Setting up a Jekyll Garden is a simple task for both new users and existing Obsidian users. This document explains how to fork this Jekyll theme, start using it via Github pages, and configure the Obsidian folders and frontmatter.
Github Setup
Step 1: Sign-In to Github, visit the theme page and click on 'Use this Template'
Step 2: Name the forked repo as yourusername.github.io. My Github username is hfactor, hence it's hfactor.github.io
Step 3: Go to your repo's settings > pages and set the source to your main branch.
Step 4 (Optional): If you have a custom domain, set CNAME.
Claps! The Jekyll website with a Note Garden theme is ready. Visit yourusername.github.io to see that.
If it's not working, edit this readme (add something and commit) to trigger static page generation.
Github to your Desktop
Step 1: Go to yourusername.github.io, and clone your repository to your machine. For this, you can use git-commands or install Github for desktop.
Step 2: Once you have successfully cloned the repository to your machine, Open the Obsidian app, and set the folder _notes inside the repository as your vault.
Obsidian
Choosing the _notes folder as your vault is critical, Once done, you can start adding notes to this vault and add frontmatter to support.
Read about theme's frontmatter at Welcome to the gardenWelcome to the garden
This is a sample atomic note. The file location is _notes/Public, and it appears on the note feed. _notes is the Obsidian Vault directory. Check how to to know more.
While all files inside this...
Frontmatter
For all notes to work properly, we need to have three frontmatter values. (If you check this MD file, you will see them as the first five lines).
title:"Filename"
notetype: feed | unfeed
date: DD-MM-YYYY
The title should be the same as that for the file name (for backlinks to work). notetype is used to declutter the feed by hiding less relevant, supporting-notes from the feed. The date is used to sort notes in the latest one first order. (I consider it as the last updated date than created date.).
Updating Digital Garden
Once you have enough notes, got to the Github Desktop app, commit the changes to main, and push the changes to Github. Github will update the pages!
If you want to know my workflow or Obsidian folder structure, check here
Notes
The best part of Jekyll and Obsidian is that they use a standard markup language like markdown to build notes. And hence, the content becomes independent of the tool. You can use any text editor like VSCode or atom or 1Writer for iPad to edit the text. Check for plugins that do autocomplete for [[ and that's all you need! Similarly, you can use the theme without syncing locally. You can directly add and edit notes using Github or tools like Forestry and modify the content!
The best part of Obsidian is how it connects notes by auto-completing the wiki links and providing a graph view. I usually use 1Writer on iPad to make content, and Obsidian for cleanup, reading, and finding new connections. (Read my workflow)