This was so me! The first several times I tried using Obsidian I was like "HELLS NO." The app just looked so...bad. But I kept watching TH-cam videos and playing around with the app and eventually the power of it just clicked and now I'm hooked and 100% use Obsidian. For me, it was taking the time to learn how to use the app because it's just so different from other note-taking apps. I've really loved how Obsidian has forced me to learn about things like CSS and YAML and other technical programming stuff that I would never have learned about otherwise.
Really happy to know I'm not the only one who had this experience! It seemed so basic at the beginning, but now I can't stop talking about Obsidian! Haha.
@@nicolevdh do you think that if we start using it as basic at the beginning we can grow into it without having to "redo" stuff as we add more options? I hate that every time I start using an app as I learn more and develop in how I use it I have to redo a bunch of stuff to make it all fit
@@nikarose Hi Nika! Yes, you can totally do that! There's no real pressure to change things - you really only have to do it if/when you feel something is missing.
I'm still not sold on Obsidian - I use Google Sites as a digital binder. But the idea of a dataview database sounds awesome so maybe I'll go that way. I just want to tell you that your existence in this space made me smile. I'm a 50-year old Black lady and seeing nerd girls representing is inspirational for the youth, and just awesome for the rest of us.
What an awesome comment. Awww, yay nerd girls! Thank you for the encouragement! If you've found something that works for you, I'm glad for you! :) You have a great day!
Hey! I'm slowly working my way through the list of all these plugins, so here are videos I've made about each one I mentioned in this video: #1 Calendar: th-cam.com/video/OUrOfIqvGS4/w-d-xo.html #2 Dataview: th-cam.com/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/w-d-xo.html , th-cam.com/video/JTObSymEvWA/w-d-xo.html , th-cam.com/video/ccN5vJzXwvo/w-d-xo.html #3 Editor Syntax Highlight #4 Kanban: th-cam.com/video/iU60ItemuDo/w-d-xo.html #5 Outliner #6 Periodic Notes: th-cam.com/video/T2Aeaq4sk7M/w-d-xo.html #7 Publish #8 Readwise Official (readwise.io/nicole): th-cam.com/video/Rw1L5sxlnuU/w-d-xo.html #9 Sync #10 Templater: th-cam.com/video/5j9fAvJCaig/w-d-xo.html THEMES: 01:25 is Sanctum, 05:06 is ITS, 08:28 is the default Obsidian theme
i downloaded obsidian over a year ago but it’s not until this week that i have begun to watch tutorials. your video was easy to follow and informative. thanks.
As a fellow software engineer I would also highly recommend the PlantUML plugin! It’s such a joy to be able to create my diagrams in the same place where I’m already describing my thoughts and findings
Hey Niels! Cool, I hadn't heard of PlantUML. I'll check it out! I have just been using a combination of mermaidJS and Excalidraw, though between the two of them, a lot of ground is covered already.
GIRL, now I'm subscribed! I've been using Obsidian for a while now, but I never dug deep because it looked too scary. Now I code, and I tend to use and understand Obsidian more, so I'm rediscovering it. This has been one of the most useful videos I've watched so far. Thank you!
@@nicolevdh You said you're not a fan of kanban boards for managing projects but then you showed your board and you're managing your projects! At least like I do. But that got me thinking, so this is not the correct way of using a kanban board? (The way you and me are using it)? Hahah
Ah, when I said I didn't like to use it for task management, I guess that depends how you define a task. Many people use Kanban boards (on services like Trello) to track very granular tasks. My main use for it is to track content. I don't put any other projects or tasks on there. I don't think there is a correct or incorrect way of using it, though-- use whatever works for you! :)
Both this video and your “Obsidian for Beginners” video were immensely helpful to me! I appreciate your clear and concise explanations. If you can, could you please make a video on the Dataview plugin? Thank you so much!
Thank you, I will! The Dataview plugin is so useful for so many things. Need to figure out how best to tackle it, but it's definitely on the list! Glad you are finding my videos helpful. It means a lot!
I know this video is kind of old, but in case of someone haven't found another solution: I use Onedrive to store my md files through all my devices, and Onesync, to automatically update/sync them. I didn't find any issues so far. I hope it's of use. Also, thank you for all the Obsidian videos, they are incredibly helpful!
You're welcome! I'll add your vote to Dataview. Seems like a lot of people want that, so I think I need to start working on it! Thanks for the feedback!
@@leereed1559 Thanks! I actually have already made a few videos on it since I made this one. Databases vs Dataview: th-cam.com/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/w-d-xo.html How to use Dataview: th-cam.com/video/JTObSymEvWA/w-d-xo.html Task management with Dataview: th-cam.com/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/w-d-xo.html
8:41 I think there is a video divider missing here or whatever they are called, to the end of the template chapter and the final note, also you point to a video link, that doesn't appear.
I was wondering where I can get the fantasy calendar? I can't seem to find it in the community plug-ins. If you can help me find it thank you and thank you for this great video!
This helped greatly been using Obsidian for years without getting a clear picture of what I should use. Finally getting it ready as move into a full stack role. Obsidian actually super dynamic and the best note taking app I've used up to this point.
Oh, this is great to hear! I totally agree with you, and I'm still finding out new things about it that I didn't know about and make me like it even more. :)
I don’t like Obsidian for beginner’s curve reasons. But it seems really good for note taking. I’ve started using it. I love that I can organise recipes there. I also organise my research on philosophy and comparative religion. I was originally making excel spreadsheets for book lists and temples, as well as Microsoft Word for chapter summaries. But I want to transition to moving everything as much as possible to Obsidian, because the linking of ideas. Also, having multiple windows open for notes is so good.
Its funny you said that because I was researching about how to take better notes. I have ADHD and I really struggle with understanding other apps like ONE NOTE or any of the Microsoft systems.. they suck.. but once I heard about OBSIDIAN? I found a good you tube video that easily helped me to understand it and it IS actually easy to jump into. You can get in over your head fast and my head hurt seeing all these users using really hard core scripting language and other stuff I was WOAH no way..but i think it is easy and fun to start using. The fact that you can just so easily mark up things fast and simply instead of having to hunt for things or functionality. UGH. You don't have to do that really to start with Obsidian> I guess it is how different our brains work
Beginner's curve? I may be a weird person, but i never encountered that in obsidian, or to me it was almost non-existent it took me a few moments or minutes, but after that, i was already trying to create complex "wind-rose" diagrams in my notes , just for the fun of it (or maybe it was because i worked with vscode and cherrydb before that)
You have earned yourself a subscriber, I usually don't interact with creators beyond just watching, but this is composed soo nicely and loved every second of it
I did see that, but have not tried it because I already have a cronjob that runs a script that does that locally, and this way I didn't have to trust someone else's code! :)
Curiously, how much space does all of your notes take, since everything is locally stored? I'm interested in obsidian but unsure how I'll manage it storage wise.
Very informative. I've hesitated on making the leap for awhile now but the more I'm researching it, the better it seems. Thanks for making this. It was extremely helpful!
I watched your "Obsidian for Beginners" video and loved your clear explanations. I just finished this video and would like to see how to use all of these plugins. Please make videos on each one with examples of how you use them. Great work.Thanks!
Hey Gary! (También hablo español) Glad you liked it! Happy to hear you want more details on them all. I started to go into it for this video and realised that if I did that, it would be two hours! I'll definitely make separate videos, thanks for the feedback!
@@nicolevdh Awesome! Can you point out where in the settings we can change the appearance of specific links? For example I'd like to change the colors of page links, or the [[page]] and an actual hyperlink. Both my are white and blend into the "miniminal theme" I'm using 😅 Thanks ahead ✌️
Hey, it's not in the settings - it's in the CSS! If you would like to delve into the CSS, you can find the styles in the `.obsidian` folder in the root directory of your vault. I'm not great with CSS and almost never change anything in there, but you can absolutely change theme stylesheets or come up with your own if you want!
@Nicole , aren't you losing the whole futureproof element of using md files, by basing your system around dataview plugins or java script? Migrating to another software in the future would result in your notes turning into a mess a bit, no? Also, would love to understand from you why is there a preference to markdown files, where OPML is also highly popular and a "standard" (just a form of XML, easily converted as text), and provides natural outlining in a far more smooth way than the experience with the outline plugin (as is clear from using dynalist, workfloy, logseq)?
I agree!! Funny that you mention migrating from Roam. My video on Wednesday is about switching. What a coincidence! I also resisted switching for a long time. I think Obsidian is especially difficult because it's so plain and, in my opinion, it would have been better to include some of these plugins so that it's more fully-featured from the beginning.
Another option for synchronizing is "Self-hosted LiveSync". You do need some knowledge to set it up and it's historically been a little unstable. Haven't had issues with any of the recent versions though (last few months).
Nicole, you discussed using Readwise to collect clips/highlighted items + your annotations from pdf files, to send to Obsidian for your PKMS. What do you use for doing the same with EPUB files? Usage I read a lot of medical journals (mostly PDFs) & books from a gazillion fields (I'm curious), everything from geopolitics to medicine, science fiction to philosophy. Most of this stuff is EPUB books, 'though some are also PDFs. I'd love one app "to rule them all": do EPUB and PDF both. I fear I'm going to be disappointed. But I'll wager you do access both file formats. What works? Hardware platforms I'm working on a Windows desktop laptop/tablet (hybrid), and an Android tablet. So it'd be nice to be able to use the same software on both platforms. I know you do this too, but suspect a lot of your reading is done on an iPad. I've avoided Apple's ecosystem (got off it 7-8 years ago). I'm more likely to add a Boox eReader instead of an Apple tablet. We'll see. Finally, I like the idea of handwriting with a stylus to take notes. Not sure how realistic this is. For lectures, though, it would be ideal. My Samsung tablet (Fold phone, actually) does a pretty credible job of converting handwriting on the fly to text. It'd be nice if a note-taking app offered that kind of input, but I think that's still bleeding-edge & not too practical. Plus it means palm rejection is crucial, and while my Fold smartphone is pretty good using core apps like Samsung's Notes app, I think palm rejection in many 3rd party apps still sucks. And I don't think handwriting conversion is even offered in Notion & Obsidian on Android tablets. Any thoughts? I'll keep scanning your vids to see if you've already addressed these issues. Thank you for sharing your passions & talents with such enthusiasm!
Thank you for the videos on obsidian. Very informative and great presentation. I like videos on YT where the presenter is not extremely artificially over exciting on the topics that are been presented. You have a very nice, calming and natural way of speaking that is really enjoyable.
A free alternative to Obsidian Sync is SyncThing(Android)/SyncTrayzor(Windows)/syncthing-macos(MacOS). For iPad, I suppose you could set up a file server or directly connect to a local host to load and save simply enough, too.
Came here looking for Obsidian content, which I mainly use for work. But I had just started to use it for the weekly Mork Borg campaign I'm running... And was delighted to see you using it for that exact same purpose! Oh and this is a great guide to Obsidian plugins - just what I was looking for. (New subscriber!)
How cool that you're running Mörk Borg!! I only ran a one-shot in it and played in an adventure, so I have much less experience. But I thought Obsidian was good for both! :)
Hi there! Just getting started with Obsidian. Is it possible that Editor Syntax Highlighting no longer exists? I cannot find it in Community Plugins. Thanks!
You have such a pleasant way to explain things. I had a hard time to get into Obsidian at first, after watching some of your vids I'm giving it a fresh try...
Wonderful series of videos, Nicole. Thank you very much. Can you suggest any plug-in for the following capabilities: i) generate mind-map out of text as a graphic and allows me to go back and forth between the graphic and the ordered text; ii) automatically generate a mind-map (in addition to the graph) among related notes; iii) handle hand written notes as some of us very often scribble on our laptop screens using a stylus. We need to capture these and ideally also convert the written words into text; iv) ability to create and interlink IT diagrams according to the C4 architecture model and also ER diagrams. Ideally generate ER diagrams straight out of a SQL database and able to convert changes into SQL commands back into the database to alter the table designs
Hi! Thanks for reaching out! Glad you enjoyed this video. As for you plugin questions: i and ii: The Mind Map plugin is what you want for sure. iii and iv: Excalidraw is your best bet, though it won't interface with a SQL database. You'll have to manually create what you want it to show. Good luck!
I just installed Obsidian, and it has a learning curve that i am battling with, looks promising the power of a database, it will take some time from the looks of it before I can say I love it.
I just installed Obsidian and was looking for possibly "necessary" additions, so I ran into this video. As I am watching it I am like "Who the hell is this girl!" Like some master coder, magic expert. Then you talk about your blog and as I am seeing screenshots of it, I am more impressed. Just WOW, keep on rocking!!!
My #1 plugin for Obsidian is the 3d graph view by Yomaru Hananoshika. It adds absolutely nothing to my workflow and actively detracts from my efficiency, but the ability to view my graph as an interconnected sphere is _so pretty_
Kanban is not just the default todo doing done thing. The heart of Kanban is „kaizen“ meaning basically „constant improvement“. The way you are using it is totally valid in Kanban. And the approach you don’t like is basically just one way of using it. And the reason you don’t like it is because it’s not the right method for you. So whatever board style works for you is totally legit Kanban
Biggest problem with obsidian it is not open source, and the other concern is malicious plugins from third-party. I have not looked at the code, and not sure if the plugins are within some sort of sandbox.
A reasonable concern! Plugins are not within a sandbox, though all approved community plugins are open source. It's definitely wise to think about what you consider to be acceptable risk.
Just letting you know, syncthing is an open source way of syncing files between devices. Works on windows, iOS, Linux, android. 100% free, just takes maybe 10min to set up compared to obsidian sync taking one click but once it's set up it's no maintenance
Great video! I'm confused by your comment that you don't normally like the kanban approach but what you're describing is almost anecdotally the perfect example of what kanban is best used for. My trello board looks almost identical to your use case and is exactly what I need for managing creative projects combined with a little automation wired in. What are you not fond of with kanban boards? Thanks again for the recommendations
Thank you for that list! I'm only just dipping my toe into Obsidian, and whether it sticks is more a me thing rather than the program itself. It looks pretty nice so far and there are plenty of videos and resources to give me ideas on how to use it well. I have found a workaround for a sync'ed vault across "some" devices using an SMB/NFS shared folder on a home server and I'm using Tailscale to build a small "tailnet" (which is super simple to set up, and then I've mapped the folder on my server to each of my Windows machines, and mounted on a Linux laptop, and the vault opens from whatever computer I'm on. Even if I'm out of my home network. What it doesn't work on is mobile devices, as it appears that you can only using Obsidian Sync, or a local folder on the mobile device, and I've not found any decent solution to access either an NFS or SMB share from an Android device. If I can get that sorted I think I'm set for a cross platform experience. If not, I'm more likely to be working in Obsidian on a computer rather than a phone
Hi, do you know the name of the plugin that make the headers to have differents colors and size? I use the minimal theme in one of my vaults and don't remeber exactly what I did to make that funtion available but now that I opened another vault and want to install the plugin I can't find it
Thanks for all your great Obsidian videos! You've helped me tremendosly with refocusing on note taking basics instead of being paralized from force feeding PARA and zettelkasten. Please make a video on the templater plugin. Another great video would be an advanced walkthrough of your note taking flow.
Hi Alex, I really appreciate this! Templater is definitely on my list already-- I'm thinking about doing it next week maybe! Thanks for adding your vote though. That helps me decide what's next. I'll put the walkthrough of note taking to the list too!
May I ask what your monthly budget is for building a Knowledge Management System? I'm always reluctant to pay for this type of service.. Not even sure as why.
thank you so so much! this video definitely broden my understanding of what Obsidian can do and create tremendous value in use cases that I probably have not yet discover or know that I needed. I start to get to know this tool about 2 weeks ago, and have been using Notion / Evernote all my life. I just want to say that bi-directional link is changing on how I write more effectively. This video definitely will increase my productivity in upcoming weeks during my discovery of this amazing tool and community! big thank you
Oh, that's great! Welcome to the Obsidian community! I'm glad to have exposed you to all the awesome things that Obsidian can do, just not out of the box. :) Yay for bi-directional linking!!
It's really interesting that your initial experience with Obsidian was negative because of how basic it is. I never used Roam or Notion or Evernote, but instead came over from OneNote, and personally what I liked about Obsidian was that it was entirely markdown, and it was very portable and lightweight. The first day I found out about it, I fell in love, and abandoned OneNote entirely. Began carrying over all my notes (manually) into Obsidian. I've been using it for about 2 years now. The problem, though, is that over time I discovered that its lightweightedness has pros and cons, and one of the biggest things I realized was that there are many features I could stand to have which just aren't a part of it, and the other thing was that the way I've been using Obsidian is not super efficient. I basically used it to just create and categorize all my notes, plans, and idea (for a lot of different subjects, all in one vault), but I haven't been taking advantage of community plugins or even the built in graphic and tagging features. At work (I'm a developer) I tend to use it to track notes I'm taking about tickets I pick up, though so far it's all been "throw the tickets in the ticket bucket" and "throw discoveries in the Documentation bucket". With a small handful of sporadic and unintegrated notes. Thank you for this video, demonstrating the usefulness of some of the plugins available. I have been overwhelmed by how many there are, and haven't been able to imagine how I would use them.
I can understand that! Obsidian is very flexible, but the flexibility comes with some overwhelm because you have to know what's available before you can finetune it to work the way you want. For me, linking notes and creating "landing pages" for certain topics really helped. For example, you could create a note that tracks all the tickets by manually linking to each ticket. Later on, if you feel like you want to try Dataview, you could use it to query your vault for open notes, for example. But manually updating that Open Tickets page can also force you to be more aware of what's out there, which isn't a bad thing. Since you mentioned being overwhelmed, I definitely recommend starting with the core plugins! They provide the most value for complexity since they're built to be not so intrusive. :) Good luck!
I am new to your channel. I have just watched your video. I really like your clear and consize wording (no exceessive words needed), just to the point information share. Thank you. Will watch more :)
Hi Nicole, Obsidian Noob here... I was a Notion user for a long, long time and recently switched over to Obsidian. I don't know what happened. I felt like I was in love with Notion and then I got so busy this semester with my 16 hours (chem, bio, math, and philosophy) that I looked at my Notion task list and it was just OVERWHELMING... too many icons, highlights, banner photos, and I feel like I got lost in my original purpose - and that is to have a good study system. I don't remember how I even found Obsidian (or you) but here I am! So I have two questions: Do you have a video, or recommend one from someone else, that has a good system for organizing my schoolwork and tasks? What font are you using? Because it looks awesome! Great video! And I look forward to checking out ALL your videos :)
Good information. I've been using the md extensions in vscode and I have installed obsidian. The features seem very useful. Most of my markdown is processed through git and version control to Github. Does the publishing plugin allow for version control issues? Thanks.
Thanks for your insights! I'm just getting started with Obsidian and all of these plugins seem really useful. I agree that one does not see the appeal of Obsidian on a first approach, so this videos certainly help.
I wanted to get into obsidian. all I did was watch one of your videos and I think after that I immediately got it. it's not that hard to use, it's just not super obvious. and since I already talk in markdown due to discord and misskey, I felt pretty much right at home writing in markdown.
Hello Nicole, thanks for your nice videos. I really like the way you present. I was wondering if obsidian can search through images, screenshots, pdfs etc. the way we can do in OneNote?
I'm not familar with OneNote, but do you mean OCR? No, Obsidian doesn't do that natively, and I'm not aware of a plugin that does that either. Obsidian is better suited to text and notes that you write yourself rather than to being a repository for random files.
You are an exceptional TH-camr. To the point, personable, easy to understand, and pleasant to listen to. Thanks for this video, been very helpful.
Thank you so much! I appreciate this comment. Glad to help as well. :)
This was so me! The first several times I tried using Obsidian I was like "HELLS NO." The app just looked so...bad. But I kept watching TH-cam videos and playing around with the app and eventually the power of it just clicked and now I'm hooked and 100% use Obsidian. For me, it was taking the time to learn how to use the app because it's just so different from other note-taking apps. I've really loved how Obsidian has forced me to learn about things like CSS and YAML and other technical programming stuff that I would never have learned about otherwise.
Really happy to know I'm not the only one who had this experience! It seemed so basic at the beginning, but now I can't stop talking about Obsidian! Haha.
"The app just looked so...bad" HAHAHAHA SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME
@@nicolevdh do you think that if we start using it as basic at the beginning we can grow into it without having to "redo" stuff as we add more options? I hate that every time I start using an app as I learn more and develop in how I use it I have to redo a bunch of stuff to make it all fit
@@nikarose Hi Nika! Yes, you can totally do that! There's no real pressure to change things - you really only have to do it if/when you feel something is missing.
How do you use CSS and YAML in obsidian. I'm a little new to obsidian, so im not to sure how coding helps note taking
I'm still not sold on Obsidian - I use Google Sites as a digital binder. But the idea of a dataview database sounds awesome so maybe I'll go that way. I just want to tell you that your existence in this space made me smile. I'm a 50-year old Black lady and seeing nerd girls representing is inspirational for the youth, and just awesome for the rest of us.
What an awesome comment. Awww, yay nerd girls! Thank you for the encouragement! If you've found something that works for you, I'm glad for you! :) You have a great day!
🎉🎉🎉nice way to go lady's In Tech🎉🎉❤
You may also want to check out Capacities.
Hey! I'm slowly working my way through the list of all these plugins, so here are videos I've made about each one I mentioned in this video:
#1 Calendar: th-cam.com/video/OUrOfIqvGS4/w-d-xo.html
#2 Dataview: th-cam.com/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/w-d-xo.html , th-cam.com/video/JTObSymEvWA/w-d-xo.html , th-cam.com/video/ccN5vJzXwvo/w-d-xo.html
#3 Editor Syntax Highlight
#4 Kanban: th-cam.com/video/iU60ItemuDo/w-d-xo.html
#5 Outliner
#6 Periodic Notes: th-cam.com/video/T2Aeaq4sk7M/w-d-xo.html
#7 Publish
#8 Readwise Official (readwise.io/nicole): th-cam.com/video/Rw1L5sxlnuU/w-d-xo.html
#9 Sync
#10 Templater: th-cam.com/video/5j9fAvJCaig/w-d-xo.html
THEMES: 01:25 is Sanctum, 05:06 is ITS, 08:28 is the default Obsidian theme
Thanks so much for these! Maybe maybe a TH-cam shirt for the obvious plugins just so that you have a link to them?
@Nicole van der Hoeven - did I understand you correctly - 5:26 can the publish app be used to publish pages to a Hugo site ?
Thank you greatly appreciated
Can I just say, as a productivity enthusiast and newbie to PKMS and basic coding, you are SO COOL. Thank you for all that you do.
Wow, that's so nice. :) I'm really happy to be able to help! Welcome to this space!
i downloaded obsidian over a year ago but it’s not until this week that i have begun to watch tutorials. your video was easy to follow and informative. thanks.
its completely guiding me to first time using obsidian. found it that u explain clear and enjoy to listen. thank youu
Thanks!
Wow, I don't know how I missed this! I'm sorry for the late reply, but I really do appreciate your support.
As a fellow software engineer I would also highly recommend the PlantUML plugin! It’s such a joy to be able to create my diagrams in the same place where I’m already describing my thoughts and findings
Hey Niels! Cool, I hadn't heard of PlantUML. I'll check it out! I have just been using a combination of mermaidJS and Excalidraw, though between the two of them, a lot of ground is covered already.
GIRL, now I'm subscribed! I've been using Obsidian for a while now, but I never dug deep because it looked too scary. Now I code, and I tend to use and understand Obsidian more, so I'm rediscovering it. This has been one of the most useful videos I've watched so far. Thank you!
Wait isn’t that the way you’re supposed to use kanban?
Hey Toni! What do you mean, sorry?
@@nicolevdh You said you're not a fan of kanban boards for managing projects but then you showed your board and you're managing your projects! At least like I do. But that got me thinking, so this is not the correct way of using a kanban board? (The way you and me are using it)? Hahah
Ah, when I said I didn't like to use it for task management, I guess that depends how you define a task. Many people use Kanban boards (on services like Trello) to track very granular tasks. My main use for it is to track content. I don't put any other projects or tasks on there.
I don't think there is a correct or incorrect way of using it, though-- use whatever works for you! :)
Both this video and your “Obsidian for Beginners” video were immensely helpful to me! I appreciate your clear and concise explanations. If you can, could you please make a video on the Dataview plugin? Thank you so much!
Thank you, I will! The Dataview plugin is so useful for so many things. Need to figure out how best to tackle it, but it's definitely on the list! Glad you are finding my videos helpful. It means a lot!
I know this video is kind of old, but in case of someone haven't found another solution: I use Onedrive to store my md files through all my devices, and Onesync, to automatically update/sync them. I didn't find any issues so far. I hope it's of use. Also, thank you for all the Obsidian videos, they are incredibly helpful!
Thank you for this and for “learning in public”. Please do an extended video on an intro to Dataview!!!
You're welcome! I'll add your vote to Dataview. Seems like a lot of people want that, so I think I need to start working on it! Thanks for the feedback!
@@nicolevdh Please add my name to those interested in a video on Dataview.
@@leereed1559 Thanks! I actually have already made a few videos on it since I made this one.
Databases vs Dataview: th-cam.com/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/w-d-xo.html
How to use Dataview: th-cam.com/video/JTObSymEvWA/w-d-xo.html
Task management with Dataview: th-cam.com/video/AhhFLXfldJQ/w-d-xo.html
8:41 I think there is a video divider missing here or whatever they are called, to the end of the template chapter and the final note, also you point to a video link, that doesn't appear.
I've just discovered your channel Nicole - Nice! Thanks - super useful stuff. Love the Pokemon blip in the video 😀
I had no fucking clue that there was a calendar plugin. Thank you, random TH-cam person. You're a lifesaver.
I was wondering where I can get the fantasy calendar? I can't seem to find it in the community plug-ins. If you can help me find it thank you and thank you for this great video!
First video on your channel, very interesting ! Thanks for sharing 🙏
This helped greatly been using Obsidian for years without getting a clear picture of what I should use. Finally getting it ready as move into a full stack role. Obsidian actually super dynamic and the best note taking app I've used up to this point.
Oh, this is great to hear! I totally agree with you, and I'm still finding out new things about it that I didn't know about and make me like it even more. :)
7:52 that's not all. You can use literally any sync app to sync your files. Even out of obsidian. Like Rclone or syncthing
I don’t like Obsidian for beginner’s curve reasons. But it seems really good for note taking. I’ve started using it. I love that I can organise recipes there. I also organise my research on philosophy and comparative religion.
I was originally making excel spreadsheets for book lists and temples, as well as Microsoft Word for chapter summaries. But I want to transition to moving everything as much as possible to Obsidian, because the linking of ideas. Also, having multiple windows open for notes is so good.
Its funny you said that because I was researching about how to take better notes. I have ADHD and I really struggle with understanding other apps like ONE NOTE or any of the Microsoft systems.. they suck.. but once I heard about OBSIDIAN? I found a good you tube video that easily helped me to understand it and it IS actually easy to jump into. You can get in over your head fast and my head hurt seeing all these users using really hard core scripting language and other stuff I was WOAH no way..but i think it is easy and fun to start using. The fact that you can just so easily mark up things fast and simply instead of having to hunt for things or functionality. UGH. You don't have to do that really to start with Obsidian> I guess it is how different our brains work
Beginner's curve?
I may be a weird person, but i never encountered that in obsidian, or to me it was almost non-existent
it took me a few moments or minutes, but after that, i was already trying to create complex "wind-rose" diagrams in my notes , just for the fun of it
(or maybe it was because i worked with vscode and cherrydb before that)
You have earned yourself a subscriber, I usually don't interact with creators beyond just watching, but this is composed soo nicely and loved every second of it
Thank you so much, Param! :) Welcome, and it makes me happy to know you enjoyed this one!
Question:
With Templater installed, is there any reason to also install the core Templates plugin?
Great video! Another must have plugin is Obsidian Git. It makes easy to backup and sync your vault to any git repository.
I did see that, but have not tried it because I already have a cronjob that runs a script that does that locally, and this way I didn't have to trust someone else's code! :)
Curiously, how much space does all of your notes take, since everything is locally stored? I'm interested in obsidian but unsure how I'll manage it storage wise.
Notes are stored as text files, so depending on how long they are, they're usually a few KBs each. I don't worry about it at all!
Hi. Thanks for the video, what is the theme used at 5:12 in the video
You're my fav person on YT right now. Thanks for learning in public!!! I'm inspired to make some changes myself :)
Wow, that's so nice! I'm really happy that me learning in public has helped others like you! Welcome and I hope those changes go well for you! :)
Hey mate just wanna thank you for this vid. You help make the obsidian journey so much less daunting lol
Very informative. I've hesitated on making the leap for awhile now but the more I'm researching it, the better it seems. Thanks for making this. It was extremely helpful!
Hey Benjamin, I'm very glad to hear that! :) I hope you decide to take the plunge and join the Obsidian community. :)
Excelent video,as a novice I Was looking for some advice over recommended plugins. Thanks!
Why are all these Obsidian youtubers so calm and chilled out
*can you explain why you don’t like iCloud for sync back up?*
I just enabled it today after I found out the native sync is $4.00 per month
yeh iCloud is the way to go for sure. I say that as someone who uses Windows mostly but for syncing Obsidian with MacBook and iPhone its a no-brainer
Straight-forward information that helped me get started on Obsidian. Thank you!
Oh, yay! Happy to hear I helped you get up to speed! :)
I watched your "Obsidian for Beginners" video and loved your clear explanations. I just finished this video and would like to see how to use all of these plugins. Please make videos on each one with examples of how you use them. Great work.Thanks!
Hey Gary! (También hablo español) Glad you liked it! Happy to hear you want more details on them all. I started to go into it for this video and realised that if I did that, it would be two hours! I'll definitely make separate videos, thanks for the feedback!
How did you make that really cool glossary around 3:10? Is that the double brackets that links to a page?
Yes! They are links to pages that I built up as I created more around that topic. :)
@@nicolevdh Awesome! Can you point out where in the settings we can change the appearance of specific links? For example I'd like to change the colors of page links, or the [[page]] and an actual hyperlink. Both my are white and blend into the "miniminal theme" I'm using 😅 Thanks ahead ✌️
Hey, it's not in the settings - it's in the CSS! If you would like to delve into the CSS, you can find the styles in the `.obsidian` folder in the root directory of your vault. I'm not great with CSS and almost never change anything in there, but you can absolutely change theme stylesheets or come up with your own if you want!
Great list - a couple I didn't know about thank you for the video Nicole!
hello, how did you toggle the triple block quotes in 3:02 please
@Nicole , aren't you losing the whole futureproof element of using md files, by basing your system around dataview plugins or java script?
Migrating to another software in the future would result in your notes turning into a mess a bit, no?
Also, would love to understand from you why is there a preference to markdown files, where OPML is also highly popular and a "standard" (just a form of XML, easily converted as text), and provides natural outlining in a far more smooth way than the experience with the outline plugin (as is clear from using dynalist, workfloy, logseq)?
07:17 You Can use MEGA for cloud drive & MEGA Sync in mobile & Linux & Mac. Better choice instead of DropBox & Sync
Very useful. Thanks. I'm in the process of switching from Roam to Obsidian and found it non-intuitive, so glad to hear that it's not just me.
I agree!! Funny that you mention migrating from Roam. My video on Wednesday is about switching. What a coincidence! I also resisted switching for a long time. I think Obsidian is especially difficult because it's so plain and, in my opinion, it would have been better to include some of these plugins so that it's more fully-featured from the beginning.
Another option for synchronizing is "Self-hosted LiveSync". You do need some knowledge to set it up and it's historically been a little unstable. Haven't had issues with any of the recent versions though (last few months).
Nicole, you discussed using Readwise to collect clips/highlighted items + your annotations from pdf files, to send to Obsidian for your PKMS.
What do you use for doing the same with EPUB files?
Usage
I read a lot of medical journals (mostly PDFs) & books from a gazillion fields (I'm curious), everything from geopolitics to medicine, science fiction to philosophy. Most of this stuff is EPUB books, 'though some are also PDFs.
I'd love one app "to rule them all": do EPUB and PDF both. I fear I'm going to be disappointed. But I'll wager you do access both file formats. What works?
Hardware platforms
I'm working on a Windows desktop laptop/tablet (hybrid), and an Android tablet. So it'd be nice to be able to use the same software on both platforms. I know you do this too, but suspect a lot of your reading is done on an iPad. I've avoided Apple's ecosystem (got off it 7-8 years ago). I'm more likely to add a Boox eReader instead of an Apple tablet. We'll see.
Finally, I like the idea of handwriting with a stylus to take notes. Not sure how realistic this is. For lectures, though, it would be ideal. My Samsung tablet (Fold phone, actually) does a pretty credible job of converting handwriting on the fly to text. It'd be nice if a note-taking app offered that kind of input, but I think that's still bleeding-edge & not too practical. Plus it means palm rejection is crucial, and while my Fold smartphone is pretty good using core apps like Samsung's Notes app, I think palm rejection in many 3rd party apps still sucks. And I don't think handwriting conversion is even offered in Notion & Obsidian on Android tablets.
Any thoughts? I'll keep scanning your vids to see if you've already addressed these issues.
Thank you for sharing your passions & talents with such enthusiasm!
Thank you for the videos on obsidian. Very informative and great presentation. I like videos on YT where the presenter is not extremely artificially over exciting on the topics that are been presented.
You have a very nice, calming and natural way of speaking that is really enjoyable.
Hey! I'm glad you like them! I AM super passionate and excited about Obsidian, but I'm glad it comes across as real-- it is! :)
Nicole, thanks for this incredibly concise and process-empowering video. Looking forward to more Obsodian content!
Hey Ryan, glad you liked it! Thanks for your encouragement! :)
Whoop whoop! Thanks for sharing this! Great video!
Very informative and helpful tutorial video❤
A free alternative to Obsidian Sync is SyncThing(Android)/SyncTrayzor(Windows)/syncthing-macos(MacOS). For iPad, I suppose you could set up a file server or directly connect to a local host to load and save simply enough, too.
Came here looking for Obsidian content, which I mainly use for work. But I had just started to use it for the weekly Mork Borg campaign I'm running... And was delighted to see you using it for that exact same purpose!
Oh and this is a great guide to Obsidian plugins - just what I was looking for. (New subscriber!)
How cool that you're running Mörk Borg!! I only ran a one-shot in it and played in an adventure, so I have much less experience. But I thought Obsidian was good for both! :)
Hi there! Just getting started with Obsidian. Is it possible that Editor Syntax Highlighting no longer exists? I cannot find it in Community Plugins. Thanks!
You have such a pleasant way to explain things.
I had a hard time to get into Obsidian at first, after watching some of your vids I'm giving it a fresh try...
Hey, I'm happy to hear that! (Re) welcome to Obsidian! I hope this time goes better for you! We're a pretty welcoming community. :)
Wonderful series of videos, Nicole. Thank you very much. Can you suggest any plug-in for the following capabilities: i) generate mind-map out of text as a graphic and allows me to go back and forth between the graphic and the ordered text; ii) automatically generate a mind-map (in addition to the graph) among related notes; iii) handle hand written notes as some of us very often scribble on our laptop screens using a stylus. We need to capture these and ideally also convert the written words into text; iv) ability to create and interlink IT diagrams according to the C4 architecture model and also ER diagrams. Ideally generate ER diagrams straight out of a SQL database and able to convert changes into SQL commands back into the database to alter the table designs
Hi! Thanks for reaching out! Glad you enjoyed this video. As for you plugin questions:
i and ii: The Mind Map plugin is what you want for sure.
iii and iv: Excalidraw is your best bet, though it won't interface with a SQL database. You'll have to manually create what you want it to show.
Good luck!
@@nicolevdh Thank you!
Geweldig! DataView is zo belangrijk voor mijn workflow. Bedankt voor deze super tips!
Goed om te horen! :) Bedankt voor het kijken!
I just installed Obsidian, and it has a learning curve that i am battling with, looks promising the power of a database, it will take some time from the looks of it before I can say I love it.
I just installed Obsidian and was looking for possibly "necessary" additions, so I ran into this video. As I am watching it I am like "Who the hell is this girl!" Like some master coder, magic expert. Then you talk about your blog and as I am seeing screenshots of it, I am more impressed. Just WOW, keep on rocking!!!
Awww, thank you, Nika! I'm not a master or expert coder. :) Just someone who doesn't mind learning things. :) Glad you liked this video though!
Great video, Nicole! 😀
I haven't done it yet but can't you also sync by putting the vault on google drive on all of your devices?
My #1 plugin for Obsidian is the 3d graph view by Yomaru Hananoshika. It adds absolutely nothing to my workflow and actively detracts from my efficiency, but the ability to view my graph as an interconnected sphere is _so pretty_
Thank you for your explanation. Love from Spain 📚💌
I'm just getting into Obsidian for my tech learning/content needs, so your list is PERFECT!
Subscribed and did the bell thing.
(noob question) Why cant you use dropbox to sync? I'm using Nextcloud and so far its working fine.
Kanban is not just the default todo doing done thing. The heart of Kanban is „kaizen“ meaning basically „constant improvement“. The way you are using it is totally valid in Kanban. And the approach you don’t like is basically just one way of using it. And the reason you don’t like it is because it’s not the right method for you. So whatever board style works for you is totally legit Kanban
Great Video! Will keep these in mind!
The outliner helped, thanks
I am new to obsidian and i am sp confident i'll use all the plugIn you recommend automatically ... thank's
sditor syntax one went down i think, any substitutions?
Biggest problem with obsidian it is not open source, and the other concern is malicious plugins from third-party. I have not looked at the code, and not sure if the plugins are within some sort of sandbox.
A reasonable concern! Plugins are not within a sandbox, though all approved community plugins are open source. It's definitely wise to think about what you consider to be acceptable risk.
@@nicolevdh Not all approved community plugins are open source, Pieces for developers is one example.
You can use icloud to do real time sync in different kind of devices? I assume it works only on ios?
Just letting you know, syncthing is an open source way of syncing files between devices. Works on windows, iOS, Linux, android. 100% free, just takes maybe 10min to set up compared to obsidian sync taking one click but once it's set up it's no maintenance
Great video! I'm confused by your comment that you don't normally like the kanban approach but what you're describing is almost anecdotally the perfect example of what kanban is best used for. My trello board looks almost identical to your use case and is exactly what I need for managing creative projects combined with a little automation wired in. What are you not fond of with kanban boards? Thanks again for the recommendations
Also, love the Mork Borg plug! 😁
You are Amazing ❤️ maybe the best video for the plug-ins on TH-cam. Liked & Subscribed.
Thank you for that list! I'm only just dipping my toe into Obsidian, and whether it sticks is more a me thing rather than the program itself. It looks pretty nice so far and there are plenty of videos and resources to give me ideas on how to use it well.
I have found a workaround for a sync'ed vault across "some" devices using an SMB/NFS shared folder on a home server and I'm using Tailscale to build a small "tailnet" (which is super simple to set up, and then I've mapped the folder on my server to each of my Windows machines, and mounted on a Linux laptop, and the vault opens from whatever computer I'm on. Even if I'm out of my home network.
What it doesn't work on is mobile devices, as it appears that you can only using Obsidian Sync, or a local folder on the mobile device, and I've not found any decent solution to access either an NFS or SMB share from an Android device. If I can get that sorted I think I'm set for a cross platform experience. If not, I'm more likely to be working in Obsidian on a computer rather than a phone
Do you know wether there’s a plugin to convert your notes to pdf on ipad?
Could you please advise on which font is it at 3:16?
Sorry, I was using a theme that is no longer maintained, so I can't go and check!
I love your videos! Very clear! You mention your static blog qugo??? (at 6:01). Can you point me to it?
Hey! I use Hugo: pulse.ly/tns19fuanj
omg you're so smart, I literally fell in love with this video, Great job!
Haha. Luckily I edit every video and can make myself look smarter than I actually am. ;)
This video is 🔥. Made me want to use obsidian.
Hi, do you know the name of the plugin that make the headers to have differents colors and size? I use the minimal theme in one of my vaults and don't remeber exactly what I did to make that funtion available but now that I opened another vault and want to install the plugin I can't find it
Hi, it's not a plugin-- all colours and styles are set by themes. One theme that has different colours that comes to mind is Everforest.
Wow!!! What a great overview! Thank you Nicole!
Thanks for the support, Eve! :)
Will there be a video on fantasy calendar?
Thanks for all your great Obsidian videos! You've helped me tremendosly with refocusing on note taking basics instead of being paralized from force feeding PARA and zettelkasten. Please make a video on the templater plugin. Another great video would be an advanced walkthrough of your note taking flow.
Hi Alex, I really appreciate this! Templater is definitely on my list already-- I'm thinking about doing it next week maybe! Thanks for adding your vote though. That helps me decide what's next. I'll put the walkthrough of note taking to the list too!
Hey.
What Plugin do you use for your Graph View? It looks nice.
Thank you for your video by the way! 🙂
May I ask what your monthly budget is for building a Knowledge Management System? I'm always reluctant to pay for this type of service.. Not even sure as why.
Thanks for the great list! What theme are you using @2:17?
Hi Edwin! That's Sanctum in dark mode. :)
thank you so so much! this video definitely broden my understanding of what Obsidian can do and create tremendous value in use cases that I probably have not yet discover or know that I needed. I start to get to know this tool about 2 weeks ago, and have been using Notion / Evernote all my life. I just want to say that bi-directional link is changing on how I write more effectively.
This video definitely will increase my productivity in upcoming weeks during my discovery of this amazing tool and community! big thank you
Oh, that's great! Welcome to the Obsidian community! I'm glad to have exposed you to all the awesome things that Obsidian can do, just not out of the box. :) Yay for bi-directional linking!!
I am interested how to get my obsidian notebook from my windows surface and windows desktop to my iphone. Would Obsidian Sync do this?
Wish I saw this before. So many useful plugins.
Will Obsidian below slower after installing so many plug-in?
How did you make your links look like that? looks very cool!
It's really interesting that your initial experience with Obsidian was negative because of how basic it is. I never used Roam or Notion or Evernote, but instead came over from OneNote, and personally what I liked about Obsidian was that it was entirely markdown, and it was very portable and lightweight. The first day I found out about it, I fell in love, and abandoned OneNote entirely. Began carrying over all my notes (manually) into Obsidian. I've been using it for about 2 years now.
The problem, though, is that over time I discovered that its lightweightedness has pros and cons, and one of the biggest things I realized was that there are many features I could stand to have which just aren't a part of it, and the other thing was that the way I've been using Obsidian is not super efficient.
I basically used it to just create and categorize all my notes, plans, and idea (for a lot of different subjects, all in one vault), but I haven't been taking advantage of community plugins or even the built in graphic and tagging features.
At work (I'm a developer) I tend to use it to track notes I'm taking about tickets I pick up, though so far it's all been "throw the tickets in the ticket bucket" and "throw discoveries in the Documentation bucket". With a small handful of sporadic and unintegrated notes.
Thank you for this video, demonstrating the usefulness of some of the plugins available. I have been overwhelmed by how many there are, and haven't been able to imagine how I would use them.
I can understand that! Obsidian is very flexible, but the flexibility comes with some overwhelm because you have to know what's available before you can finetune it to work the way you want.
For me, linking notes and creating "landing pages" for certain topics really helped. For example, you could create a note that tracks all the tickets by manually linking to each ticket. Later on, if you feel like you want to try Dataview, you could use it to query your vault for open notes, for example. But manually updating that Open Tickets page can also force you to be more aware of what's out there, which isn't a bad thing.
Since you mentioned being overwhelmed, I definitely recommend starting with the core plugins! They provide the most value for complexity since they're built to be not so intrusive. :) Good luck!
I am new to your channel. I have just watched your video. I really like your clear and consize wording (no exceessive words needed), just to the point information share. Thank you. Will watch more :)
Hi Nicole, are you able to share some examples of your JS code for Templater, would great if you can! thank you for great video
Wonderful video Nicole. You're very pleasant to listen to. I also use obsidian sync. I'm loving it, the bonus features and it simply works.
Thank you so much! Yeah I love Sync too! It's also a great way to give back to the Obsidian devs since they're making a free tool.
Hi Nicole, Obsidian Noob here... I was a Notion user for a long, long time and recently switched over to Obsidian. I don't know what happened. I felt like I was in love with Notion and then I got so busy this semester with my 16 hours (chem, bio, math, and philosophy) that I looked at my Notion task list and it was just OVERWHELMING... too many icons, highlights, banner photos, and I feel like I got lost in my original purpose - and that is to have a good study system. I don't remember how I even found Obsidian (or you) but here I am! So I have two questions:
Do you have a video, or recommend one from someone else, that has a good system for organizing my schoolwork and tasks?
What font are you using? Because it looks awesome!
Great video! And I look forward to checking out ALL your videos :)
Good information. I've been using the md extensions in vscode and I have installed obsidian. The features seem very useful. Most of my markdown is processed through git and version control to Github. Does the publishing plugin allow for version control issues? Thanks.
Thanks for your insights! I'm just getting started with Obsidian and all of these plugins seem really useful. I agree that one does not see the appeal of Obsidian on a first approach, so this videos certainly help.
I wanted to get into obsidian. all I did was watch one of your videos and I think after that I immediately got it. it's not that hard to use, it's just not super obvious. and since I already talk in markdown due to discord and misskey, I felt pretty much right at home writing in markdown.
Thank you for the Video. I was looking for something like kanban to organise and get a categories list of Notes.
Zo genoeg te leren. Ben pas begonnen met Obsidian. Dank voor de filmpjes!
Bedankt voor het kijken! Welkom in de wereld van Obsidian! :)
Hello Nicole, thanks for your nice videos. I really like the way you present.
I was wondering if obsidian can search through images, screenshots, pdfs etc. the way we can do in OneNote?
I'm not familar with OneNote, but do you mean OCR? No, Obsidian doesn't do that natively, and I'm not aware of a plugin that does that either. Obsidian is better suited to text and notes that you write yourself rather than to being a repository for random files.
@@nicolevdh Thanks Nicole