18 votes

What Obsidian plug-ins do you use?

Posted by aisneto
Tags: ask.survey, obsidian, note taking, personal information management, secondbrain, productivity

It seems that Obsidian is a very popular note-taking software within the community here, so I would like to know what plugins you use for your daily workflow in Obsidian. I will start:

  • Advanced Tables: Very useful for adding and managing markdown tables using simple intuitive keyboard strokes.

  • Callout Manager: I tend to abuse the callout function (in my academic vault, I organize any kind of information inside a callout with the source of the info as the title), so it is good to have control of the colors for different kinds of callouts.

  • Minimal Theme Settings: Nothing much to talk about. Just some eye candy to make my notes easier on the eyes. Plus, the focus mode is very good for study sessions.

  • Obsidian Matrix: Allows me to organize some mathematical LaTeX code properly.

  • Reading Time: Useful to grasp the length of a longer note at a quick glance.

  • Recent Files: Helps me set myself around my files.

  • Style Settings: Complement of "Minimal Theme Settings" to achieve maximum eye candy.

  • List Callouts: I use it only in my personal projects vault. It helps me give particular emphasis to specific topics within my lists.

  • Table of Contents: Useful for longer, heavily-structured notes.

Aside from that, I also have four CSS snippets:

  1. Align: Aligns my linked figures to the center of the page.
  2. Callout: Specifies the size of callouts (useful, as I mainly structure my notes inside callouts).
  3. Hide: Hides my "resources" folder from the Obsidian explorer (this folder contains files such as figures and PDFs that I link into my notes).
  4. Justify: Justifies all the text in read-mode.

9 comments

  1. Macha
    (edited )
    Link
    Tasks: Obsidian is also my to-do app Enhanced Tables: Some nicer behaviour for navigating between table cells and auto aligning them Dataview: Populates a list of "most recent notes tagged about...
    • Tasks: Obsidian is also my to-do app
    • Enhanced Tables: Some nicer behaviour for navigating between table cells and auto aligning them
    • Dataview: Populates a list of "most recent notes tagged about X" at the top of my people and project notes.
    • Periodic Notes: Weekly Notes fit me better than the inbuilt Daily Notes
    • Templater: This is an incredibly powerful plugin which I use for... Naming my weekly notes the way I like WYYYY-MM-DD where DD is Monday's date rather than ISO week numbers. And then filling in the dates for each day of the week.
    • QuickAdd: I create shortcuts to create notes from a template in a folder (specifically I have a standard template for projects, people, and meeting notes)
    2 votes
  2. psi
    Link
    I try not to depend on the plugins too much (because you never know when you'll need to export your notes to some different software in the future), but Dataview, Advanced Tables, and Minimal...

    I try not to depend on the plugins too much (because you never know when you'll need to export your notes to some different software in the future), but Dataview, Advanced Tables, and Minimal Themes are too convenient to not have.

    Other than those, I find Remotely Save (using backblaze) to be absolutely critical since I don't pay for Obsidian Sync.

    I also find myself relying on the presentation mode pretty often these days since it lets me quickly throw together a few slides without having to break out beamer. The default formatting is a bit too big for my taste, so I have a custom css snippet to make the presentation view slightly nicer looking (without having to rely on Advanced Slides).

    .reveal h1 {font-size: 2.0em; }
.reveal h2 {font-size: 1.5em; }
.reveal h3 {font-size: 1.4em; }
.reveal h4 {font-size: 1.3em; }
.reveal { font-size: 1.2em; }

.reveal .slides { text-align: left; }

:root {
  --r-background-color: #faf4ed;
  --r-main-color: #575279;
  --r-heading-color: #b4637a;
  --r-link-color: #d7827e;
  --r-link-color-hover: #907aa9;
  --r-selection-color: #56949f;
}
    2 votes
  3. [6]
    akselmo
    Link
    I use Joplin and for that i have journal and draw.io plugins. Obsidian seems neat but its not open which kind of bothers me.. is it still worth it?

    I use Joplin and for that i have journal and draw.io plugins. Obsidian seems neat but its not open which kind of bothers me.. is it still worth it?

    1 vote
    1. Macha
      Link Parent
      For Obsidian, the thing that saves it from that concern for me is that the format is open (a bunch of markdown files - what I was already using before Obsidian), so if they go the enshittification...

      For Obsidian, the thing that saves it from that concern for me is that the format is open (a bunch of markdown files - what I was already using before Obsidian), so if they go the enshittification route, I can take my data just fine and only have to recreate stuff that's "nice to have" rather than foundational to my workflow.

      Also last time I used Joplin, the Android app was incredibly bad.

      2 votes
    2. [4]
      aisneto
      Link Parent
      Obisidian not being open also bothers me... but it also seems like the note-taking software with the most active community surrounding it, which means you can find plug-ins that fit just about any...

      Obisidian not being open also bothers me... but it also seems like the note-taking software with the most active community surrounding it, which means you can find plug-ins that fit just about any purpose you could need. If someday another open source note-taking software takes the spot, it should not be difficult to transfer all my files, as they are in markdown. So for my usage it is worth it, but if you feel that Joplin fulfil it's function, maybe it is not worth the hassle to jump to another app and adapting your workflow.

      2 votes
      1. [3]
        akselmo
        Link Parent
        Hm, I may give it another try. Joplin works well for me but there are things I wish it had, like a bit better Android app, and Obsidian seems to have them.

        Hm, I may give it another try. Joplin works well for me but there are things I wish it had, like a bit better Android app, and Obsidian seems to have them.

        1. [2]
          aisneto
          Link Parent
          If you plan to share your files between devices, I would advise you to use a storage cloud server instead of paying for their cloud sync

          If you plan to share your files between devices, I would advise you to use a storage cloud server instead of paying for their cloud sync

          1. akselmo
            Link Parent
            Am already doing that with Joplin. :) Gave Obsidian a go, I think it has too much stuff for my use.

            Am already doing that with Joplin. :)

            Gave Obsidian a go, I think it has too much stuff for my use.

  4. yobuko
    Link
    I'm surprised no one has mentioned Kanban yet. I use it for project boards and reading lists. I'm sure there must be far more creative uses though.

    I'm surprised no one has mentioned Kanban yet. I use it for project boards and reading lists. I'm sure there must be far more creative uses though.