Ben, I am finding you are rather quick in conflating concepts.

MarkDown and WikiText are out of the same stable and a far cry from HTML. A wiki link [[...]] differs from an HTML hyperlink as it will create a placemarker for you to go back at any time and fill in the dots. In HTML, you would get a file not found or similar (404 error). MarkDown is human-readable, not binary, so with nothing other than its printout or a simple text editor, you could make sense of it. In comparison, HTML has a lot of scaffolding and requires a browser (viewer) to understand it more clearly. HTML has its own syntax and so a browser is not always an editor. Yes you can use a text editor but it is onerous.

Wikis are content management systems whereas MarkDown is focused on the content and HTML is a high mix of semantics and syntax, usually swamping content. MarkDown is the closest to pure text with a lighter sprinkling of syntax that allows easy conversion to HTML, allowing for all the formatting and styling without the need to learn a language or use a specialist tool.

You mention three file types. I can only guess these are text, raster and vector.
SVG is a file format that handles and edits text and vector and manipulates raster to a limited extent.
Quote Originally Posted by Ben Wiens View Post
Program suites were developed because that is the only way to ensure compatibility of three different file types.
Can I use the Affinity Designer, Photo files in Obsidian? No.
Can I use the svg and png files that are used on Obsidian in Affinity Publisher? Not really.
Program suites use concepts like object linking and embedding to switch modes into different editor programs. Basically, replacing the tedium of copy & pasting provided you have the right convertors built-in.
APhoto files (proprietary) into Obsidian -> No but a raster version Yes and a link back into the AD Photo program of the master file. So AD and Obsidian have an interchange mechanism.
Obsidian SVG -> APub - Yes; Obsidian PNG -> APub - yes. Both SVG and PNG are open source and AD has convertors for Import and Export.

You want a mix of Text, Raster and Vector all in the same file. Well you could with an SVG but MarkDown handles Text and embeds Vector (SVG) and, better, links in Raster & Vector (SVG).

What confuses me is Obsidian readily capable and can hold all types of digital content (your "blocks") and mash them in countless combinations:
  • You can embed a block into another.
  • You can collation any number of block into a book, PDF or HTML.
  • You can choose you own native editor for Raster (e.g., APhoto or Xara or Adobe CS).
  • You can choose your native editor for Vector similarly.

What Affinity does not do is present a cohesive content management or retrieval system and you will be reliant on your tacit knowledge that necessarily has a shelf life.
Obsidian is extensible and handles "New Steps" while Affinity is definitely "Accepted Steps" so you will always be dancing a jig to its tune.

Other Wikis are available and we still use keyboards on computers for a number of reasons.
Thank you for helping me reaffirm my Weltanshauung.

Acorn