Getting Started

If you don’t know where to start, start here.

Downloading and Installing

For the most part, you’ll have access to the computers at school all year long, so you can always get Obsidian through there. If however you want to get Obsidian going at home, look no further.

Install on Windows

Click the link, then Universal and follow instructions.

Install on Mac

Click the link, then Universal and follow instructions.

Install on Linux

If you guys are using Linux, not only will I be super impressed, but jealous you’re starting so young. We’ll look at some Linux machines later this year!

Install on Mobile

While you can get Obsidian on both Apple and Android app store, it’s not very intuitive unless you are using the paid version. I’ll be showing how we can take advantage of the free version later.

Create a Vault

A vault is exactly what it sounds like, a safe space where your notes are kept and protected. For now, we only need a single vault. Think of this like your second brain-another concept we’ll dive into later. We can organize notes enough without needing to separate them entirely (we can just use folders!).

When opening Obsidian for the first time, you should be prompted to create a new vault with a name. Name it whatever you like, just nothing with any profanity since I can see your vaults and notes at all times :).

Create a Note

There two main ways to make a new note, but I want us to start relying on our keyboards more this year. For now, just hit Ctrl+N to start writing. Write whatever you’d like; we can always delete or change any notes at any time.

Let’s talk about headings quickly. Above whatever you wrote down, hit Enter to make some space, and type one hashtag and a space. Whatever you write after that will be a H1 heading; the largest heading you can get. The more hashtags there are, the higher the number H, and the smaller the heading. We can look into this more deeply some another time.

You can also hit Ctrl+B to make your text bold, or Ctrl+I to make it italicized. For now, that’s pretty much all we can do. The real joy of Obsidian comes from the personalization- the things you use it for and how to get the most out of it. Remember, Obsidian is just a tool like any common garage item. A hammer alone isn’t capable of much; but put that tool in the hands of a master craftsman, with nails and wood and supplies, and amazing things can be built.

Let’s make a new note. Call this note “Python Classes”. Type the following: “A class is made up of attributes and methods defined by the classes definition.”

Now; make another note called “Project Information”. We can imagine any project you can think of, at some point we have to outline the necessary structures used in the project. A sentence like, “I used Python Classes to create an object of type insert whatever you want.”

Notice that sentence we are mentioning information stored within another note. We can link the text so that when we are reading through our notes, we can get a direct reference for easy navigation. Put two square brackets, [, on both sides of the text “Python Classes.” Now the text will be a link back to that note.

The square brackets are pretty powerful stuff. We can come back to them later, but I want to bring up one more thing about them. If you write something new inside double square brackets, you’ll create a link to a non-existing note. If you click on it, you’ll create it, so it’s up to you on whether or not if you want to leave it.

With linked notes, you can click while holding Ctrl to get a quick preview of what’s inside the note.

Next: User Interface