obsidian bases tutorial | how to build a source index — Transcript

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1. 0:00This is one of my favorite features on
2. 0:01my Obsidian Vault. It is my source index
3. 0:04where I've collected all my reading
4. 0:05notes I've made over the past 3 years of
5. 0:07my degree into one Obsidian base. In
6. 0:11this video, I'm going to be giving you a
7. 0:12step-by-step tutorial on how to create
8. 0:14your own sources index using the
9. 0:16Obsidian Base feature. This index
10. 0:18updates automatically with your Obsidian
11. 0:20Vault, and it can also be filtered and
12. 0:22prioritized depending on what you want
13. 0:24to see in your index. This tutorial does
14. 0:26not require any complicated coding or
15. 0:28any plugins that you need to install.
16. 0:30This tutorial is made completely using
17. 0:32the Obsidian base feature and I'm quite
18. 0:34a beginner when it comes to Obsidian
19. 0:36Bases and I found this relatively
20. 0:38intuitive to make. Without further ado,
21. 0:40let's just get into the tutorial. This
22. 0:42is my sources index that I use to
23. 0:44provide an overview of my readings
24. 0:46through using properties for each file
25. 0:49shown on the top here. I can see various
26. 0:52information that I've saved about each
27. 0:54note. for example, the author, the year
28. 0:56it was published, any related ideas,
29. 0:59events, concepts, the region, whether
30. 1:02I've read it or not. An Obsidian base
31. 1:04can be completely personalized and
32. 1:06customizable, which is what makes it so
33. 1:08great. So, for any purpose that you want
34. 1:10it to be used for, it really can adapt
35. 1:13to that challenge. To create a new base,
36. 1:16we're going to use this side panel over
37. 1:18here. If you hover over each of the
38. 1:21little icons, it will tell you what it's
39. 1:22for. So, we want to go down to this icon
40. 1:25that says create a new base. Click on
41. 1:27that and we get an untitled base. You
42. 1:30can think of this base as a total list
43. 1:33of everything you have ever taken a note
44. 1:35of in alphabetical order. So, this could
45. 1:38be useful, but for the purpose of this
46. 1:40video, we're going to be creating an
47. 1:42index. You might want to be using this
48. 1:44for your reading notes, your essay
49. 1:46notes, your concept notes, um a
50. 1:48particular world building aspect that
51. 1:50you're interested in. But the idea of it
52. 1:52is that it's an index of something
53. 1:54specific within a base. This entire big
54. 1:57base isn't going to be very helpful. To
55. 1:59create your own obsidian source index,
56. 2:01you need to choose what particular
57. 2:04source you're going to be focusing on.
58. 2:06There are various options which your
59. 2:07Obsidian base can display. You can
60. 2:10choose to create an index of one of your
61. 2:12folders. For example, you can see these
62. 2:14f folders on the side here. or you can
63. 2:16also choose to create an index using
64. 2:18tags and file properties. I'm going to
65. 2:21show you both methods, so hopefully you
66. 2:23can choose which one will work best for
67. 2:25you and your Obsidian Vault. To create a
68. 2:28source index of one of your folders, you
69. 2:30need to click this filter button on the
70. 2:32right hand side of your screen on the
71. 2:34Obsidian base. When you click filter,
72. 2:36you'll see that there are two options,
73. 2:38this view and all views. We're going to
74. 2:40focus on all views. This will define the
75. 2:42whole Obsidian base. And then you can
76. 2:45filter later on by using this view.
77. 2:47Click on all views and make sure that
78. 2:49this drop-down is set to all the
79. 2:52following are true. Then this needs to
80. 2:53be file where the file is and instead of
81. 2:57links to just by clicking on links to we
82. 2:59can select in folder and then a pop-up
83. 3:02will appear with all of the folders and
84. 3:04subfolders that you have. So I'm going
85. 3:06to click on commemorations which is one
86. 3:08of my modules. And here we can see that
87. 3:10we now have a base which contains a list
88. 3:13of all of the files within my
89. 3:15commemorations folder. Whilst this is a
90. 3:17really useful overview, utilizing file
91. 3:20properties will really help to elevate
92. 3:22your bases. If you don't know what file
93. 3:24properties are, I'm going to quickly
94. 3:26explain them for you. By clicking on
95. 3:28this properties icon on again on the
96. 3:30right hand side of your Obsidian base,
97. 3:32you can see all the automatic properties
98. 3:34that Obsidian creates each time you
99. 3:36create a note. We've got creative time.
100. 3:39We've got back links to the file. All of
101. 3:42these ones that are marked with an I are
102. 3:44ones that Obsidian creates for you
103. 3:46essentially. Scrolling down this list of
104. 3:48properties, we start to see more
105. 3:50personalized properties that I have
106. 3:52created for each of my notes throughout
107. 3:54my Obsidian vault. The great thing about
108. 3:56properties is again you can personalize
109. 3:58them to the uses of your index, of your
110. 4:01vault, of the organization system that
111. 4:03you have. Your properties do not have to
112. 4:05be complicated. And I suggest that you
113. 4:07start out just by adding tags to your
114. 4:09notes. Let's create an example by
115. 4:11creating a new note. Pressingtn. You can
116. 4:14simply add a tag to an untitled note by
117. 4:17using the hashtag key. Now using the
118. 4:20hashtag key, this comes up with a list
119. 4:22of all previous tags that I have ever
120. 4:24used. Let's say that this note is about
121. 4:27George Orwell. I am going to put the
122. 4:29hashtag and I'm going to search person.
123. 4:32This way I have given my note a property
124. 4:35and the property that this note has is
125. 4:37one tag and that tag is # person.
126. 4:40Creating a property in this way allows
127. 4:42Obsidian to gather data about the note
128. 4:45you have created. So it can organize
129. 4:46that data in a sources index for
130. 4:49example. To create other properties
131. 4:51within your file that aren't just the
132. 4:53automatic ones Obsidian creates, you
133. 4:55want to press the control key and the
134. 4:57colon key. This will add your properties
135. 5:01to the note. Now, some of these are
136. 5:03automatic like alliases, CSS classes. I
137. 5:06have never used those. But then we can
138. 5:07see the ones that I have added. As a
139. 5:10rule of thumb, as I said, I try to give
140. 5:12all of my notes on Obsidian a tag.
141. 5:15Again, we can see that these similar um
142. 5:17results to pressing the hashtag key show
143. 5:19up. So, again, I'm just going to put
144. 5:22person and then that tag is added and I
145. 5:25don't need to have it in the actual
146. 5:27note. And what is great about properties
147. 5:29is that you can hide them. If you have a
148. 5:31really long list of properties, you
149. 5:32don't need to be seeing them every time
150. 5:33you open up your note. So that's a brief
151. 5:36explanation of what properties are.
152. 5:38Another way of showing the properties
153. 5:40that a particular note has is by
154. 5:43clicking this right hand side panel. If
155. 5:46you click expand, and I'm already on it,
156. 5:48but for example, you have the outline
157. 5:50which will show any heading. So if I
158. 5:52were to add a heading of biography, this
159. 5:55would show up on the note. Um, you can
160. 5:58see various things here, but if you
161. 5:59press this I button, it will show you
162. 6:01the different properties this note has.
163. 6:03For example, if I was to post related
164. 6:051984,
165. 6:07you can literally see how that is adding
166. 6:09this automatically onto the properties
167. 6:11of the file. This is another really
168. 6:13great way to add properties to your file
169. 6:15and have an overview of what they are
170. 6:18using these file properties that we have
171. 6:20just learned about using this example
172. 6:21note. Let's create a new base that will
173. 6:23utilize these file properties to create
174. 6:25a source index.
175. 6:28So if we just press new tab and again go
176. 6:30on this sidebar and click create new
177. 6:32base, we're going to have an untitled
178. 6:34base which again has no distinctions
179. 6:36between what it is filtering out. So it
180. 6:37just has a list of every single note on
181. 6:39my Obsidian Vault.
182. 6:42Similarly to how we did this last time,
183. 6:44we're going to press on filter all
184. 6:46views, make sure that all the following
185. 6:48are true is selected from this dropdown.
186. 6:51Then where the file is and click on
187. 6:54links to. And instead of clicking in
188. 6:57folder, we're going to be using has the
189. 6:59tag. And here we can select from which
190. 7:02tag we want to do. So for example, let's
191. 7:05use reading. We now can see that this
192. 7:08base has a list of all my reading notes
193. 7:10that I've done. and I have 510 readings.
194. 7:12To make this more interesting and
195. 7:14useful, let's use the properties tool to
196. 7:17add more information about each specific
197. 7:19note on this source index. Clicking on
198. 7:22properties on the far right, we can then
199. 7:24select which properties we want to show.
200. 7:28You can choose some of the ones that
201. 7:29Obsidian has created for you, such as
202. 7:31the time it was created and the date.
203. 7:33However, I'm going to focus on ones like
204. 7:35the author. I'm also going to click on
205. 7:38module whether any of these notes have
206. 7:40been assigned to a particular module.
207. 7:43I'm going to add the year that these
208. 7:44were published. Looking through, I'm
209. 7:47also going to add the region, related
210. 7:49information, the source, and the source
211. 7:52type. Clicking away from properties, we
212. 7:54can see that now the base looks very
213. 7:56different. Using the top headings, we
214. 7:59can adjust the size of the columns,
215. 8:01creating a smaller year column, making
216. 8:04the file name bigger if we want to see
217. 8:06more of the title, and then scrolling
218. 8:08across, you can be able to see the whole
219. 8:10base. Now, scrolling down, you can see
220. 8:13that some of my reading notes, and
221. 8:14actually quite a lot of them, don't have
222. 8:16specific properties that are put into
223. 8:19the note. This is because I started
224. 8:21using file properties about only 2 years
225. 8:23into my Obsidian vault. And so not all
226. 8:26of them, the ones I was creating from
227. 8:27the very start didn't have all these
228. 8:29properties. They simply just had the
229. 8:31hashtag reading. However, the great
230. 8:34thing about bases is that if you input a
231. 8:36property onto the base, it will show up
232. 8:38on the file. So let's pick this one,
233. 8:42Rosenstone Robert history on film. You
234. 8:44can see that these only have this only
235. 8:46has the year and it has the author. If I
236. 8:49navigate back and let's find the file
237. 8:52here, we can add the module as
238. 8:55historical thinking.
239. 8:58If I press enter and now click on this
240. 9:01note, you can see that it has added the
241. 9:03property of module and it has added
242. 9:05historical thinking. The reason I knew
243. 9:07this was from historical thinking was I
244. 9:09could see on the linked mentions, it was
245. 9:11mentioned in a historical narrative
246. 9:12seminar and in my historical thinking
247. 9:14module. This is what's really awesome
248. 9:16about Obsidian. By seeing all these
249. 9:18linked mentions, all these back links
250. 9:19and outgoing links, you can start to
251. 9:22form connections between sources,
252. 9:23concepts, and ideas. So, the source
253. 9:26index is a fabulous example of this. If
254. 9:29you want to be sorting by region, you
255. 9:30can simply click on region and then it
256. 9:32will sort all of the region tags that
257. 9:35are on this property by alphabetical
258. 9:37order. So, we can see Algeria, Asia,
259. 9:39Caribbean, East Africa, lots on Egypt
260. 9:41since that's my dissertation topic. and
261. 9:43going down until we get to the notes
262. 9:45which don't have a particular region.
263. 9:48Another great one to organize by is year
264. 9:50published. We can see what the oldest
265. 9:52note is, 1792, which is Mary
266. 9:56Wellstonecraft. All these things just
267. 9:58become so interesting and useful for
268. 10:00when you are taking a massive inventory
269. 10:02of your Obsidian base. I hope this video
270. 10:05was helpful and it helped you to have
271. 10:06some inspiration and perhaps create your
272. 10:09own source index for your Obsidian
273. 10:10vault. If you have any more questions,
274. 10:13make sure to comment them below and give
275. 10:14this video a thumbs up if it helped you.
276. 10:16If you want to see more of my Obsidian
277. 10:18videos, I have a full playlist on
278. 10:19Obsidian for uni students. And stay
279. 10:22tuned for future videos explaining more
280. 10:24of my setup and tutorials on how to
281. 10:26create certain note pages on Obsidian.
282. 10:29Thank you so much for watching. See you
283. 10:30in the next video.