excerpt from 2025-04-12:
obsidian is great because the organization happens as you use it. and the graph is well-positioned to help me use it—except that it’s not very useful right now. when i’m on my graph, my aim is to explore my graph. this often means being able to focus in on one idea, then branch out from there.1 but the graph right now is not good. it is far too bloated, and the controls seem to be aimed more towards aesthetics, than actual functionality.
I want better usability for my graph in obsidian. The reason I use the graph is to explore the doors and hallways of my brain. And as a user, I want the graph to let me highlight my various streams of thought. But it’s really hard to do that, rn, because the way I use links is very interconnected.
I wish it was easier to isolate my streams of thought. The current filters are a start, but don’t go far enough. There’s no easy way to follow the path between the sections of my brain. I can’t figure out how to configure tags to show more children.
The UX gets very complex and opinionated, but I think there’s a lot of opportunity here. A place to start might be the ability to highlight “individual” threads. e.g., You primary click a node, which increases repulse force exponentially for n>3 children. A new entry-point would obviously have to be found, and it probably would mess with a lot of users’ exsiting muscle memory. But there’s so much opportunity to explore, here
Footnotes
-
a very good reference here is https://www.theyrule.net/. You start with just one node—but as you click into further nodes, you can navigate specific connections between people/companies. ↩