Obsidian Starter Vault by SoRobby

Organize your Universe: An Obsidian starter vault for everyone, bridging the gap between ideas and actions

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Table of Contents

1. Setup
2. Structure
   1. _data_
   2. Concept Board
   3. Journal
   4. Learning
   5. Notes
   6. Personal
   7. Projects
   8. Resources
   9. Spaces
   10. Dashboard.md
   11. Inbox.md
3. Templates
   1. Navigation Bar
   2. Full Page Templates
   3. Component Templates
   4. JavaScript Components
4. Plugins
   1. Installed Plugins
   2. Notable Plugins
5. Themes

Setup

• Install and enable all plugins and the minimal theme
• Setup Recent News
  • Add an API key to the Dashboard > Recent News section and set the value of apiKey, you can modify other properties newsCategory and articlCount, where newsCategory is the cateogry of news you want to list (e.g., "space", "technology", etc...) and articleCount refers to the number of articles to list (note: it's recommended to keep article count at 6 or less). You can get a free API key from GNews
• Setup NASA Image of the Day
  • Add an API key to the Dashboard > Space Image of the Day section and set the value of apiKey. You can get a free API key from NASA APIs

Structure

Overview

Vault/
├── _data_/
├── Concept Board/
│	├── Cocnepts/
│	├── Lectures/
│	└── Concept Board.md
├── Journal/
│	├── Entries/
│	└── Journal Dashboard.md
├── Learning/
│	├── Example Course/
│	│	│── Assignments/
│	│	│── Lectures/
│	│	│── Notes/
│	│	└── Home.md
│	└── Learning Dashboard.md
├── Notes/
│	└── Notes Dashboard.md
├── Personal/
│	└── Personal Dashboard.md
├── Projects/
│	├── Example Project/
│	│	│── Meetings/
│	│	│── Notes/
│	│	│── Home.md
│	│	│── References.md
│	│	└── Tasks.md
│	└── Projects Dashboard.md
├── Resources/
│	└── Resources Dashboard.md
├── Spaces/
│	├── Books/
│	├── Contacts/
│	├── Definitions/
│	├── Formulas/
│	├── Trips/
│	└── Spaces Dashboard.md
├── Dashboard.md
├── Inbox.md
└── README.md

_data_

The _data_ folder holds contains all templates, components, media, pre-setup pinned pages, and scripts.

Concept Board

The Concept Board is a place to store and document preliminary concepts and ideas. Typically ideas are written down as a simple idea (e.g., Drone Part Picker Website) that can evolve into a Project. Each newly added concept's page is setup using the Concept Template template. The template type is set by the Templater plugin via folder path.

How to add a new concept Add a new concept by navigating to Concept Board and clicking on the + Add concept button. Or add a new note directly in the Concept Board/Concepts/ folder.

Journal

The Journal is a place for personal records where thoughts, experiences, ideas, observations, achievements, and important events are documented regularly for self-reflection or for future reference. The Journal can act as both a daily journal or periodic. Each journal entry page is setup using the Journal entry template template. The template type is set by the Templater plugin via folder path.

How to add a new journal entry Add a new journal entry by navigating to Journal Dashboard and clicking on the + Add journal entry. Or click on the Open today's daily note or by executing the command Daily notes: Open today's daily note via command pallet.

Learning

The Learning section is for courses, classes, tutorials, workshops, and general learning.

How to add a new course To add a new course, click the + Add course button.

Structure

Learning/
└── Example Course/
	├── Assignments/ (note: this will only created if you select "Yes" on folder-based assignments prompt during setup)
	│    └── 01 - My Assignment.md
	├── Lectures/
	│    └── 01 - My First Lecture.md
	├── Notes/
	|    └── 01 - My Note.md
	└── Home.md

Templates

• Course setup
• Course assignment
• Course lecture
• Course note

Notes

Notes is a place for atomic notes. Each newly added note's page is setup using the Note page template. The template type is set by the Templater plugin via folder path.

Personal

The Personal folder is for all private and personal documentation and notes. This folder can include things such as accounts, finances, health, identity, vehicles, personal property and vehicle information, etc...

Projects

A place for Projects. The projects section is setup with pre-defined boilerplate templates that are applicable to most projects, these templates include: Home page, meetings, notes, references, and tasks.

How to add a project To add a new project, click the + Add project button.

Structure

Project/
└── Example Project/
	├── Meetings/
	│    └── 2023-07-15 - My Meeting.md
	├── Notes/
	│    └── My Note.md
	├── Home.md
	├── References.md
	└── Tasks.md

Templates

• Project boilerplate page
• Project feature
• Project meeting
• Project note
• Project setup
• Project setup meetings
• Project setup notes
• Project setup references
• Project setup tasks
• Project task

Resources

Resources is a general collection of resources and information.

Spaces

Spaces is a flexible area that allows you to organize content/notes on a specific topic or domain (e.g., Books).

Dashboard.md

Homepage of the vault.

Inbox.md

Quickly add general information here, this can be converted to a folder if desired.

Templates

There are two types of templates, full page and partial/component templates. Full page templates

Navigation Bar

A vault wide navigation bar can be added to any page by adding the template Insert navigation bar (hotkey ALT + E).

Adding, modifying, and removing navigation links: The links displayed in the navigation bar are set by a combination of a page's tag and YAML properties. To add a new page to display in the navigation bar, make sure the page a #dashboard tag and YAML properties of included_in_navbar: true. You can also set a custom navigation bar name for a page using the YAML property of navbar_name: MyCustomName.

```dataviewjs
let navbar = [];
let loadingMessage = dv.el("span", "**Loading navigation...**", {attr: {style: "font-size:13px; color:gray"}});

let allPages = dv.pages("#dashboard").sort(page => page.file.folder, "asc");
let filteredPages = allPages.filter(p => 
    p.file.tags.values.includes("#dashboard") && p?.include_in_navbar == true
);

for(let page of filteredPages){
    let navItem = '';
    let navName = 'Untitled';
    let navLink = '';

    if(page.navbar_name === undefined){
        navName = page.file.name;
    } else {
        navName = page.navbar_name;
    }
    navLink = page.file.path;

    // Format the nav  item link
    if(dv.current().file.path === page.file.path){
        navItem = `**[[${navLink}|${navName}]]**`
    } else {
        navItem = `[[${navLink}|${navName}]]`
    }

    navbar.push(navItem)
}

dv.paragraph(navbar.join(' | '))

if(filteredPages.values.length > 0){
    loadingMessage.remove();
}
```

Full Page Templates

• General
  • Boilerplate
  • Book
  • Concept
  • Contact
  • Definition
  • Empty page
  • Journal entry
  • Math constant
  • Math formula
  • Note page
  • Travel and Trip
• Learning
  • Course assignment
  • Course lecture
  • Course note
  • Course setup
• Project
  • Project boilerplate
  • Project feature
  • Project meeting
  • Project note
  • Project setup
  • project setup meetings
  • Project setup notes
  • Project setup references
  • Project setup tasks
  • Project task
• Resources
  • Resource
• Spaces
  • Space home

Component Templates

• Callouts
  • Abstract callout
  • Bug callout
  • Caution callout
  • Danger callout
  • Drone callout
  • Error callout
  • Example callout
  • Failure callout
  • FAQ callout
  • Help callout
  • Important callout
  • Info callout
  • Missing callout
  • Note callout
  • Question callout
  • Quote callout
  • Success callout
  • Summary callout
  • Tip callout
  • Todo callout
  • Warning callout
• Dataview
  • Dataview flat table
  • Dataview nested table
• General
  • Insert code block
  • Insert columns
  • Insert external link
  • Insert formula variable definition
  • Insert table of contents

JavaScript Components

There are several DataviewJS and JavaScript components.

Plugins

Installed Plugins

1. Advanced Tables
2. Banners
3. Book Search
4. Buttons
5. Dataview
6. Excalidraw
7. Homepage
8. Image Toolkit
9. Linter
10. Omnisearch
11. Style Settings
12. Tasks
13. Templater

The Advanced Tables, Banners, Book Search, Excalidraw, Image Toolkit, Omnisearch, and Tasks can be disabled and removed if they are not relevant to you.

Notable Plugins

These plugins are not installed, but you may find them useful

1. Extract URL Content (Great for archiving pages)
2. Auto Link Title (Automatically formats links)
3. Paste Image rename
4. Remember Cursor Position
5. Activity History
6. Theme Picker
7. Hover Editor
8. Periodic and Spaced

Themes

Minimal Theme The Vault uses the minimal theme, if the minimal theme is removed, certain pages that use multi-columns may not display properly.