Planned Refactoring: New Architecture, Profile Storage, and Multi-Device Support – Feedback Wanted!

[4Source]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a major refactor of the plugin and would love to gather your feedback before starting. The planned changes include:

• Switching to a more class-based architecture for better maintainability and extensibility (doesn't affect you if you are just a user)
• Changing the way profiles are stored – moving from file-based storage to LocalStorage (storage inside the obsidian app)
• More granular control over which settings are saved per profile, every single setting should be selectabel
• Enabling true multi-device support thanks to the LocalStorage and .obsidian per device

These changes aim to address several open issues: #37, #50, #57, #58, #59, #64, #65.

Before I get started, it would be very helpful to hear how you currently use the plugin and what features are most important to you.

Usage Survey

1. What are your main reasons for creating and switching between profiles?
   (e.g., different devices, vaults, tasks, work/personal separation, etc.)
2. How do you use profiles day to day?
   (How many do you have, and how often do you switch between them?)
3. How important is it for you to sync profiles across vaults?
   (Essential, nice to have, or not needed?)
4. How important is it for you to sync profiles across devices?
   (Essential, nice to have, or not needed?)
5. Which operating system do you have?
   (Win10/11, MacOS, Linux)

Feel free to reply to the questions above or just share any other of your thoughts or what is missing in the comments!

Looking forward to your feedback!

[karlfrohlich]

Resharing details from #57, for tracability:

1. To switch between work and personal
2. I switch between above 2 profiles multiple times per day
3. Not at all
4. Essential

Love the plugin!

[jullimullins]

1. work and personal
2. few times a day
3. essential (planning to have multiple vaults again)
4. essential

• sync part of the profile between device specific profiles (nice to have)

[timkimber]

Adding my use case as it's different from the above two (but similar to others from reading the comments on the issues linked above)

1. I have multiple vaults and want the plugins and settings (apart from theme) to be the same in all of them
2. I just use one profile, which I've called "default" but in multiple vaults
3. Essential
4. Essential (currently done using a file sync app)

[LeonardoMor]

1. To have the same settings across all my vaults
2. I have one profile in a central location that is applied to all my vaults
3. Essential.
4. Nice to have. I save my profile under $XDG_CONFIG_HOMEand I sync that with chezmoi so not really needed.

[Th0rGarden]

I'm currently exploring this plugin as an option to sync my settings and plugins across vaults. I have not yet explored, but I am hoping to:

Sync:

• snippets
• plugins
  • settings for specific plugins but keep others separate.
• obsidian settings
• theme installs
  • keep theme choice vault-specific

How important is it for you to sync profiles across devices?
Not needed

Which operating system do you have?
Win 11

I came here after seeing the note about refactoring before starting to use the plugin as I want to make sure if I start using it there won't be breaking changes.

If this refactoring is still in progress has there been any work since its announcement?

[4Source]

Thanks for your insides.

I came here after seeing the note about refactoring before starting to use the plugin as I want to make sure if I start using it there won't be breaking changes.

I don't want to change the base idea it will still be a plugin for synchronizing settings between vaults. I just wanted to get a Inside in how people using it so I don't introduce breaking changes and can make this plugin as useful for as many people as possible.

If this refactoring is still in progress has there been any work since its announcement?

Unfortunately I don't have started with the refactoring yet.

[jilavsky]

More comments:

1. What are your main reasons for creating and switching between profiles?
   a. Testing and evaluation of plugins.
   b. I share same Vaults to different computers and each computer has different environment. They need to have semi-similar plugins, but each needs small tweaks. Starting with same profile and then letting it diverge to match specific environment needs is important.
   c. I have multiple Vaults and making sure I can switch among them while keeping the same or different configuration on one computer is important.

2. How do you use profiles day to day?
   I have 2-3 profiles for each computer and switch relatively rarely. Once profile is working, I do not change too much.

3. How important is it for you to sync profiles across vaults?
   Across Vaults is important = if I change something on my macOS for one Vault, I usually expect the same thing to work in other vault. Across computers not so much, I prefer separate (similar) profiles as configurations are system specific.
   example: on my macOS notebook I can use Ollama local LLM while on business Windows notebook not, but there I have openAI private server, which is not available on notebook... So all LLM plugins need different configuration between macOS and WIN.

4. How important is it for you to sync profiles across devices?
   I use it rarely, basically to start confirmation when setting up Vault on the system. After that I create computer specific one.

Which operating system do you have?
macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, and expect Linux and Android for colleagues = all of them.

[eikelben]

I'm late to the party but will still voice my opinion.

1. To keep work and personal vaults as similar as possible in appearance and functionality. I've spent a lot of time and effort to customize it as I have and want that experience to remain consistent between vaults and devices over time as I make changes.
2. I use a single profile to maintain consistency between vaults.
3. To me it is essential functionality.
4. Again, essential functionality.

[4Source]

No worries I wasn't expecting to get answers that fast so I started early

[Leawind]

1. What are your main reasons for creating and switching between profiles?
   • Some vaults are used for taking notes, while others are used for reading novels; different uses often require different configurations.
2. How do you use profiles day to day?
   • Usually I set a profile for a vault only when I create it, then I rarely change it afterward
   • I often switch between vaults with same profile
3. How important is it for you to sync profiles across vaults?
   • essential
4. How important is it for you to sync profiles across devices?
   • essential
5. Which operating system do you have?
   Windows 11, Ubuntu, and Android sometimes

Other suggestion:

• Would be nice if cross-device synchronization could be achieved via custom remote Git repository.