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Overview - Obsidian Research 🪨

Description

12/25/24 - back into this, let's try this again...

10/26/23 - interested in finally making use of obsidian publish to stop having to go back and forth between obsidian and google drive or whatever. Hosting via obsidian is $100/year and doesn't seem to include privacy/permissions we'd want so we need to figure out a way here

**CURRENTLY HOSTED AT - https://dan1229.github.io/obsidian-dans-notes/

Notes

TODO

add domain to DanielNazarian.com 🏠 - replace usages of gh pages url - add forward for domain

add to Dan's Site 🐧? - footer? - linkedin? - github description? - where else?

favicon

make github action run less - only when applicable files have changed

1/25/25

added some extensino to mkdocs.yml to print stuff better got rid of docs dir through that and deploy.yml

1/19/25

overall pretty happy with it works well need to clean up my city notes to make it useful not sure really what else i'm gonna use it for but so far seems nice and easy

haven't really changed it at all, a few tweaks. biggest is i added a 'blacklist' for specific folders just in case i.e., 'journal' will never be uploaded by accident

1/1/25

fixes after initial set up - pt 1 - https://chatgpt.com/share/6776144e-42b4-8003-8cfd-164fdfbdb924 - better theme - themes - https://github.com/mkdocs/mkdocs/wiki/MkDocs-Themes - material docs - https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/ - better support for obsidian syntax - i.e., links with double brackets - tags - pt 2 - different home page and custom colors for material theme - the readme isnt appropriate - just needed to update mkdocs.yml - theres a space for home page just make a new index.md file 

nav:
- ... # this will keep the dynamic nav
- custom colors - add .overrides dir with main.html and extra.css

research / set up - options / routes - [ ] https://medium.com/@thunder4aaron/writing-with-obsidian-an-alternative-to-obsidian-publish-4908ba2a8708 - chat gpt brainstorm new ideas - https://chatgpt.com/share/67760dc6-0d7c-8003-a3e3-f87823450877 - this was the solution! mkdocs and ghpages! - TLDR 

# Summary: Free Obsidian Publish Alternative

## Steps Taken

1. **Repository Setup**
   - Used a GitHub repository to store the entire Obsidian vault.
   - Configured the workflow to dynamically filter files tagged with `#publish`.

2. **MkDocs Site Creation**
   - Installed MkDocs and the Material theme to render markdown files as a static website.
   - Created a basic `mkdocs.yml` for site configuration.

3. **GitHub Actions Automation**
   - Added a GitHub Actions workflow to:
     - Detect files tagged with `#publish` across the vault.
     - Copy these files to the `docs/` folder for publishing.
     - Build and deploy the site to GitHub Pages automatically on every push to the `main` branch.

4. **Deployment to GitHub Pages**
   - Enabled GitHub Pages to host the MkDocs-generated site.
   - Verified the site was accessible at `https://<yourusername>.github.io/<repository-name>`.

5. **Fixing Icon Issues**
   - Identified and resolved oversized icons by adding a custom CSS file.
   - Configured the CSS in `mkdocs.yml` to apply the changes.

6. **Dynamic Updates**
   - Any note tagged with `#publish` in your vault is automatically included in the public site on the next push to `main`.

## Key Notes
- **Tagging System:** Use `#publish` in notes to control which files are published.
- **Custom CSS:** Resolved visual issues by adding and deploying custom styles.
- **Automation:** GitHub Actions workflow ensures seamless updates to the public site.

requirements - selective permissions - i.e., certain things can be private - collaborative would be fantastic - replace google drive...? - ideally free - Obsidian - Publish Testing - for more info

Update 12/25/24

revisit... - [ ] come up with game plan - [ ] is this possible? - [ ] add more TODOs - [ ] Obsidian - Publish Testing - [ ] should i use this for travel notes and stuff? - [ ] how much is it? is there really no cheaper way? - [ ] https://medium.com/@thunder4aaron/writing-with-obsidian-an-alternative-to-obsidian-publish-4908ba2a8708 - - [ ] what to share? - [ ] travel notes? - [ ] reviews? - [ ] if i have specific permissions - [ ] projects

Original

First off - is this worth it? These notes are very private and it would be a MASSIVE problem if it ever leaked. What are the self hosting options and how safe are they compared to obsidian's? - i think at the very least at this point we need to make it a separate repo - doing it with the dans notes (personal notes) would inherently be pretty risky

how to handle permissions? I.e., is there an easy way to permission by emails and stuff? i can't have my notes be public...

Options

  1. ~~use Dans Backend 🪧 (ARCHIVED) to host and set up permissions?
    1. this would be really complicated
  2. ~~set up notes as a submodule of ANOTHER repo that is a static site hoster?~
    1. ~~cron job to pull every X minutes?~
    2. this is complicated
  3. have a separate repo/vault that is public?
    1. would make security a lot more surefire/easy
    2. what would handle publish there?
      1. just make the whole thing public?
      2. obsidian publish official? https://obsidian.md/publish
        1. publish could maybe help with privacy concerns too
    3. Obsidian - Publish Testing - need to figure out if this or self hosting is the move
      1. this seems

maybe someday could research easy self hosted options? $8/month isnt bad for this though...

Tags

obsidian #publish #testing #notes #hosting #selfhosting #self-hosted

publish-me