All of which is operating safely within an isolated folder sandbox in the vault so it can't break anything in the vault.

If you want to try it out or dive into how it works, check out the links below:

Repo: https://github.com/NTarek4741/obsidian-agent

Blog Post: https://medium.com/@tarek_noiem/give-your-obsidian-vault-wings-with-4-agents-powered-by-dedalus-labs-3536242324d4

▲ 8 r/PKMS

Anyone else collecting audiobook or podcast clips/highlights they never actually go back to?

I go on walks every morning listening to audiobooks and podcasts. When something hits, I clip it in Audible or drop a voice note. I have been doing this for years.

I never go back to any of it...

Not because I do not want to. Because there is no good way to get it out. The clips live in Audible. The voice notes live on my phone. None of it is connected and none of it ever makes it into my actual thinking or work.

I am trying to figure out if this is just me or if this is a widespread problem. Specifically curious whether anyone has found a way to actually use what they capture, not just store it better, but turn it into something actionable.

What have you tried? What actually worked?

reddit.com
u/HouseTrout — 1 day ago
▲ 0 r/PKMS

Day 2: Voice notes workflow still broken in most PKM tools, what’s your setup?

Hey r/PKM,

I posted 2 days ago about how painful voice notes still are in 2026 and got lots of replies.

Common frustrations:

- Instant permanent cloud uploads

- Search only works if you remember the exact phrase

- Poor transcription with accents

- Heavy apps that break flow

Interesting pattern: Most people have split their workflow, quick capture in one tool ->then send to their main PKM (Notion, Obsidian, etc.)

Curious about your current voice note ->PKM workflow. What tools are you combining? Any that actually feel seamless?

Especially interested in Android + privacy-friendly options. Drop your setups 👇

https://preview.redd.it/7mh5imfp942h1.png?width=941&format=png&auto=webp&s=b598dca4b5947a1f3ee1bd133133b54677a766c0

reddit.com
u/Evil_god7 — 3 days ago
▲ 0 r/PKMS

I built a manual Obsidian system turning weekly work/collections into usable data. Conceptually improve the operator not the vault.

I jokingly said to myself, "great now I have a second brain, but I'm not at all smarter."

I feel like my obsidian vault/2nd brain was write only, read never. I can't be the only person. So I structured some prompts, mulled it over with Claude, and designed a four agent loop for Obsidian. I had no intention of it, becoming as formal as it did, but it all centered around me and my tendencies.

I generally think something is cool and I really get into it, but that flame burns out really quick. So my vault became several dozen web scrapes, X bookmarks, videos, summaries, etc. Projects had been working on, papers I've been writing, half built ideas went to my Obsidian faults and weren't read again.

Dreamer will read the past weeks inputs, distill what is relevant based on me and my tendencies (there is a intake .MD that facilitates this), updates a living doc, and outputs a concrete achievable to-do list wherever you want it to surface. I am in the Apple ecosystem and use reminders.

It's week two for me and I haven't automated it yet, but that's definitely the next step.

I am not pretending this is behavior change magic. I think this is useful for people who already use Obsidian, especially if you have a second brain/wiki style function and want your notes to improve your judgment, not just your archive.

I'm posting this here for some feedback on if this ritual type interpretation of my obsidian vault will solve the right only read never problem.

https://github.com/andrefem13-cpu/Dreamer.git

The read me is pretty explanatory.

reddit.com
u/MrTurner45XO — 3 days ago
▲ 0 r/PKMS

Highly customizable, modular, non-sandboxed system?

The app I’m looking for may not actually exist, but I’m gonna ask anyway!

I’m a highly visual person who gets picky about systems design. Frankly I wish I could just code my own PKM app to make precisely what I want, but I have zero coding knowledge and don’t have time to do this atm (maybe someday!)

I’m trying to build a PKMS/central workspace hub/dashboard/personal wiki for myself because I struggle to stay organized when I’m constantly having to swap between apps.

- I’d prefer something that is highly modular and object/block-based as that aligns more with how my brain works. If I have to use markdown though I can give it a shot, but would need some sort of live preview/read mode so when I’m looking stuff up, not editing, I can have it look pretty and polished. If it is object-based, I may need customizable object types.

- I’d ideally like to have some control over the look of the UI. As an artist/visual thinker, UI can make a huge difference in whether or not I feel motivated to use an app. However so far this option seems rare so I may have to just settle for one that already has a UI I like as-is.

- I want to be able to connect it to external stuff without needing to have a background in programming. So many of these apps seem mostly sandboxed with limited integrations to select apps.

I don’t mind storing my notes within the app’s database/vault/whatever, but there are frequent times I may want to reference some file that exists outside the system (like see an indicator change if a file is or isn’t present in an external folder) or find more ways to pass external info into the central hub (for example, being able to track updates on shipped online orders by having links to tracking info or something auto-import to the hub when there’s an update).

- Not AI-focused. If it’s there and I can ignore it, fine, but I don’t want it organizing my notes for me. I don’t want to have to chat with a bot to resurface stuff.

- Ability to set up clear structure. Ideally using a combo of folders, nested tags, and backlinks. I think what I’m envisioning is a hybrid Wiki/File explorer system. I am very much a “divide stuff up into boxes/folders/sections and build clear categorical hierarchies” type person.

I like using folders (or some other general grouping system) for large categories of stuff, but also like nested notes for more granular and flexible organization. And I want to be able to link to other notes, as well as include web links and ideally links to locations on my hard drive.

- macOS AND iPad compatible. This is a major hurdle I’ve found with many apps in general. My iPad is my most-used device and I’ve often found apps that are fantastic on macOS just don’t live up to their desktop versions on iPad. I am trying to use my MacBook more, but ultimately my iPad is still my most comfortable daily-use device as an artist.

- Ability to embed images. Also ideally the ability to do annotations in-app (with Apple Pencil capability) but if this isn’t possible I can do that in another app as long as I have a streamlined workflow for exporting and importing.

——

tl;dr:
The more external info/notifications I can pass into the app, the better. Same goes for customizing layout of dashboards/notes/etc.

I AM willing to use some sort of peripheral tool to accomplish this, but again, have no significant coding background so it needs to be somewhat accessible/easy to figure out.

I have had some success learning various syntaxes on the fly (for example, building stuff in MUCKS, writing CAOS for mods for the Creatures games) so if there’s something that would help facilitate my goals that I could learn while using/building it (vs. code languages where you really have to start from scratch) then that might be doable for me.

——

I’ve explored a few options but so far nothing has quite stuck for me:

- Capacities. Seemed promising, but got frustrated with the lack of UI/layout customization and for some reason the way their object system is implemented was difficult for my brain to process. Admittedly it’s been about a year since I last checked it out (not even sure if the iPad app was out yet).

- Obsidian. Also seemed promising. I like the level of customization! Still exploring it, but I’m unsure how rigidly sandboxed it is, as I’m finding fewer external integrations/workflows on the plugins page than I expected. That may end up being an issue? But it’s possible I’m missing some key understanding on expanding its functionality.

- Various canvas-based apps. These constantly seem to be recommended to artists but honestly I find them somewhat difficult to use. I need clearer structure (I use Miro for some stuff, currently testing it as my primary image ref board, and every board I make has a central navigation hub, otherwise I’d find it impossible). I also find these tend to slow down veeeery quickly with all the structured UI components I tend to add to them.

- DevonTHINK. Aesthetically this one was a no-go as my main PKM app as the UI feels very “90s desktop software”. But as an indexing tool it worked pretty well! (And was basically the only one I could find that let me add my own metadata and didn’t copy my files over and tracked changes to indexed directories). I have been trying it out to index some game mod files that I’m trying to create an organized repository of (with web links and readme txt files and dependencies and such) and it seems pretty decent at that, though it took more time than I’d like to figure out how to set up the custom rules I needed.

If I absolutely cannot find a central PKMS/hub that can also do dynamically updated external linking or indexing, maybe this could serve as a middle ground that does that and passes the info over? But I have no clue how to do that.

I do like the amount of info I can attach to basically any file just by using custom metadata though! And the ability to virtually “group“ files together that exist in separate locations in Finder without actually moving the files themselves. And the fairly snappy updates to indexed files. Honestly this app would be amazing if there were a UI layer on top of it that hides extra options when not needed/or a way to customize the UI to make it look nicer, and a more frictionless way to create wikis in it. If this is possible and I’m just missing it, please let me know!

- Journal-It. Sounded amazing in the description. But once I started it up, I noticed it seemed heavily designed around the idea of being a hybrid planner/task list. Categories were all focused on goals and schedules and habits, and I couldn’t find any general “building a personal wiki” type tools. But it’s possible I overlooked something.

- Anytype. One of the first ones I tried. Can’t remember what I didn’t like about it. Maybe not liking the default UI and a lack of customization options to change it? Right now I can’t even seem to get the webpage to load which is…not promising.

- Notion. I know everyone loves Notion, but I feel like I’m missing something? It feels like Evernote to me, with maybe a few more features. I also hate how…open the UI is (so much empty space and everything feels like it’s on the same flat open canvas). Never been on board with the visual minimalism trend. I want dividers between things, they help direct my focus. I was hoping I could at least change that, but when I look up templates/themes, they all just look like mostly identical layouts with maybe a different banner image/different colors, reminding me of Blogger/Blogspot. Does it have some hidden deeper customization features I’m missing?

- Evernote. Tried this over 10 years ago and it doesn’t seem to have changed a whole lot? It’s just very bare-bones.

- Apple Notes. Currently storing a lot of stuff in here just because it’s there, and thus an easy option but I hate the lack of formatting options and I frequently crash it on my iPad by using too many collapsible headers (which are still very buggy in general). It just doesn’t have enough of the features I want.

- Drafts. This app is a mystery to me. I know it can do a lot but I can’t quite figure out how to make it do that stuff. Right now I just use it to store WiP text posts for social media or Reddit or similar so I don’t lose anything while typing longer posts. Either way it seems more like a potential peripheral for expanding a PKMS system vs. the core app?

- MyMind. Didn’t like it. Manual sorting is possible but its whole deal is very much the ai sorting feature.

- Raindrop. I can’t get the browser plugin to work with Safari profiles (which I use extensively). I’m temporarily using Edge for reasons (I broke Safari with too many saved tabs/tab groups and need to clean it up…oops) but I’m still not sure I love how the web clipper works or how the app displays stuff.

- Anybox. Decent as a web clipper/bookmarking app. I have minor gripes but overall it’s been working fine. I could maybe use it to organize local files too, but I’m not sure as I haven’t tried? I also have no clue re: notes. There are things I like about it and things I don’t. Right now it’s my go-to bookmark app, not sure if I’ll keep using it for that or copy the bookmarks into my eventual PKM app.

- LiquidText. I love this app. It is very satisfying to use it for the primary thing it’s designed for: highlighting and annotation and excerpting your highlights. It doesn’t have the features I need as my central PKM app but if I still need another app for annotation hopefully I can set up a workflow that uses this.

- Finder / Files app with apple notes (or other notes app) and tags and folders. I tried it, lack of nested tags and workflow friction in every other thing (like notetaking) requiring a separate app is what I’m trying to get away from.

——

Apps I haven’t tried but passed on:

- Bear. Seems designed more for the markdown & visual minimalism crowd.

- Various journal-style apps. I have a few downloaded on my iPad and admittedly haven’t really played around with them, but they seem more focused specifically on note-taking rather than acting as a central organizational hub. I could maybe build my personal wiki with one but would any of them let me do the other stuff I want to do?

- Eagle. Looks amazing as an art ref/asset management tool. Unfortunately there is no iPad version and the rec I got for a substitute feels very clunky and has no nested tags. Plus this seems more just image focused, so probably not the right fit for organizing notes, links, & other stuff?

- Reflect. I keep checking this one out because I keep seeing it recommended and then going “oh right, it’s ai-focused.” Which I apparently keep forgetting. 🙃

- Various other apps I’m probably forgetting since there are so many out there.

——

I’ve also debated ideas like….building my own locally hosted Wiki/database with some webpage builder app and just not actually publishing it? As a workaround to limited customization options in available PKM software, but I don’t know if this would work, or if I could make it usable on my iPad as well.

I need to take a deeper look at Logseq and Heptabase too but I’m unsure they do everything I want to do and if they do, I’m not sure if their iPad apps are equally as good as desktop?

Is my dream app out there? Is there something close that can be viable with a little setup and some connected peripherals? Or do I need to just deal with aesthetic frustrations and workflow friction for now and eventually learn to code my own?

reddit.com
u/autogatos — 3 days ago
▲ 13 r/PKMS+5 crossposts

I built a free, fully offline voice assistant for Windows that types anywhere and manages notes/reminders by voice

Hey everyone! I wanted to share a small tool I’ve been building called Writher.

The idea is simple: it lives in your system tray and gives you two things.

Hold AltGr anywhere (any app, any text field) and just speak. It transcribes your voice with Whisper and pastes the text right where your cursor is. No clicking, no switching apps.

Hold Ctrl+R and you get a voice assistant that understands natural language. You can say things like “remind me to call Marco in one hour” or “appointment with the dentist tomorrow at 3pm” and it handles the rest. Notes, to-do lists, shopping lists, reminders with toast notifications, all stored locally in SQLite.

The part I’m most proud of: everything runs 100% offline. Speech recognition via faster-whisper, intent parsing via Ollama, no cloud, no API keys, no telemetry. Once you download the models it works with no internet at all.

There’s also a little animated floating widget with eyes that react to what it’s doing (listening, thinking, error…) which is silly but I kind of love it.

It’s Python, MIT license, Windows 10/11 only for now.

GitHub: https://github.com/benmaster82/writher

Would love feedback, especially from anyone who uses voice input regularly. Still early days but it works well for my daily workflow!

youtu.be
u/WritHerAI — 4 days ago
▲ 0 r/PKMS

2,000+ graveyard of saved content I'll "get back to" but never do, anyone else?

I probably have over a 2,000+ saved posts, bookmarks and videos across Instagram and TikTok alone. Tutorials I was going to watch. Strategies I was going to try. Tools I was going to look into.

I've revisited maybe 5% of them. If I can even find them. And that's being generous.The problem isn't saving. Every app makes saving easy. The problem is saved content just becomes a second junk drawer. You forget what you saved, you can't find anything, and the actually valuable stuff gets buried under random content you saved at 1am. I looked into apps that promised to solve this but most of them are built for people saving cooking recipes, local food spots, event locations and so on. I don't care about saving a recipe for a diabetes-friendly cake. I save content about tools, tactics and strategies that will 10x the projects I'm working on.

I run an AI automation agency, launched a new SaaS product 2 weeks ago and I'm working on a second iOS app. Every time I come across content that could save me time or help me be more productive I save it. But I also save random funny stuff and that's where things get messy.

I got fed up enough to build something. It's called Lumovolt. An iOS app for people who save content to actually learn from it and use it, not just hoard it.

What makes it different:

  • Auto categorizes and organizes your saves so they're not just a chronological dump
  • AI pulls out key insights and takeaways from what you saved so even if you don't rewatch a whole video you've got the important bits extracted
  • The biggest feature is natural language search. You can type something like "how to improve memory on Claude Code" and it finds what you're looking for.

I built this for myself because I kept losing track of useful tools and coding tactics. But it's useful for anyone who saves a lot of content and then does nothing with it.

It's on the App Store now. I'm looking for people who want to test it and give real feedback. If you're interested DM me and I'll send you a 50% discount code for the weekly price at $1.99 only.

Curious if other people here have the same problem or if I'm just uniquely bad at managing saved content lol.

Site: lumovolt.app

reddit.com
u/bigGamer2k — 4 days ago
▲ 61 r/PKMS+1 crossposts

Handcrafted open-source bookmark manager with advanced tagging system

Today, I’m excited to introduce Faved to this community - a self-hosted, open-source bookmark manager designed to handle large and complex bookmark collections.

It stands out from other bookmark managers by allowing to organize your links with nested tags. For example, you can place tags like Go and Python under Programming Languages → Backend. That way, you can build full-fledged taxonomies and associate your bookmarks to any number of them. Such structured hierarchies provide a more intuitive and scalable way to categorize content, removing the limitations of the conventional approach that relies on a combination of collections/folders and flat tags. 

Faved isn’t a vibe-coded app. I built it from the ground up myself, backed by 15 years of experience developing web applications. The entire source code is available on GitHub.

Every part of the app was crafted with efficiency and ease of use in mind. I currently store 2,660 bookmarks with 100+ tags (including nested ones), and it still feels smooth and easy to navigate.

What features are currently available

  • Automatic fetching of titles, descriptions, and preview images
  • Duplicate detection when adding new bookmark
  • Tags
    • Customize with color and description
    • Search and filter tags directly from the sidebar
    • Pin frequently used tags for quick access
    • Optionally include bookmarks from child tags when viewing parent tag
  • Instant search
  • Flexible sorting
  • Multiple layouts (card/list/table)
  • Individual fields can be hidden
  • Bulk actions (deleting, refetching, tagging)
  • Light/Dark mode
  • Works perfectly on both mobile and desktop. Has PWA support, allowing to install Faved on the home screen or dock like a native app.
  • Apple Shortcuts integration for saving links from the iOS/MaOS share sheet
  • Import from any browser with the original folder structure preserved thanks to nested tags
  • Import for Raindropio and Pocket

What's next on the roadmap

  • Auto-tagging
  • Storing web pages, articles, and screenshots
  • Offline mode
  • Keyboard shortcuts

How to host

The whole app can be spin up within seconds on any desktop or a remote server using Docker. You can try it out by following the installation instructions.

There is a live demo. Demo accounts are not shared and are 100% private, so feel free to add your own links and experience the app in full before installing it on your machine.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, I’d be happy to discuss them in the comments here. Feel free to open an issue or community discussion on GitHub as well.

u/Appropriate-Sock4905 — 7 days ago
▲ 1 r/PKMS

Why do voice notes still feel so clunky in most productivity apps in 2026?

I've been using Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, and Otter on Android for a while now.

The biggest daily friction for me with voice notes is:

  1. Everything gets uploaded permanently to the cloud immediately
  2. Search only works if I remember the exact words.
  3. Transcription quality drops noticeably with accents.
  4. Apps often feel heavy and slow on normal phones

Curious, do others face the same issues, or have you found good workarounds for voice notes in your workflow?

https://preview.redd.it/stuqt63lhr1h1.png?width=853&format=png&auto=webp&s=29a5317be801655ba21ff42b5f28f5b8dbbad8b3

reddit.com
u/Evil_god7 — 5 days ago
▲ 32 r/PKMS

Who has had a PKM system used for 3+ years that they can truly say is working for them?

Seeing many people asking for recommendations in this subreddit but no one sharing something they consistently used they can truly advocate for. By working for them I mean:

  1. Using it daily
  2. Finding content when they need it
  3. Extracting value from it and not just saving to feel good
reddit.com
u/paulrchds6 — 8 days ago
▲ 4 r/PKMS+1 crossposts

How do you take notes on .py files you didn't write?

I'm a Data Science & Engineering student. I use Obsidian for

everything, including university notes. There's a specific workflow

I've been going back and forth on and I'd like input from people with

more mileage.

The problem:

In class, professors hand us .py files to study. I didn't write them.

I need to understand them line by line and "make them mine", but I

don't want to modify the original file — I need it clean for reference

and for submission.

My question isn't how to run it or how to render it nicely — I already

use a plugin that renders the .py inside a note. The question is what

I do with my study annotations.

Options I'm considering:

A. A "mirror" .md note next to the .py: I copy relevant chunks into

code blocks, annotate them, and wikilink to concepts

([[recursion]], [[binary-tree]]). I duplicate code but I get a

navigable note.

B. A single .md note that just embeds the .py via the plugin, with

explanations written around it — no copied chunks. No duplication,

but my comments lose context if I look at the embedded block alone.

C. Commenting the .py itself. Ruled out — I don't want to touch the

original.

D. Something I'm not seeing.

For those of you who study code you didn't write (university, books,

inherited code at work), how do you handle this inside Obsidian?

reddit.com
u/Ashamed-Award6426 — 8 days ago
▲ 0 r/PKMS+1 crossposts

I can’t program, so I used AI to create a J6 dashboard

Every time a language comes out I used to try. I gave up and decided to stick with system admin, IT services, sales, education, etc. hello world annoyed me enough.

Anyway, I used Gemini to ask questions and after about and hour and a half I came up with something usable for my PKM. I only used Dataview, a few files, and a few file properties (gotta love YAML,) and some other wizardry / non-wizardry stuff. Or maybe not. I got lost in there somewhere about 45 minutes into it. 😭😂😭
AI is indeed wild.

u/Other-Gap4594 — 7 days ago
▲ 3 r/PKMS

Help finding a flexible writing environment

I’m trying to find a long-term writing environment/workspace and I’m struggling because most tools seem optimized either for structured note-taking or document editing, but not for fluid heterogeneous writing.

What matters most to me is:
- rich text fidelity over time
- non-destructive paste behavior
- preserving original formatting/styles from multiple sources
- easy inline font/size customization without friction
- spatial freedom inside the actual writing page/workspace
- reliable syncing without fragile lock-in
- scalability without the system becoming laggy or unstable

A major problem for me is that many systems slowly normalize or degrade formatting over time, especially when moving content across devices, clouds, editors or workflows.

I also care a lot about being able to visually shape the page itself:
- quickly changing font sizes/styles
- organizing ideas spatially inside the same page
- mixing different visual structures naturally
- moving through the workspace fluidly
without constantly fighting rigid formatting systems or needing too many steps.

To clarify: when I mention “weak spatial organization”, I don’t mean file/folder organization. For example, I actually think Obsidian’s file organization is excellent.

What feels limiting to me is the freedom inside a single note/page — the actual writing surface where I paste, arrange, resize and visually structure ideas/content.

I’m also not necessarily looking for a pure infinite canvas app. I still want fast real writing/editing — just with much more freedom inside the page than traditional linear editors usually allow.

I explored things like:
- Apple Notes
- Obsidian
- Logseq
- Notion

But most systems seem to break in one of these areas:
- formatting normalization
- markdown exposure
- weak spatial freedom inside the page itself
- UI/performance degradation at scale
- or excessive friction when customizing layouts visually

I’m not an expert, so it’s possible I’m missing workflows or configurations that solve some of this.

At this point I’m less interested in “note-taking apps” themselves and more interested in whether a genuinely flexible long-term writing environment exists.

Would really appreciate recommendations from people who have deeply explored this space.

reddit.com
u/Ri6lintr170 — 8 days ago
▲ 17 r/PKMS

1000 hours building a canvas-based second brain - what I learned about spatial PKM vs hierarchical vaults (won't promote)

This year I spent about 1000 hours migrating everything onto a single canvas: todos, sketches, half-formed ideas, project maps, reference nodes. I had originally only built it for myself but then my team loved it so much I expanded it for commercial use and the company I work for bought the license. Worth doing a proper post-mortem.

The case for canvas

Links in Obsidian and backlinks in Roam give you a graph view, but you rarely look at it. The canvas forces you to spatially locate things relative to each other - you can't just fire-and-forget a note into a tag hierarchy and pretend you'll find it. When you place a card, you have to make a spatial decision. That decision is low-cost but it encodes a relationship that a flat folder doesn't.

The biggest concrete win: I stopped losing context between work sessions. The canvas for a given project had its open questions, its relevant resources, and its task list all in view simultaneously. In a vault, those are three separate files you have to open.

The honest tradeoffs

Search is terrible compared to a text-indexed vault. Obsidian's search is fast and precise. On a canvas you're browsing, not querying.

Backlinks and transclusion don't really exist. If a concept is relevant to three projects, you either duplicate the card or accept that you're always going to navigate to the "original" and then back out. Neither is great.

Scale is the real problem. A vault can grow to thousands of notes and stay usable. A canvas beyond a certain density becomes opaque rather than clarifying. I now keep separate canvas-per-project rather than one mega-canvas, which is a bit of a concession.

How I'd characterize the split now

Canvas: good for active thinking, planning, and in-flight work. The visual layout is doing cognitive work you otherwise have to do in your head.

Vault: good for reference, archives, and anything you'll want to search or resurface months later.

I don't think it's either/or, but treating them as substitutes is where most people run into trouble.

reddit.com
u/Rns70 — 9 days ago
▲ 8 r/PKMS+1 crossposts

What and how do you guys uses to manage your bookmarks?

I hated Chrome default bookmark manager because it look so outdated and lacking features, so I uses this app in the image to manages my links (I dont like Raindrop io because its too expensive and look like a reading list and wallpaper manager than link library).

I wanna know what tools do you uses to manage your links or how do you use Chrome bookmark manager?

u/JoshiMinh — 11 days ago
▲ 30 r/PKMS+1 crossposts

Fast Callout Released!

Hi everyone! Thanks to the newest Obsidian plugins update, Fast Callout is now ready for download! I'm grateful for the support and feedback I've gotten (https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1q3sjwi/made_a_plugin_for_faster_callouts/) from this community and will continue to make this plugin better while staying as lean/simple as possible.

Here's the plugin if you'd like to try it out: https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/fast-callout

It's an intentionally simple plugin that removes the friction from making callouts. If you have any suggestions or improvements, please feel free to comment below and I'll try my best to get these into the plugin.

reddit.com
u/vkalahas — 10 days ago