Visual map of content in Obsidian // Excalidraw plugin
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- Did you know you can create a visual map of content in Obsidian to consolidate your notes? The Excalidraw plugin by Zsolt Viczian can be used to create a dashboard in Obsidian, take sketchnotes instead of text notes, express your ideas visually, and many more. Maps of content are useful for bottom-up thinking, and having a visual representation of your notes can inspire you to consider other perspectives or communicate your ideas in a clearer way.
// RESOURCES
Zsolt Viczián's Obsidian Excalidraw repository: github.com/zsviczian/obsidian...
// TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
02:27 Installing and setting up the Obsidian Excalidraw plugin
03:37 Using images and shapes in Excalidraw
06:09 Links to Markdown notes
10:59 Adding new Excalidraw libraries
14:25 Embedding Excalidraw drawings
16:14 Other uses for Excalidraw
17:14 Excalidraw on Obsidian mobile app
17:48 Excalibrain
If you want to learn more about Obsidian, check out my course for beginners, Obsidian for Everyone: courses.nicolevanderhoeven.co...
---
// ABOUT ME
Site: nicolevanderhoeven.com
Mastodon: pkm.social/@nicole
My work at Grafana Labs: • My work at Grafana Labs
// APPS I USE
- Obsidian: obsidian.md
- Readwise: readwise.io/nicole
- Shortform: shortform.com/nicole
- Reclaim: go.reclaim.ai/eg0tgbamp7cb
- Snipd: link.snipd.com/Cx7S/nicole
Napkin: napkin.one/?via=nicole
// GEAR
nicolevanderhoeven.com/gear/
// WANT TO SUPPORT ME?
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⭐ Buy Obsidian for Everyone, my beginner course on Obsidian: courses.nicolevanderhoeven.co...
Note: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means I may get a small percentage when you sign up using those links. To see how I decide what to promote in this way, check out my Ethics Statement: nicolevanderhoeven.com/ethics/ - Věda a technologie
thank you, for anyone who is wondering why the `alt` or `option` does not work anymore. You can use line feature with single click to create first point of object then click the next point up until you close the object, it would continuously link the object. To end the linking operation, just hit `esc`, Good luck!!!
Great video. This plugin really gives Obsidian a huge edge over other note taking apps, especially since it's entirely in Markdown (and works entirely offline, I presume).
It IS entirely in Markdown, and it does work offline as well, including on mobile devices. Totally agree with you that it's a huge leg up!
yet another terrific plugin intro - I have been using Excalidraw for 9 mos. and I still learned a few things from this video!
I really like the Obsidian software and extras. This channel is very good, with practical and excellent content. As a Portuguese, I'm glad you come here. There are many beautiful places to live and work.
Thank you for the welcome! :) I'm excited to move there. Glad you like the videos as well!
Immediately liked the moment you said you were coming to Portugal! As a Portuguese it makes me proud :) A premature warm welcome from a fellow CZcamsr!
PS - I found you the other day when browsing my analytics and saw that our audiences overlap a ton! Top class videos Nicole, well done!
That's awesome! Thanks for the welcome! Already love the people and food there, so I'm excited to live there too. :) Nice to meet a fellow CZcamsr! I've seen some of your videos too. Good stuff, keep it up!
Hey @FromSergio, can you please make a video about excalidraw too
This is super dope! I already knew about the Excalidraw plugin, but the "simple" drawing you made as a MOC (I don't want to downplay how cool it looks!) really gave me insights in how I can make Obsidian work better for me. Thanks!
Hey, thanks! It WAS a simple drawing-- I'm no artist! :D But I'm glad it helped show what you could do with it!
This was the Excalidraw Obsidian tutorial I was waiting for. Thank you 🙏
Thank YOU for watching! :) I'm glad I could help! If there's anything else you wish I'd covered about Excalidraw, I'd be happy to hear about it!
This is so cool. I love hearing about your use cases. I've been drawing on Procreate and just adding those jpgs to Obsidian, but I mostly just use it to draft potential thumbnails. This might be fun for more interactive images.
Excalidraw would totally work for that!! And it auto-updates too. I love that feature. You can even use it with Obsidian Leaflet and it will still auto-update.
I love your videos about oblisian with visual notes :-) Thanks Nicole!
awesome video! would love to see more about how you use excalidraw. i think it's such a powerful tool and transforming/linking long text to a mindmap is a PKM dream. hope to learn more about the various possible use cases. thx!
learning so much from your videos! please create more advanced use cases for excalidraw - i am really enjoying this one in obsidian! ^^ looking forward to the next one!
What a cool plugin!! Love the hand drawn / sketched style! Great tutorial Nicole :)))
Thanks Eve! I do love Excalidraw!
Thanks Nicole! Great video!
Hi Zsolt! Thanks for making this awesome plugin! Btw, I apologize if I said your name wrong. :) If you let me know how to say it properly, I'll make sure I say it right in the future!
Hey thanks for the great intro! 🎉More of this please. 👍🙏
Great video nicole! I really enjoy your videos on obsidian and the community plugins and I would love to see some more visual methods of taking notes :))
Great to hear! You'll like the video coming out today, then! It will be on making notes more visual. :)
Whoaaa! I didn’t know it is this powerful! Thanks so much for sharing 🎉
Thanks, Darin! Happy I could share this with you. Excalidraw is great! :)
I love centrality all tools of planning for my games. And i discovery that Obsidian is PERFECT to all things i want do. Thanks for Your video.
Thanks so much for the Excalidraw tip! I'm transitioning to Obsidian from managing all my notes in Nebo on my iPad pro. I'm loving the data-driven nature of Obsidian, but I've been missing doing my meeting minutes and quick notes with my pencil on the iPad. This sounds like exactly what I need.
Yeah! I use it for exactly that use case, too! Hope you find the workflow as good as I have.
This will allow me to stop paying for MUSE, which had been so far my favorite app! Damn, this is the best thing ever!
Great presentation, and you have such a pleasing voice and sense of tempo.
Thank you, Dan! I'm pleased you like the video!
You are awesome, Nicole! Please continue the awesome work! Just subscribed to your channel and looking forward to learning Obsidian from beginner to pro!
Thank you! :) Appreciate the support! I'm happy I can help. :)
Informative video as always!!!
Thanks, Mayank! :)
Thanks alot for your kindness - Excalidraw that’s really great view for who love being a visualizer as simple as us
Glad you like it as much as I do! Zsolt is such a great source for all things visual thinking. :)
Looks great. I like having diagrams of my processes so this is ideal for documenting how I will be using Obsidian. I already have Excalibrain open on a second monitor. 😄
Haha, you really ARE going through my videos! :D Happy I "sold" you on ExcaliBrain. Since you need Excalidraw to use ExcaliBrain, you might as well start using it too! It's so cool to be able to store visual notes along with textual notes. :)
@@nicolevdh I just found the 10 video introduction to Excalidraw. Geek excitement!
i've installed excalidraw 2 days ago, i use Obsidian in 4 devices (Linux Desktop PC (Fedora), IPad, Mac Air and Iphone) so i also purchased the Obsidian Sync (for 1 year) and its sweet. I use excalidraw to make mindmaps and then link them together like if it was a md file.
Thanks so much for your video!! Waiting for video about obsidian and visual
Thanks, Viktor! I'll make sure to put it on the list! :)
The hand drawing and graph making abilities let can fully say goodbye to the Apple Note or OneNote. Thanks for sharing. By the way, the Readwise is amazing, thanks for the affiliate link.
Glad you think so too! I love Readwise and am so happy they exist! Thanks for using the link. :)
these videos are really great! thanks!
Thanks for watching! :)
@Nicole van der Hoeven This video was a wonderful morning tutorial over morning coffee. It showed me how easy it will be to map my research design in Obsidian. And incorporate the design map into my upcoming research presentation looking at how ttrpgs are used in schools. Thank you for all you do!
Yay! That's an interesting presentation. :) I'm happy to have been part of your morning. Good luck on your presentation - it does sound like Excalidraw could be really good for that use case too!
@@nicolevdh The graphing process has been as easy as you’d demonstrated. With my presentation on Thursday, it comes not a moment too soon. I’ve also been using slide template which you demonstrated in another video. On a gaming note, I’ve also been going through the fighting fantasy game books and marking my progress in obsidian. I now realize how easy it would be to map out, and link, my progress with excelidraw. Thank you very much.
Hey Timothy! I know this is a late reply, but I still wanted to let you know it's great to hear that Excalidraw turned out to be as easy as you expected. Sounds like we have a few other common interests too. It's so awesome that we can use Obsidian for so many purposes!
@@nicolevdh Thank you so much! Just getting back to this project now. Glad I came back here for a refresher and I could see your reply. As I was watching one of Zsolt's more recent videos (Block Reference Parts of Images ...), one thing came to mind which I'm sure you've already thought of. In terms of D&D prep, if one were to take a map of an area, town, pointcrawl, dungeon, etc., then one could link each part on the map to notes which explain each part of the map. Like a step more advanced than annotating the map either digitally or on paper. czcams.com/video/yZQoJg2RCKI/video.html
Yup, you absolutely could. I prefer to do this through Leaflet though, so I can embed it into my notes and not have to open up an image in Excalidraw.
I installed Excalidraw plugin (so it promised to be a good thing) and still hold it unactivated. Maybe now I'll activate it... thanks to you. Impatient for watching your Excalibrain review.
Oh, great! I will definitely put Excalibrain on the list. It's so cool!
Thank You! You are awesome! Yes, I am a visual person. I want to know more About Excalibrian! I have always done some kind of mind maps. This would be perfect
Love the video, Nicole, along with the many others - I’m using Excalidraw as a sketchnoting tool on my iPad, and slowly working my way past a few pain points. There’s one big one: when I click “create link”, I have to remember the name of the file I want to link to, instead of what happens when I “add” a link, and obsidian shows me all the files in my vault to pick from. What I’d REALLY like to do is create a shape, select it, and create a link from it to a page I already have in my vault - choosing from a selection, not remembering the exact title. After all, if I could remember things, I wouldn’t need notes, right?
Your content is amazing! Thanks so much for all of it (your DataView video in particular).🎉🎉🎉
Hey Gray! Thank you for your nice words! :)
I actually reached out to Zsolt and showed him your comment, because I didn't know the answer. In the process, I learned something as well, so thank you for that! You can use the Command Palette (CMD/CTRL P) and then search for Excalidraw: Insert link to file. You can also create a keyboard shortcut for it to make it easier to use next time. That should do the trick!
This was really neat Nicole! I'm excited to see Scrintal when it comes out and it's almost like the Obsidian community is trying to create something like it via plugins. I wonder if Obsidian will be able to complete with Scrintal (or Heptabase) when they fully come out. The nice thing is Obsidian is free, and all the other functions obviously. But if I could get it to look like how Scrintal makes it look, then I wouldn't see the need to switch. Thanks again and keep it up!
Glad you liked it! I was approached by the Scrintal team last year. While they were awesome, I eventually declined to participate in the beta. Scrintal felt like several steps backwards to me. It's not Markdown-based, doesn't have a rich querying system, and doesn't work well with code. I wish them all the best, but Obsidian fits my needs much better. I totally understand that some people will actually like the look of Scrintal better though, and I think there's room for both on the market!
@@nicolevdh You have a thoughtful reply. And being involved with coding like you are, that makes sense. I am not and was mainly an Evernote user. But I didn't know that about the MD thing for Scrintal. I think you're right, both will hold different strengths and spaces. =)
ive been waiting for this! So excited! Also, do you use Obsidian sync or use it primarily on one device only?
Yay! Hope you like it! Yes, I use Obsidian Sync to sync my notes across devices (Mac, iPad, and Android mobile). Works well for Excalidraw!
Hi, I'm also using Excalidraw plugin to make some teaching materials and visual notes. This is a plugin with great power but also come with steep learning curve lol. Might be because it's so customizable and functional. Almost like having another Obsidian inside Obsidian.
By the way, since the author is so knowlegeable and intelligent, sometimes I find his content not very easy to follow along lol. Still learnt a ton from him tho.
I'm also thinking of making MoC with Excalidraw as you showed in the video. Thank you for the content.
Having another Obsidian inside Obsidian is right! Have you looked at the Excalibrain plugin yet? It's even cooler!
@@nicolevdh I saw that one, and've been waiting for it to go out of beta phase (it's today). Too lazy to go BRAT. Just installed, but not sure if I know how to intergrate it to my workflow yet. Need some motivation / inspiration for that one as well lol.
amazing review! i'm new to obsidian and amazed w the plugins possibilities. I'm certain that Excalidraw will change my workflow now, cause i've been using Concepts app w Samsung tablet to organize and take notes w a s pen., But the integration of a canvas w excalidraw COMBINED with ALL of my written notes on obsidian is exactly what i needed! thanks for sharing! btw... i got curious about your rpg game. do u have a link to access that?
Love this video, Excalidraw seems really powerful. I just recently found out about obsidian and I'm just starting out. I know Obsidian has a canvas, is this more powerful than that? or now that obsidian has the canvas, should people use that instead? is there any advantage for either?
this is so cool
Hello, thank you so much for your helpful videos! I wanted to ask, what did you use to create that map with the links in it for Portugal?
Hi Emily! I'm glad you're finding them useful! I used the plugin Obsidian Leaflet. :)
Mermaid is pretty neat too out of the box in Obsidian
Yes! I love Mermaid! I use it as well. I'm using it less and less though, since I love that Excalidraw exists as Markdown but also as a png.
Holy sh*t, this plugin works on my iPad!
IKR, isn't that awesome??
LIked the Obrigada at the end! I would like to move to portugal too but it's not possible for various reasons!
That's too bad! I've definitely had some culture shock moving to Portugal, but in general it's been a positive decision. :)
Hi Nicole, great video as usual! I took a look at your published notes to have an idea of how Excalidraw drawings get rendered... I see only text and an alert at the top of the page telling to switch to excalidraw view in more options menu of this document but that menu it's not shown... Do I miss something? Thank you!
Hey Andrea! Unfortunately, Obsidian Publish does not support plugins! So while I do have some pages that I've published that have Excalidraw drawings embedded, you unfortunately won't see them unless I've embedded the drawing as an image! However it does show up locally in Obsidian if you want to give it a go for yourself.
Hi Nicole 👋Awesome vid! May I ask how did you make that red colored background container box @6:29 ?
Muito bom.
Quase desisti do obsidian, até descobrir o excalidraw.
Mas tenho uma dúvida.
Ao colar imagens, ele cola estas imagens na pasta raiz do obsidian. Como vocês fazem para organizar estas imagens no obsidian?
This is very interesting. I think for "input", I wouldn't use visuals, but I like to output information visually. Speaking about thar, if you find it interesting, make a video about Tracker plugin. It seems almost ignored on youtube.
Thanks! I also prefer to output information visually. I have used the Tracker plugin, but I didn't end up using it that much. I guess I don't have to track all that much. Thanks for the comment though!
Excalibrain is in the obsidian community plugins right now. I'd love to see something about it.
Great, thank you! I didn't realize it was out already-- I was beta testing it. Thanks for that feedback! I'll add it to the list. :)
Hi Nicole, thanks for your tutorial! Do you know if you can insert your hand drawings into the markdown notes?
Hi, glad you liked it! Yes, you can hand draw things in Excalidraw and embed them the same way I showed with the graphics in the video. :)
@@nicolevdh thanks!
This is great！And this plugin is very awesome.Could you make a video for metaEdit plugin,I think it's a useful plugin too.
Glad you liked it! Thanks for the suggestion - I've added it to the list!
Once you embed the excalidraw file into the note as a png the links you added to the icons still functions?
No, the links don't work when embedded as a png. One thing you could do is to use Obsidian Leaflet to add links! I originally had that as part of this video, but I thought it was long enough. So either use the excalidraw version to get the links there, or use the png version in an Obsidian Leaflet map and add markers for links to it. It will auto-update either way. :)
@@nicolevdh that's a bummer, but it's was expected, thank you though. I"m going to test the leaflet thaanks
Can you show us how you would import a character sheet and setup the text boxes with links to their relevant stats like you did in your video called "How I use Obsidian to run and play D&D online"
8:40 what obsidian theme are you using , I like how neat your markdown looks. the capitalized words are they highlights or links do they have a special formatting ?
Hey! It's Sanctum, in dark mode. The capitalized words are links, and that's set by the theme too. I changed absolutely nothing.
@@nicolevdh Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I also wanted to thank you for your videos on various obsidian plugins especially dataview.
@@nicolevdh at 8:40 in the date metadata why do you have so many comma separated dates. are those days on which you edited this document and tied into your calendar entries. are those for some sort of dataview query. how does it help you ?
I need help! I tried to create custom shapes, group them, highlight the shape, and then change the background color. ! It only changes the arrows, not the background color of the shape, even if the lines are connected end to end.
bro this is my problem too like how do you fill in a shape LOL
thanks! this was helpful! could you do a vid on Obsidian leaflet?
Thank you, I will put it on the list! Thanks for the suggestion!
Do you have a way of laying your notes out in front of you like sticky notes?
I think that it would be very cool to be able to do that.
It would greatly improve my Workflow if i could open different Obsidian notes at the Same time or Something Like that.
Very nice Video I was searching for Something Like that.
Yes! You can open up as many notes as you'd like and rearrange them on your screen. You can also save them using the Workspaces core plugin and open up that combination of notes (including the positioning) whenever you want. :) Hope that helps!
@@nicolevdh thank you very much ;)
Do Anybody experienced same issue that *Alt or option key* at 5:12 and at 7:26 does not works (means it does not add more points) or it is me only.
*I have found solution:*
For those of you got problem like me, please do the following:
(Note: As I work on windows, so I will talk about Windows keys)
First, Ctrl+Double Click on line
Then, Press Alt and by this extended points line will be created.
Here you go, Don't forget to like the comment if you have faced similar issues.
I downloaded the plug-in for excalidraw, but for some reason I am unable to add anything to the library. I will click "browse library". It will go to the Excalidraw page where I can search the library, and select "add to excalidraw" or "download' I select download and (probably because it's Windows OS) I get a "open with dialog box". It doesn't recognize the application and will not let me download any of these files. Is there a way around this. I have tried download to excalidraw but i get an empty page marked untitled in a new window.
Hi Christina! I'm not entirely sure I understand, but let me try to help. After downloading, you don't open it with any application. You don't "download to Excalidraw"; you download it to your computer, in whatever directory you'd like. Then you can open Obsidian, go to your Excalidraw note, and then click the "Load" button from within Excalidraw as I show in 11:52. You can then look for the file in the folder on your computer where you downloaded it.
@@nicolevdh Thank you. That may help a lot actually. I will try this instead. I appreciate the response.
Does this also work on the Samsung Tablet with an S-Pen?
I don't have a Samsung tablet, but I do have a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, and it absolutely works with the S-Pen! I use it all the time for taking notes at conferences.
thank you for korean sub.!!
This may seem like a minor issue, but it really bugs me. Is there any way to click ANYWHERE in an element with a link to go to that link? Thanks!!!
Hey Eric, I don't think there's a way to do that with an image... this might be more of a question for the developer of the plugin, Zsolt Viscain. He is on CZcams too! czcams.com/users/VisualPKM
This platform is so hard to use for me! Sorry I sound so stupid I just don’t understand how to use all those tools on the left side that you use in the video! Can someone please show me how you get this to a regular note with all the tools. I don’t know what step you did I’m lost!
soo excalibrain? its very underrated plugin
Thanks for letting me know you'd be interested! I think it's awesome too! I am playing with it now and will definitely put it on the list to create a video about it. :)
Exalidraw in Obsidian is a cool plugin, so is Exalibrain.....
I think so too!
Visual or *tactile*
Until one day the developer of the plugin decides they can't be bothered to keep updating it and up in smoke all your pretty graphs go.
That’s not how it works
Great, we are living on Madeira :)
Cool! I considered Madeira, but I wanted to avoid tourists/non-locals and it seems there's a high percentage of expats and digital nomads there. I'm sure we'll visit it now that we're closer, though!
@@nicolevdh we are also ex-pats or more exactly refugees, and we enjoy the island. I believe you will have a lot of fun here. By the way, almost all tourists concentrated in Funchal.