Summary

The provided content discusses the author's favorite Obsidian plugins that enhance note-taking functionality and productivity.

Abstract

The article outlines several key plugins for Obsidian, a markdown note-taking application that has seen a surge in popularity. The author emphasizes the simplicity of Obsidian's core functionality but highlights how plugins can significantly extend its capabilities. Among the featured plugins are Dataview, which allows users to query notes using metadata; Various Complements, an auto-complete tool that also predicts note links; Templater, which improves upon Obsidian's built-in template functionality; Paste URL into selection, a quality-of-life improvement for creating links; Tag Wrangler, which helps manage and rename tags across notes; and QuickAdd, which facilitates the quick creation of notes based on templates. The author provides use cases for each plugin, demonstrating their practical benefits and how they integrate into their daily note-taking workflow.

Opinions

The author considers Dataview an indispensable tool, especially when used in conjunction with Templater.
Various Complements is praised for its predictive text and linking capabilities, which are likened to those found in advanced IDEs.
Templater is highly regarded for its ability to create sophisticated templates and automate tasks like linking daily notes.
The Paste URL into selection plugin is appreciated for its straightforward utility in streamlining the process of creating hyperlinks.
Tag Wrangler is seen as a time-saver for users who heavily rely on tagging, making it easier to manage and update tags.
QuickAdd is favored for its seamless integration with Templater and its ability to quickly generate notes with specific templates and destinations.
The author expresses a personal connection to these plugins, suggesting they are integral to their Obsidian experience and recommends them to others who might find them useful.

Some of my favorite Obsidian Plugins

Obsidian has been growing in popularity for the past couple of years. It has a simple concept of linking the markdown formatted notes. However, sometimes simple just isn’t enough.

Whether I need an existing feature improved, or if I need a tool to completely change my note-taking, Obsidian plugins are where I look too.

In no particular order, here are some of my favorite and most used plugins.

Dataview

No list is complete without Dataview. It’s an extremely powerful tool that allows you to query any note in your vault using metadata. I use it a ton with Templater, another plugin I will discuss in a bit.

With Obsidian 1.4.0, you can easily add properties to notes. These properties can be searched for by Dataview.

I sometimes take daily notes. These notes have properties such as the date, a tag, and an alias if something cool happened that day. Using just a few lines of queries, I can use Dataview to make a table of every tagged daily note that has an alias and then sort them by date.

Various Complements

Various Complements is an auto-complete engine similar to things you would find in an IDE or VSCode. As you’re writing it will try to predict your next word and you can fill it in before typing the whole thing out if its what you want.

But it does more than just basic autocomplete, it can also link to notes. The notes don’t even have to be created yet.

Templater

Another staple among the community, Templater vastly improves on the core template plugin in basically every way. It has its own syntax for creating templates. You can either add a template to a pre-existing note and fill in the template using a hotkey or the command palette, or you can create a brand-new note.

I use it with a ton of things, but an example would be using it to automatically link daily notes. This example works no matter the day that the daily note is made.

<- <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD", -1, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %> | <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD", 1, tp.file.title, "YYYY-MM-DD") %> ->

It will create a link to the previous day and the next day based on the file name, which is the day the daily note is supposed to represent. This templater script will only work if your daily note naming convention is YYYY-MM-DD.

Paste URL into selection

This is a simple QOL plugin that will automatically make the highlighted section a link when a link is pasted onto it. Not much else to say.

Tag Wrangler

Tag Wrangler is a handy plugin if you use tags a lot. It will give you a sidebar pane listing all the tags in your vault, even the nested tags. I usually use it for mass renaming tags. So much easier than opening each file separately.

QuickAdd

Another popular plugin, QuickAdd pairs well with Templater. There are a ton of things you can do with it, but one of the main things I use it for is to quickly create a specific kind of note (like a recipe) and put it into a specific folder.

I give it a template path, a folder destination, and a naming convention if needed, and then turn it into a command by clicking the lightning symbol in the settings menu.

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