Excalidraw Writing Machine: Generate articles from your Visual Zettelkasten cards in Obsidian

[@VisualPKM]

🚀 Excited to share this deep dive into the Excalidraw Writing Machine (EWM) script! This tool is a game-changer for anyone looking to transform visual layouts into structured drafts, whether you're working on academic papers, blog posts, or presentations. If you’re exploring Zettelkasten, PKM, or Obsidian, this workflow is fully customizable to fit your needs. 🔗 Don’t forget to check out the resources linked in the description, including the demo files and the script itself. And if you find value in this video, I’d love your support on Ko-fi! 💬 Let me know how you're planning to use the EWM script, or drop any questions you have below. I’m here to help you get the most out of your visual thinking tools!

[@janitashelton]

6:18 Love it! ❤❤

[@quietlyworking]

👏 Completely spectacular! Feels like magic💕🙏 thank you!

[@VisualPKM]

Thank you! It does feel kind of magical. The workflow still needs a bit of polishing, but it definitely looks promising!

[@MWMLeonardoCruzd7sd]

Good¡ muy bueno lo aplicaré para mis alumnos de Perú

[@roman_iakymovych]

Thank you, this is awesome!

[@飯塚浩也]

Amazing, Zsolt！

[@brain.trinity]

Woah Zsolt this is mind blowing! I've been using Gen AI to get rough draft of my writing like you would show in this video, but adding a visual element to it with a tree structure will temendousoly help out the planning and structuring process! And maybe on another section of the same canvas, I might be first able to just lay out the cards (embeds) before hand previous to drawing out the tree. I always appreciate your pioneer mindse5 into visual Pkm.

[@VisualPKM]

I like to lay items out first, then connect them. I do the same with my mindmaps. The branches are the last I draw, I first just create a "word cloud" of phrases I want on the map, then organize them into clusters, and when the ideas settle, I add the branches. A similar approach to laying out the storyline for an article or presentation should work very well. I'd add the arrows as the last step.

[@tfthacker]

Amazing work!!!

[@VisualPKM]

AI for Templater is such a useful tool!

[@followthegood1]

Excellent. Marvelous. Mind Jolts by Zsolts.

[@rajakumarperumal4856]

Really superb Thanks

[@RobertRodriguezJr]

Amazing, super useful and still trying to wrap my head around all the potential uses. One question, at 4:50 you select an embedded drawing and open the backside of the note in a new window. Are you using some extra script or plugin to do that? I can't seem to achieve that in one step as you show, thanks

[@VisualPKM]

There is a command palette action for that. When an embedded Excalidraw drawing is selected press CTRL+P to bring up the command palette and look for "Excalidraw: Open the back-of-the-note of the selected excalidraw image". I've set up a hotkey for that so I can quickly look at the back of the notes for any of my embedded drawings. The feature has been there for some time now, but I wasn't advertising it because Obsidian 1.6.0...1.6.6 froze when you did that. The underlying issue was fixed in Obsidian in 1.6.7, so now the feature can be safely used.

[@rightitnowai]

Like it! Could you let me know how to open and close back-of-note card like you? 4:54

[@VisualPKM]

Select the image and use the "Open the back-of-the-note of the selected excalidraw image" action from the command palette. You can set up a hotkey in Obsidian settings.

[@rightitnowai]

Thank you for reply

[@JTIAPBN]

"Thank you for your tutorial. I successfully generated an article by following your instructions. However, I encountered a problem and had to use the shortcut Alt+R after selecting the template. I wanted to share this solution in case others face the same issue. Once again, thank you for your hard work and helpful guidance."

[@VisualPKM]

yes depending on how templater is configured it might happen that the script is not executed on new file creation. There is a related setting in Templater plugin settings. CTRL+R is also a good solution, it puts more control in your hand as to when you want to run your script.

[@LarsOlesen-o9q]

Great work as always. Could the idea of the way arrows are used for the writing machine inspire how arrows could be used for the presentation, so they are used in the same way - or maybe support frames for the writing machine?

[@VisualPKM]

You mean that instead of following the frame names follow the arrow sequence connecting the frames?

[@李样-h4s]

Excellent creation, plus I have another request. After listing each idea in excalidraw and exporting all ideas as a single article, can I batch output each idea as a separate note? Editors can do things like encoding the cards for each idea. Because isn't the rule of Zettelkasten that every idea corresponds to a card?

[@李样-h4s]

My current workflow is to type each key sentence into a note and encode it as I see it. But it's a lot of work, and you need to keep opening and closing tabs. If you can record every idea in an excalidraw and add relationships to it, that's what your video demonstrates. Then if you can code each note, you can organize each idea freely

[@VisualPKM]

You can right click on text elements and select convert to file from the context menu. If you want more you a can build a custom script to perform that for you.

[@weiguo7655]

That is a brilliant idea, Zsolt. It can really accelerate the writing progress! I've tried to use chatgpt add another function to that script: extract the text from the document if the element a wiki link (I used [[file]] format). However, I failed to do that. Can you give me some hint how to do that? I would really appreciate it.

[@weiguo7655]

I've tried to handle it as an image, and it succeeded. This makes the workflow even more interesting!

[@VisualPKM]

I released an update to the script a few days ago. You can update it from the Excalidraw script store. After you download the update you need to run it once so the new setting is installed. The new setting now includes an option for [[wikilinks]] instead of [markdown](links). I also normally use wiki links. The reason I opted for markdown links in the script because chat GPT kept messing up my wikilinks ending up with broken links and links converted to markdown links incorrectly. If you find a way to force GPTs hand to leave links alone and just use the wiki links provided in the prompt please let me know your trick...

[@marcosrafaelromansalgado6191]

Great work, it's super helpful and really well thought out! However, I'm encountering an issue with the writing machine. It works, but instead of giving me both the Excalidraw and the back note, it only gives me the Excalidraw. Any idea how I can fix this? Thanks in advance!

[@VisualPKM]

I'm afraid that without seeing your file and settings it will be pretty difficult to hello. Maybe you can ping me on Discord... and share the file you are working on?

[@YeHang]

this is a great idea to have a back side of your note! But your way involved too much of action to take. With another software call affine, you can convert your note to canvas with one click. Maybe you should try to reduce the friction. Love your work❤

[@VisualPKM]

Affine looks pretty awesome. I'll play with it a little.

[@jiahao2709]

today seems some problem with obsidian-excalidraw, all the icon function as zoom in and zoom out, any other has this issue?

[@VisualPKM]

What do you mean today? Excalidraw.com is different from Excalidraw-Obsidian. Excalidraw Obsidian only changes when you download a new version, so if something does not work and you did not update Excalidraw, then likely the issue is caused by another plugin or Obsidian theme.

[@jiahao2709]

@@VisualPKM thank you, i will check

[@syedamanhussain6361]

I want to know why we have to focus on gpt only why we are not able to use other llm models also Can you please upgrade your workflow by adding more options for llms like gemini and groq as they will provide more scale to your work

[@VisualPKM]

I think you can set up other LLMs with AI for Templater. Please check the documentation for AI for Templater. Else you can always edit the provided templater script to add the fetch call for whatever LLM you want to use.

[@jiahao2709]

Dear Zsolt, I am insert an image in obsidian-excalidraw, and i am doing some extra drawing in the images, when i make mistake and want to use eraser to erase some part of my drawing , it will also erase my inserted image, but i want to keep my insert image, only erase the drawing. are there any solution to this?

[@VisualPKM]

you can right click on the inserted image and select "Lock" from the context menu.

[@jiahao2709]

@@VisualPKM thank you so much!

[@jiahao2709]

@@VisualPKM Is there a way to automatically lock images when pasted in to an excalidraw file?

[@VisualPKM]

@@jiahao2709 Depends on how much you want to get into coding. There is an onPaste javascript hook that you can attach your own event handler to... but there isn't a simple setting for you that will lock pasted images.

[@jiahao2709]

@@VisualPKM get it ,really thank you!