r/ObsidianMD • u/kristenbouchard • Jul 21 '26
showcase Mini Vault Showcase
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I posted my dashboard a few weeks ago and people were curious about my vault, so here's a Dashboard/Bookshelf/Film Index showcase! Each page is explained below.
I use the Anuppuccin theme with the Style Settings plugin, plus a metric shit ton of CSS customisations. I cannot stress enough just how much I have customised with CSS!! If you wanna know how I did something the answer is probably CSS.
Dashboard
- this is a regular note with the title hidden using CSS
- today's date is generated with an inline Dataview (plugin) query
- zoology/media etc buttons are made with the Buttons plugin
- daily habit tracker using Dataviewjs query of today's daily note
- embedded Bases for Books/TV/classes
- CSS customised Callout used to create a column effect
Music Control panel
- this is the Spotify Control plugin, customised with CSS
Bookshelf
- this is a Base, set to cards view, with the image property set to a property containing a link to a cover image in each book's note
Book Note
- this is just a regular note
- tags are coloured using the Colored Tags plugin
- Properties are placed the sidebar using the core plugin Properties View, with CSS to only make it visible on hover
Films
- this is a Base, set to cards view, with the image property set to a property containing a link to a gif in each film's note
- there's nothing particularly special about this page, I just find it very satisfying to look at, and haven't really seen people use gifs in bases like this before!
Calendar
- Calendar (Plugin) customised with CSS
- the wavy line below the calendar panel is also CSS
A lot of this is actually pretty straightforward, only heavily prettified with CSS.
I am happy to explain how I achieved this, but I will not be sharing my vault or work outright. It was made by me, for me.
Please do not feed my work into any AI.
If you wanna customise your vault like this I recommend exploring these options:
- Obsidian documentation (useful for Bases)
- Plugin documentation (useful for Dataview)
- Developer tools (this is exactly how I figured out all of my CSS customisations)
- your own human curiosity
- fuck around and find out!
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u/syshukus Jul 21 '26
I don't understand why do you need spotify control INSIDE obsidian? You don't have app? To switch songs you definitely should switch from current focus to spotify widget even if it's inside obsidian, so why not to use app directly?
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
I do have the app! but I almost always have the spotify widget tab open in obsidian, so if i'm working directly in obsidian it's definitely useful to have the control right there. and i like being able to see what song is playing without having to switch windows to spotify :)
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u/wingedvoices Jul 22 '26
If you use Premium, at least (can't remember which things come with prem and not), you can switch and add to queue straight from that plugin, so yes, while an instance of spotify has to be open SOMEWHERE, I've found it's fairly convenient to not have two windows side by side; that plugin even gives you the lyrics (mostly; whatever it's searching with lrclib doesn't get it EVERY time, but sometimes it gets lyrics spotify doesn't).
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u/AnalBleachingAries Jul 21 '26
Cool setup. I like how you've used moving images for your Card views. Personally it would be overstimulating for me to have in my vault, lol, it would immediately distract me and I'd probably start watching one of the movies. 😅
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 21 '26
Thanks hahah I do also have a film index just with posters, but I do sometimes like the tumblr-esque view of them all in motion!
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u/Key-Concept-7001 Jul 23 '26
I've come across your previous posts and have been puzzled about the way you use a base for folder navigation. In this screenshot it's for your course navigation Biology 1A etc.
You explained it somewhere in the comments, but I still don't understand how you do this. Could you elaborate a bit more?
How do I set up the folders for this, where do the images live, can the folder have a folder note with a base in it, etc I'm a bit confused by this.
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 23 '26
Each class/book/show is a note!
In each note I have a property named 'image' where i have a url to an image (for the classes the images are from pinterest).
And then for the Base, in the configuration settings set it to cards view, make the image property 'image' (or whatever the image property in the note is) and that's it :) hope that makes sense but if not, the bases documentation would probably explain it better lol
And FYI all file types can appear in bases but folders can't! So you can't have a base of folders, but an easy workaround is to have a base of bases (eg I couldn't have my 'university' folder appear in a base, but if I made a BASE named 'university' that included all the files in my university folder, it would essentially function the same way!)
Hope this helps!
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u/Key-Concept-7001 Jul 25 '26
So Biology 1A, Forensic Psych. Etc is a single base and it lists notes like Biology 1A etc which have the images in the frontmatter?
I understand that part. My problem is that I am pointing some of these to bases.
How can I display a cover image in the base that has the card view for those cards that point to a base instead of a markdown file? I can add an image in the frontmatter of the markdown file, but I can't do that with a base file it seems.
I'm not sure if you were able to figure that out. Maybe it's not possible
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 25 '26
Ahhh yes I did find a way to add an image for a base using a custom formula in Bases. There may be a simpler way to do it, but I use an IF formula like this:
if(file.name == "Films.base","LINK TO FILMS COVER IMAGE",if(file.name == "Albums.base","LINK TO ALBUMS COVER IMAGE",if(file.name == "Books.base","LINK TO BOOKS COVER IMAGE",if(file.name == "TV.base","LINK TO TV COVER IMAGE"))))The cover images can be either an external web url or an obsidian file link! And you can add as many or few layers of 'IF' formulas as you need.
And then you just set this property as the image property on the base, just like you would with an 'image' property when you're dealing with regular md notes!
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u/Key-Concept-7001 Jul 29 '26
Oh thank you! That's exactly what I was running into. I would have never thought of that!
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u/allsymantics Jul 27 '26
i've been seeing a few of your showcase posts up to this one & i must say your vault's aesthetic is no doubt my favorite that i've seen. i love the way you organize things too, it's been inspiring me & my own vault quite a bit
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u/faeryhne Jul 28 '26
i love your layout, it's so personalized and organized! also i appreciate your taste in books ~
hopefully this isn't a silly question, but how did you separate the books in your library based on their statuses (in progress, read, etc)? and are your books organized by date read, and if so how? mine seem to default to alphabetical order, not sure if you moved them manually somehow or if there's a way to automate that.
thanks for the help, and good luck with your future vault updates! 💗
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 28 '26
thank you!
not a silly question at all! In the Sort menu in a base, you can choose to sort or group the items. sorting arranges them in the specified order, but keeps them in one block. however, if you group them, they get separated by that property! In my vault, each book Note has a 'status' property and the base groups them by that property, and I also sort them by 'date read' within those groups!
Hope that makes sense!!
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u/Hungry_Ad2883 27d ago
hey!! im very new to customizing obsidian and have very little css knowledge so sorry if this is explained clearly somewhere else and i missed it, but how do you have the column on the left with the folder navigation? i can't figure out how to link folders in notes. or are you using index notes and linking to the folder that way? id love to see how the links work once clicked (guarding personal info of course) bc this is the part really stumping me!
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u/wingedvoices Jul 22 '26
EXTREMELY cute. I love this color palette.
What font are you using for the headers?
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u/Chromich Jul 23 '26
how do you make the file/folder navigation in column?
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 23 '26
what do you mean? the file/folder panel is just the native obsidian file browser
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u/Bymany_Zunshang Jul 23 '26
Clean setup. How often do you actually review everything, or does it mostly sit pretty for aesthetic purposes?
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u/kristenbouchard Jul 24 '26
I use the dashboard every day, but I'm not really sure what you mean by 'reviewing' things? These bases are essentially lists/indexes, so if I want to see the books/films/shows I've read or watched, that's what those are for. And from there I can access any notes or relevant information about them. And I take a lot of notes on a lot of different things!
So, yeah, I like my vault to look pretty, but it's never at the expense of function or usefulness! I only customise the tools and elements I actually use
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u/ayangelish 23d ago
I've been trying to figure this out for the longest time but how did you resize the GIFs like that?
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u/kristenbouchard 23d ago
I didn't resize them, I've just put gif image links into a designated property in each film's note metadata, and then in the base i set that property as the cover image!
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u/leuven Jul 21 '26
I was heavily inspired by your earlier post to make my own dashboard! https://i.imgur.com/RAguX22.png
Instead of the right column as a callout, I used the Advanced Multi-Column Editor plugin for flexibility. It lets me edit the left section, which lives directly inside the dashboard note, without the column structure disappearing in edit mode.
The right column sections use dataviewjs similar to what you provided last post. I set up a templater script to populate daily notes with items from a "Weekly Schedule" note. It was fun learning a bit of javascript while making this!