Transcription
Have you ever been in a relationship with somebody and then you break up? Like you break up with them, they break up with you, whatever, and then they get like super hot, like revenge level hot. Well, that's just what happened to me with Obsidian.
Not too long ago, I made a video about how I'm breaking up with Obsidian. And then right after that, they released one of the best features that I've been wanting the longest that in order to make it work, I had to do the weirdest stuff. But now it's it's very graphic user interface. It's push button easy. And that's exactly what I want to go over with you uh to cover bases, which is the new core plugin, core feature, however you want to say it, that will do everything you've been hoping Obsidian could do that you used to need second layer plugins, like community plugins to make it work, but now it's part of what it is. So that's what I want to go over with you right now. Let's get into it.
Now, before we look at it and I show you what it looks like, I do want to tell you if this is the kind of stuff that you're interested in, uh, personal productivity, personal knowledge management systems, and all that kind of stuff, or you're a creator looking to go full-time and turn it into a real thing, then I would love if you joined my community. For right now, it is free because I'm just getting it going and I want as many cool people in there as possible. but it's called Project 720. And there's way too much for me to explain what it is, but just wanted to extend an invitation to you. And uh let's get back into it.
First, here is some context. A couple years ago, I made this video about data view and properties, and it's gotten about 30,000 views over time. Pretty good click-through rate, whatever. Uh and this is now completely unnecessary. Now, if you're a power user who knows how to use data view, then maybe this isn't going to be the end all be all for you. Maybe you still use data view. But if you were using it the way that I use it for very straightforward kinds of filtering of information from my database, then bases might be the thing that gets you out of data view, that nightmare, and into basis. So, to that end, let's get back into the YouTube vault to kind of see what this looks like. And here we go.
Now, databases or just called bases is a core plugin now. So, go to core plugins bases. Create custom views that let you edit, sort, and filter files using their properties. That sounds so simple and straightforward and almost boring, but it is so cool. And let's look at it. So, let's close that out. See that we've got it enabled and bring up the command pallet and type in bases. Now, I don't have a hotkey assigned to this, but you can make one. You can make a hotkey if you want to make a new base from scratch. You can assign that if you want to, but let's just make a new base. Create a new base. And you can see it's now untitled. And we'll say YouTube demo. And as of right now, it's looking at everything in the entire vault. It's just basically saying what files are in this vault. Let's show you. So, at first it's just going to be a confusing mess and not all that useful, but it's how you start filtering that information that is super useful. So, say for example, we'll say it's a new folder and it'll be uh courses to take. Okay. And inside this, we'll make a new note that says um the four games course. We'll fill it with some bacon lipom whatever and go to the top here. This is a course. All right. And we need to talk about properties. So we will show file properties so that I can assign one. And we'll just say that the there's a teacher called Jonathan Pritchard and then it'll be a topic would be business and maybe sense making and project 720. Okay, cool. That's the topic. And then we could say, okay, uh, price and we'd say it's 97 bucks or whatever. And we could change this to a number. Uh, data text not compatible. Yes, I do want to update. Okay, so price is a number there. So now you've got some properties associated with this file.
Now we can go back to the YouTube demo and then start to filter out everything. So, this kind of confused me to begin with, but then it I got it super easy, which is that this base, the whole thing can get filtered, but then there are even different ways to see what you've filtered for. So, let's check this out. We are looking for something where all of these statements are true or any of this is true and none of this. We're going to filter out what we choose here. So I usually go with all of the following are true. So this is this and this and this is true. Then show me. Any of the following are true. That means this or this or that. Any of that show it to me. Right? So kind of pretty simple logic here and then say where file links to no let's say that the folder is what do we make courses to take and hit enter and it already shows us that there's a four games course and showing the file. Okay. So now we can click out of that and see that. Okay. We see one course in here.
Let's do another one, a new note and say this is sales and persuasion. Insert um property. Now, a side note, you can go about this issue a couple different ways because um here's the issue that you we don't know that we're facing yet, which is oh lord, I'm going to have to go in and add this property every single time and I've got so many properties. Uggh, I hate it. So, instead of doing it this way, let's delete this file. Yes, I know I am deleting it. And then we go back to YouTube demo. And then we could say new file and sales and persuasion and hit enter. And we go, oh, okay, isn't that great? Let's open this up. Ah, dang it. Add property. Still not there. So, how do we solve this? Let's delete this yet again. And then we could start showing some of the properties of it. Right? So now we could say yes, I do want to see price and I do want to see who the teacher is and I do want to see the topics involved. So now you are making visible those properties of the course that we've already got. So we got price, topic and teacher. Okay. Neat. So when you are looking at the base and you've enabled these these properties to be visible in the table view here. Now when we go to add a new course, it is going to inherit that you want just these properties to be enabled by default. So now you could say sales and marketing and we'll say the price is $1,000, the teacher is me and the topic is business and project 720. Okay, so now we've got another one. Okay. So, this is how you can kind of use a template but then have it repeat here when you make a new one. And if you want to go templator route and set up an actual template file and then say anything in this folder, assign these properties to it. You can go through it if you like, but what I love is that you don't need to understand anything of what I just said. You can just use this and create a new file from this view that you know should include these properties. Super cool. So, that's how you could make a new note tagged with these properties for you to fill in without having to know any difficult coding. Like I love this. Absolutely wonderful. Okie dokie.
So now we can add a view and let's just say it's cards. And then these two options pop up. Image property and image fit is cover image aspect ratio. Okay. What what in the world does that mean? Okie dokie. Well, let's just say that we'll add a property called cover image and hit enter. Now, I usually like to uh insert attachment this way. And then it should pop up uh downloads YouTube bases. Um let's just say it is this one. Hit enter. So now this guy is attached to the file. Now we're going to copy just that bit because it doesn't need to be embedded here. The cursor is blinking over the exclamation point. The exclamation point is what you need to add so that it renders the image in the actual note. So we've added this to the note and say cover image. Okay. So now when we go back to the YouTube demo and we'll say properties cover image enable that when we go back to the card view. And now you get back to that view by clicking that little carrot. You can say the image property we're looking for is going to be called a cover image. And do you want it to contain or cover? I want it to cover. And now it Obsidian is going, okay, this property called cover image has an image path to where this lives. Okay, cool. So then what's neat is that you can change the aspect ratio. If it's more vertical, if you are making a book or library list and it's going to be a 4x3 book ratio, you can make it vertical. Or if you are doing it horizontal, the more kind of 6 by 16 by9 fit. All right. Neat.
So now we can go through here and I'll have to read the cover image element insert attachment. And how about we just do this one. This actually my memory course. If you've ever wanted to level up your memory, this is the course to do it. So we just paste that in. Now, when we go back to the YouTube demo, it's the table view. And you know what? Let's let's just talk about that. As you can see, anytime that I leave and then come back to the base, it is defaulting to this table view instead of the gorgeous card view. That's because it its default is whatever view is on top here. So we've got the card view is underneath and the table view is on top. So this is the default view. So how do we reset the default view to be something else? Well, if you mouse over, nothing is happening. But if you put it over the icon, it turns to a little hand. Click and drag and that's it. So now if you go out and then back in, it's now the card view. So you can click in, see the notes, and then go right back to your base and see it there. All right.
So now when we go back to the YouTube uh demo base, add new. Here are things. As you can see, we're back into Dang it. These properties aren't showing up. So, yet again, you have to go through and enable what what properties do you want visible. So, you've got to make sure that all the properties that you want for each of these are included. So, that's another thing that confused me was I thought I just had to set it once from whatever view and then it would come along for the ride for different views. But it's it's not like that. So, the way that you want to make a new note, I would say make that be the table view or whatever. And then you can have other secondary views that will slice up this information and present just the cover or just the price or whatever it is that you want and then make the main view the way that you add new records. But then the secondary views are not the way that you add records. Or you could just make this be every single uh view includes all of these properties so that you can see it at a glance and then you go, okay, now that we want a new one. Hey, look at that. All of these are coming along for the ride. Okay.
So, this is how you make complex databases of movies I want to watch, movies I have watched, all the books in my library, the books I have loaned out to people. Now, instead of having to write code, all I'm doing is clicking a couple things, filtering a couple things, because I could be like all the views are books in my library. This view would be the loaner view and be like where property is loaned. True. Then I would just see the books that I've loaned. So this is fantastic. You just point and click and find what you're looking for. And this is mega helpful. And hopefully this helps you. That's it for what I wanted to show you. Just got another couple ideas that I want to share and we'll do that in the good camera. So there you go. That is bases. Like I I'm amazed at how slick it is. So that's what I wanted to share with you. If this has been interesting, then uh the best way to invest in the channel is to just give the video a like. That's a good signal to YouTube that other people like you should check this out. And if you aren't afraid of commitment, then consider subscribing to the channel. Or if you want to go allin again, come find me at Project 720 where I share everything I know about making a living off of what I can imagine and what I can make. So I look forward to seeing you over there, but I'll see you in this next video first.