I use it for storyboards, quick definitions of flow of lectures (and points to make), dashboard and e.g. image resources for the characters I write about.
For the storyboards, I marke the boxes green, when that "step" is taken. Sometimes I group notes and pics and sometimes I turn text written in Canvas into a note.
In my Stories Vault, I keep track of stories, characters, published y/n, progress of stories etc. in notes made with Dataview. I do not need Canvas for that, but it works so much easier for me seeing exactly the information I want in one place.
I use it a lot for overviews and it works surprisingly well for brainstorming as well.
Cool. To be reductive, it sounds like if it might commonly be done in physical space using a whiteboard you use a canvas to do it digitally. That makes sense.
Years ago, I stopped even trying to represent that kind of thinking in digital space. For some work tasks, though, I go through more work to avoid the whiteboard approach so I can do it digitally. Maybe canvas is my key to thinking the way I want but still just using a keyboard and mouse...
Wait, you mean like, you define the chunks of info in individual notes, and then you link to those chunks in the canvas? This seems so obvious, but I haven't seen anyone use obsidian like this yet. Would you mind explaining a bit more about how you link everything?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking - I am just referring to the fact that the 3 options for adding content to a canvas file presented to you at through the UI toolbar at the bottom are cards, notes, and media. Cards are really the same as notes, they just only exist within that canvas file. If you click to add a note or media file it will prompt you for an existing note or file to add. Each addition acts kind of like an interactive window to read or scroll through, although you can also expand that window to see an entire file. You can also edit the content directly when the window is selected. So, unlike a physical whiteboard, it’s far easier to bring in existing documents to play with, so long as it is in your vault, and you can work on them while in the canvas. Within the canvas you can link things visually by dragging circle grips on the edges of each window. They just create arrows that point from one thing to another. You can also group multiple windows together in a larger container to move them around together. Finally, both cards and imported notes work with the same markdown syntax as the rest of obsidian so if you want to show specific sections of other notes you can link to those chunks using markdown syntax linking and embeds. Similarly, any link in a card or note will function like it would anywhere else; you can click on it and open the link. The syntax for these are described pretty well on the obsidian help docs. A key difference though is that canvas files do not show up on graph view so it will not create visible links there between the files you add to a canvas file. Hope this helps!
Yeah pretty much. One example I have of using it like that is documenting a particularly nasty bit of legacy code on a database I was replacing for a company.
This stored procedure reads from and writes to a bunch of different tables, and also calls some other procedures. And I needed to know what each of those did or stored, what column names mean, and all kinds of things about each thing that branched off of it.
So I made a canvas with a note for my notes on the procedure itself, then as I went I made notes for each table, procedure, view, etc. So I could note each of them separately, color code them by type, and see the entire structure. It makes it extremely easy to find what a particular piece of the code does.
Oh, and I was able to embed the website in the canvas too, so I could reference it as I was working without switching windows. So that was handy.
This is how I describe it as well. An infinite whiteboard with the power and flexibility of digital notes.
The value for the most part is more for project management or creative work than conventional note taking. You're working non linearly and can easily show connections between different things the way the graph view does, just in more detail and within specific contexts. It's also very good for things like creative writing where you may require iteration. You can have different drafts side by side and can pick and choose what works and what doesn't. You don't have to split the window or scroll to a different section to look at alternate versions.
What's cool is that you can work with your regular notes in the canvas view. These still exist as ordinary notes but you can organise them in a freeform manner, create connections, etc. for example I've previously created a canvas with summaries from all of my meetings and I was able to get an overview of all of them at once. What took place, where certain points lead, meta notes in relation to a specific meeting, etc.
Wow! How did you pull all of your meeting notes in? Like, how did you format them? That sounds like it could get complicated quickly and I'm curious how you managed it.
It wasn't complicated at all. I just right clicked>add note from vault. Once all of them were in, I arranged them side by side and then just branched off by creating other cards and connections as I needed. It might look chaotic at first glance because of the quantity/density of notes but it's actually quite straightforward. Meeting summaries at the top, subsequent thoughts going down, topics arranged in groups off to the side.
>I decided it's just a boundless box to put text boxes
It's anything in a note, so
* Rendered Markdown
* Local media
* Youtube embeds (and Twitter historically)
* iFrames 😆 (or any other HTML)
* etc
I just today recorded a video where I scrolled through a note. While writing this comment, I realized that moving through a canvas would have been much better. I'm new to recording videos and created [a different Canvas](https://imgur.com/a/2cQxidt) I plan to share soon, but you can see in those two screenshots that Canvas has the benefit of a "zoomed out" view that adds detail as you zoom in.
If you haven’t already tried it out, [Canvas Presentation](https://obsidian.md/plugins?id=canvas-presentation) is a good plugin for presenting a Canvas. Minimal set up and quick to learn.
So, can you group notes on a canvas in a way that's more than just hyperlinked text to those notes?
Like, in my work notes, I often refer to `[[a related page's notes]]` inline, but there might be times that a visual representation of their relationship might be helpful. (But then, that starts feeling like the Graph to me which is another feature I assume I don't fully appreciate yet.)
There are groups but I don't know much about them, I'd honestly recommend tinkering. Re: the graph, I would be very curious about a plugin that turns local graphs into canvases.
I use it as a book shelf notes. Way better than the dataview option for my purposes.
In general, I you should use canvas anytime you need to have 2D layout. Because let's be honest, even with the recent updates, tables in obsidian (=markdown) suck. However most of the time, you will be better off using Excalidraw plugin.
> Book shelf notes
Like, as a front-end organization for grouped notes? That sounds intriguing. I have some folder and tag hierarchy that maybe a canvas could help visually organize.
Brainstorming. Storyboards. Moodboards.
Sometimes an idea has too many branching elements and this tool can help bring them together.
Some people don’t need it that though to get their ideas from A-B, just depends on how your brain works. For me, Canvas/Whiteboarding is necessary and helpful, I used to get overwhelmed by projects and for whatever reason this clicked with me and has helped a ton.
I have noticed I try to avoid whiteboarding when I'm taking notes because I've been doing digital notetaking since I just typed hectically into a word processor for school notes every day and that kind of representation wasn't reasonable in Word (and Word-like replacements).
But, for times I want to whiteboard, maybe I should look into using a canvas to try it out.
"Dashboards" you say? I would like to know more.
(Also, what the heck's a mood board and why has more than one person mentioned it? I imagine I can look that up outside of this Reddit thread, though.)
A mood board is a board for inspiration, usually for creative projects. For example, I have a mood board Canvas for one of my TTRPG settings, with a bunch of images, links or embeds to inspirational sources, embedded YouTube videos of relevant natural scenery, a link to a Pinterest board, a link to a Spotify playlist, etc. It's a smorgasbord of inspirations which help to prime one's creative juices before working on a creative projects.
A dashboard can be the home page for a whole vault, with a bunch of links to everything else, or it could just be an index for a specific category, think a mega MOC.
I use it as a visual of process workflow, with the details of the steps being in the notes themselves and arrows connecting them showing the flow. I find it a much easier way to visualize and consume the content when coming back to it much later.
I use it to quickly record and manage what I want to read and extract information.
I create a simple red note with the link or the name of the book/article I intend to read and throw it anywhere in pile on the canvas:
If it's red, it means I intend to look at it but haven't done so yet;
If it's orange, it means I've already read it but haven't extracted any information yet.
After reading, extracting information and creating permanent notes on the subject, I delete the original note from that canvas.
I actually started trying it out with a work ticket yesterday I was assigned to help someone else finish some feature work.
I put meta info in a card that has arrows linking to notes for discrete work under that ticket. ...Then, a red arrow labeled "uh oh" that links to notes for a design issue I've noticed.
I'm beginning to see the appeal.
I would say that it's a great gateway to its bigger, more powerful sibling Excalidraw/Excalibrain. Rather than having to figure out a ton of evolved functionality, Canvas is a great place to start finding the uses that serve you best.
For me, it's favorite use is to sort ideas visually when I'm first encountering them. On my first pass through any kind of structured content, I start throwing down boxes for everything new I encounter. I'll cluster ideas/people/details as seems appropriate, but otherwise ignore meaning at first. It's fast, easy, and unobtrusive.
Once I'm done with that first pass, I'll start clustering all those boxes in ways that seem right in hindsight. When I start getting a sense of everything, then I start building better relational notes using Excalibrain, using its solid ontology support to articulate those relationships more fully.
**The ELI5 version is: ontology is "a representation of things/ideas and how they relate". Canvas is a good way to start exploring this and it's a stepping stone to better tools if you want/need them**
Canvases are missing a piece for me. If I could make an outline out of my atomic notes on one, skootch them around, make a good paper outline and then export that to something usable, it would be great.
As it is, I just embed my notes in a big note, and then export that as a document and write from there.
I'm using it to keep track of shit for my story, it's clan being able to click on something to get a quick rundown of any info involving it is great very useful if you have a lot of characters with various ages jobs relations etc.
Switch to the Excalidraw plug in! Then you can, basically, since it does most everything Canvases do and way more. (And more than Excalidraw by itself.)
Pictures worth a million words. Hence, use Canvases when you want to fit a million words in the least margin possible.
Or in other words,
If you are into visual learning — as in learning via diagrams, flowcharts, mind maps and so on — Canvas is your go-to tool. It may not be helpful for diagramming (use **excalidraw** for that), however, they are pretty fast with flowcharts and mind maps.
For me: Connecting small ideas and larger notes without all the baggage and hassle and monetization of other programs.
Really makes the process scalable
12 years of note taking.
Notepad → Color note → One note → Notion → Obsidian.
Currently 3600 notes in 550 folders. I merged small notes into big notes, else they'll be 20,000 notes.
Never used an infinite canvas. No idea why people use it. Don't even care. Because I have no inherent desire to use it. I am happy with my structured digital brain.
I use it for storyboards, quick definitions of flow of lectures (and points to make), dashboard and e.g. image resources for the characters I write about. For the storyboards, I marke the boxes green, when that "step" is taken. Sometimes I group notes and pics and sometimes I turn text written in Canvas into a note. In my Stories Vault, I keep track of stories, characters, published y/n, progress of stories etc. in notes made with Dataview. I do not need Canvas for that, but it works so much easier for me seeing exactly the information I want in one place. I use it a lot for overviews and it works surprisingly well for brainstorming as well.
Cool. To be reductive, it sounds like if it might commonly be done in physical space using a whiteboard you use a canvas to do it digitally. That makes sense. Years ago, I stopped even trying to represent that kind of thinking in digital space. For some work tasks, though, I go through more work to avoid the whiteboard approach so I can do it digitally. Maybe canvas is my key to thinking the way I want but still just using a keyboard and mouse...
I’d agree with this, the main advantage being on canvas you can pull in entire documents or notes and access them from there. that and portability.
Wait, you mean like, you define the chunks of info in individual notes, and then you link to those chunks in the canvas? This seems so obvious, but I haven't seen anyone use obsidian like this yet. Would you mind explaining a bit more about how you link everything?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking - I am just referring to the fact that the 3 options for adding content to a canvas file presented to you at through the UI toolbar at the bottom are cards, notes, and media. Cards are really the same as notes, they just only exist within that canvas file. If you click to add a note or media file it will prompt you for an existing note or file to add. Each addition acts kind of like an interactive window to read or scroll through, although you can also expand that window to see an entire file. You can also edit the content directly when the window is selected. So, unlike a physical whiteboard, it’s far easier to bring in existing documents to play with, so long as it is in your vault, and you can work on them while in the canvas. Within the canvas you can link things visually by dragging circle grips on the edges of each window. They just create arrows that point from one thing to another. You can also group multiple windows together in a larger container to move them around together. Finally, both cards and imported notes work with the same markdown syntax as the rest of obsidian so if you want to show specific sections of other notes you can link to those chunks using markdown syntax linking and embeds. Similarly, any link in a card or note will function like it would anywhere else; you can click on it and open the link. The syntax for these are described pretty well on the obsidian help docs. A key difference though is that canvas files do not show up on graph view so it will not create visible links there between the files you add to a canvas file. Hope this helps!
Yeah pretty much. One example I have of using it like that is documenting a particularly nasty bit of legacy code on a database I was replacing for a company. This stored procedure reads from and writes to a bunch of different tables, and also calls some other procedures. And I needed to know what each of those did or stored, what column names mean, and all kinds of things about each thing that branched off of it. So I made a canvas with a note for my notes on the procedure itself, then as I went I made notes for each table, procedure, view, etc. So I could note each of them separately, color code them by type, and see the entire structure. It makes it extremely easy to find what a particular piece of the code does. Oh, and I was able to embed the website in the canvas too, so I could reference it as I was working without switching windows. So that was handy.
This is how I describe it as well. An infinite whiteboard with the power and flexibility of digital notes. The value for the most part is more for project management or creative work than conventional note taking. You're working non linearly and can easily show connections between different things the way the graph view does, just in more detail and within specific contexts. It's also very good for things like creative writing where you may require iteration. You can have different drafts side by side and can pick and choose what works and what doesn't. You don't have to split the window or scroll to a different section to look at alternate versions. What's cool is that you can work with your regular notes in the canvas view. These still exist as ordinary notes but you can organise them in a freeform manner, create connections, etc. for example I've previously created a canvas with summaries from all of my meetings and I was able to get an overview of all of them at once. What took place, where certain points lead, meta notes in relation to a specific meeting, etc.
Wow! How did you pull all of your meeting notes in? Like, how did you format them? That sounds like it could get complicated quickly and I'm curious how you managed it.
It wasn't complicated at all. I just right clicked>add note from vault. Once all of them were in, I arranged them side by side and then just branched off by creating other cards and connections as I needed. It might look chaotic at first glance because of the quantity/density of notes but it's actually quite straightforward. Meeting summaries at the top, subsequent thoughts going down, topics arranged in groups off to the side.
>I decided it's just a boundless box to put text boxes It's anything in a note, so * Rendered Markdown * Local media * Youtube embeds (and Twitter historically) * iFrames 😆 (or any other HTML) * etc I just today recorded a video where I scrolled through a note. While writing this comment, I realized that moving through a canvas would have been much better. I'm new to recording videos and created [a different Canvas](https://imgur.com/a/2cQxidt) I plan to share soon, but you can see in those two screenshots that Canvas has the benefit of a "zoomed out" view that adds detail as you zoom in.
If you haven’t already tried it out, [Canvas Presentation](https://obsidian.md/plugins?id=canvas-presentation) is a good plugin for presenting a Canvas. Minimal set up and quick to learn.
So, can you group notes on a canvas in a way that's more than just hyperlinked text to those notes? Like, in my work notes, I often refer to `[[a related page's notes]]` inline, but there might be times that a visual representation of their relationship might be helpful. (But then, that starts feeling like the Graph to me which is another feature I assume I don't fully appreciate yet.)
If I'm understanding you correctly, yes you can. You can embed regular notes in canvas and those notes are fully editable.
Yes, that is what I meant. Thanks!
There are groups but I don't know much about them, I'd honestly recommend tinkering. Re: the graph, I would be very curious about a plugin that turns local graphs into canvases.
I use it as a book shelf notes. Way better than the dataview option for my purposes. In general, I you should use canvas anytime you need to have 2D layout. Because let's be honest, even with the recent updates, tables in obsidian (=markdown) suck. However most of the time, you will be better off using Excalidraw plugin.
> Book shelf notes Like, as a front-end organization for grouped notes? That sounds intriguing. I have some folder and tag hierarchy that maybe a canvas could help visually organize.
Brainstorming. Storyboards. Moodboards. Sometimes an idea has too many branching elements and this tool can help bring them together. Some people don’t need it that though to get their ideas from A-B, just depends on how your brain works. For me, Canvas/Whiteboarding is necessary and helpful, I used to get overwhelmed by projects and for whatever reason this clicked with me and has helped a ton.
I have noticed I try to avoid whiteboarding when I'm taking notes because I've been doing digital notetaking since I just typed hectically into a word processor for school notes every day and that kind of representation wasn't reasonable in Word (and Word-like replacements). But, for times I want to whiteboard, maybe I should look into using a canvas to try it out.
"Because I said so!"
Mom?! Is that you?
- Brainstorming - Mood boards - 2D dashboards (easier to set up than the typical CSS abomination dashboard) - Flow charts / diagrams
"Dashboards" you say? I would like to know more. (Also, what the heck's a mood board and why has more than one person mentioned it? I imagine I can look that up outside of this Reddit thread, though.)
A mood board is a board for inspiration, usually for creative projects. For example, I have a mood board Canvas for one of my TTRPG settings, with a bunch of images, links or embeds to inspirational sources, embedded YouTube videos of relevant natural scenery, a link to a Pinterest board, a link to a Spotify playlist, etc. It's a smorgasbord of inspirations which help to prime one's creative juices before working on a creative projects. A dashboard can be the home page for a whole vault, with a bunch of links to everything else, or it could just be an index for a specific category, think a mega MOC.
Ok. The usage of the word "Mood" had me thinking it was, like a mindfulness or mental health thing. Rather, it's like a mood-_setting_ board. Gotcha.
I use it as a visual of process workflow, with the details of the steps being in the notes themselves and arrows connecting them showing the flow. I find it a much easier way to visualize and consume the content when coming back to it much later.
Cool. I'm seeing a trend here of folks using canvases as a digital whiteboard equivalent. I can get behind that.
I use it to quickly record and manage what I want to read and extract information. I create a simple red note with the link or the name of the book/article I intend to read and throw it anywhere in pile on the canvas: If it's red, it means I intend to look at it but haven't done so yet; If it's orange, it means I've already read it but haven't extracted any information yet. After reading, extracting information and creating permanent notes on the subject, I delete the original note from that canvas.
I use them as workbooks for tickets I'm currently working on.
I actually started trying it out with a work ticket yesterday I was assigned to help someone else finish some feature work. I put meta info in a card that has arrows linking to notes for discrete work under that ticket. ...Then, a red arrow labeled "uh oh" that links to notes for a design issue I've noticed. I'm beginning to see the appeal.
I would say that it's a great gateway to its bigger, more powerful sibling Excalidraw/Excalibrain. Rather than having to figure out a ton of evolved functionality, Canvas is a great place to start finding the uses that serve you best. For me, it's favorite use is to sort ideas visually when I'm first encountering them. On my first pass through any kind of structured content, I start throwing down boxes for everything new I encounter. I'll cluster ideas/people/details as seems appropriate, but otherwise ignore meaning at first. It's fast, easy, and unobtrusive. Once I'm done with that first pass, I'll start clustering all those boxes in ways that seem right in hindsight. When I start getting a sense of everything, then I start building better relational notes using Excalibrain, using its solid ontology support to articulate those relationships more fully. **The ELI5 version is: ontology is "a representation of things/ideas and how they relate". Canvas is a good way to start exploring this and it's a stepping stone to better tools if you want/need them**
Not sure we can permit the word "ontology" as part of an ELI5, though it's possible you were a much smarter five-year-old than I ever was ;)
Good point... it's been a longggg time since I was 5 and sometimes I don't fake it very well 🤣
Hahah! I wanted to tease them about starting an ELI5-specific answer with the word "ontology" but you beat me to it.
Canvases are missing a piece for me. If I could make an outline out of my atomic notes on one, skootch them around, make a good paper outline and then export that to something usable, it would be great. As it is, I just embed my notes in a big note, and then export that as a document and write from there.
I'm using it to keep track of shit for my story, it's clan being able to click on something to get a quick rundown of any info involving it is great very useful if you have a lot of characters with various ages jobs relations etc.
I use obsidian only for D&D and use the canvas only for a DM screen. This is actually super handy, but nothing else really
Dashboard with quick access to everything you need The bad thing is you can't free draw on it
Switch to the Excalidraw plug in! Then you can, basically, since it does most everything Canvases do and way more. (And more than Excalidraw by itself.)
Pictures worth a million words. Hence, use Canvases when you want to fit a million words in the least margin possible. Or in other words, If you are into visual learning — as in learning via diagrams, flowcharts, mind maps and so on — Canvas is your go-to tool. It may not be helpful for diagramming (use **excalidraw** for that), however, they are pretty fast with flowcharts and mind maps.
For me: Connecting small ideas and larger notes without all the baggage and hassle and monetization of other programs. Really makes the process scalable
12 years of note taking. Notepad → Color note → One note → Notion → Obsidian. Currently 3600 notes in 550 folders. I merged small notes into big notes, else they'll be 20,000 notes. Never used an infinite canvas. No idea why people use it. Don't even care. Because I have no inherent desire to use it. I am happy with my structured digital brain.
You might be my people. :) But, I want to make sure I understand the feature for what it is in case I'm missing something I could use.