<h1 id="populating-your-note-with-properties"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#populating-your-note-with-properties"></a>Populating Your Note With Properties</h1>
<h3 id="lets-begin"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#lets-begin"></a>Let's begin</h3>
As I noted in <a href="/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/01%20%20memex%20help/04%20What%20Goes%20into%20a%20Note?" title="04 What Goes into a Note?">04 What Goes into a Note?</a>, I have five distinct sections to populate with “data". The first is YAML/Properties, which is a more complex idea, and where I want to start, as this is the backbone of my vault.
Properties are the metadata section of a note and can be anything and any number. Properties or YAML (sometimes referred to as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML#:~:text=History%20and%20name%5B,rather%20than%20document%20markup.">Yet Another Markup Language</a>) is a robust feature in Obsidian that is customizable to your needs and the conditions of your notes.
<div><blockquote class="callout" style="border-left-color:undefined;">
<div class="callout-title note" style="background-color: undefined1a;">Look a callout</div>
<div class="callout-content" style="">Remember, I have already created YAML/Properties for you in your templates. The following is an exercise for you to try in a plain note.</div>
</blockquote></div>
To begin, open a new note (command (⌘) + N) on line 1 you type three dashes <code>---</code> with no spaces (Fig. 1). This will initiate the properties feature immediately, and can autofill your prompt as you type if you have used the prompt before (Fig. 2). Once you initiated the property, you have a few options from this point. First, you can type in the property identifier, e.g., ‘title,’ ‘date,’ ‘status,’ and many more, followed by the field. For example, in my vault, the property ‘title’ refers to the note itself, and the note title ‘Test Note’ is typed into the corresponding field (Fig. 3). You can alter the property ‘type’ (how the property is formatted) to the following:
<ol>
<li>Text,</li>
<li>List</li>
<li>Number</li>
<li>Checkbox</li>
<li>Date</li>
<li>Date &#x26; Time.</li>
</ol>
I use mostly text-type properties, which the above ‘title’ property uses (Fig. 4). As you enter more properties, they will begin to auto-populate the fields when you start typing. If you are an old-school user and want to create metadata via YAML, then you need to switch to source mode (Fig. 5). This provides a bit more customization and coding flexibility, while the standard properties configuration offers a more accessible user interface (UI). The number of properties in a note can be as many or as few as you want. Our Atomic notes contain 14 properties (Fig. 6) while my Coin notes [for my personal research] contain thirty-three properties (Fig. 7 &#x26; 8). These properties allow you to perform more complex queries within your vault using the core plugin <code>Bases</code> or the community plugin <code>Dataview.</code>
Properties can be hidden or viewable in your notes. More can be discussed about the application of properties for your notes, but the point here is to provide a brief introduction. A word of caution is not to get too carried away with adding properties. I use properties as a tool to generate high-quality data. In other words, what identifiers are the most accessible and logical for each note? In essence, you are creating a mini queryable database.
Fig. 1 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Properties%20Initiation.png" priority="1"> 
Fig. 2 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/title%20property.png"> 
Fig. 3 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Test%20Note%20Property.png"> 
Fig. 4 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Property%20Type.png"> 
Fig. 5 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Source%20Mode.png"> 
Fig. 6 (This note says Zettel Note but is the same as the Atomic Note). 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Atomic%20Properties.png"> 
Fig. 7 (Source Mode for my coin database). 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Coins%20Source%20Mode.png"> 
Fig. 8 (Properties view for Coin database) 
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Properties/Coins%20Properties%20Mode.png">

Welcome

1. Course Description

2. Learning Outcomes

3. Course Schedule

4. Evaluation

5. Course Communications

6. Common Regulations

6. Contact the Professor

how the course tech is built; how the course came to be

7. Colophon

8. Reuse

Orientation and Digital Setup

Week 1

Personal Knowledge Management and Linked Thinking

Week 2

Thinking about the “Craft” of Digital History

Week 3

Crusading into the Digital Age of LLMs

Week 4

Consolidation & Check-In Week

Week 5

Digital Excavation

Week 6

Defining Data, 'Dark' Data, & Identifiers

Week 7

Fall Break

Week 8

Seeing the Past?

Week 9

Week 10

Authority and Positionality in Your Digital Research

Week 11

Publicly Crafting a Historical Argument

Week 12

Open-Access Notebook Workshop

Week 13

Exit Ticket

Week 14

1 Setting up your vault

2 Create your first note

3 Templater Plugiin

4 What Goes into a Note?

5 Properties

Hypothesis

The Simplest Online Memex Worfklow

How To Read An Academic Article

FAQ for Common Tech Issues

Where to Find help

Text Formatting

Introduction to your vault

index note

Atomic Note

Literature Note

Process Note

Weekly Journal

Topic Proposal

Weekly Work & Tasks

Consolidation Reflection

Open Access Notebook/Memex

Benchmarking Your Memex

Exit Ticket/Final Project

1 Welcome to Crafting Digital History Transcript

2 Obsidian User Interface (UI) Guide

3 Templater and Hotkeys Setup

4 How to use PDF++

5 Canvas Core Plugin Introductory Tutorial

6 Hypothes.is and Annotating the Web

7 Omnisearch Plugin for Obsidian

8 How to Use Process Notes for Digital Research Projects in Obsidian

9 Properties, Identifiers and Data Management with Obsidian Core Plugin Bases

1 Welcome to Crafting Digital History

2 Some Logistical Updates

3 Welcome to Week Two

4 What is Digital History?

5 Crusading into the Digital Age of LLMs

6 Week Four Exercise Example

7 Using Obsidian for Digital History Research and Note-Making

8 Reflection Feedback Update and Hypothes.is

9 Week Five Update

10 Consolidation Reflection Submission

11 Module Two Wrangling and Critiquing

12 Week 7 Update

13 Week 9 Welcome Back

14 Consolidation Week Number 2

1. Course Overview

Module 1 Contextualizing

Module 2 Wrangling & Critiquing

Module 3 Arguing & Communicating

2. Schedule

01  memex help

8. Course Files

3. Tutorials

4. Assessment

5. VideoTutorials

Crafting Digital History

News