Amber is a mere setup for Obsidian markdown editor, tailored specifically for scientific research and writing papers. The most importantly, it integrates Zotero - an amazing reference manager, so you can import Zotero's articles right in Obsidian (with citation and bibliography support!). Imported file is called Literature notes and contain metadata, your notes and annotations for a selected document. Setup vault has an example.
For this setup to work, the following must be installed:
- Obsidian app == latest (1.6.7 for 2024-08-4)
- Zotero >= 6.0.37
- ZotFile >= 5.1.2 - Advanced PDF management for Zotero (required for Zotero integration)
- Better BibTeX >= 6.7.214 - makes it easier to manage bibliographic data (required for Zotero integration)
- Night >= 0.4.23 (optional) - Night theme for Zotero UI & Pdf
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Download and extract the
amber_setup.zipfile. Theamber_setupdirectory will be your new vault so rename it and/or place it where you desire. -
From Obsidian open this directory as a vault, click “Trust author and enable plugins” and et voila the setup is finished.
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Some of the plugins are turned off by default, if you are interested try turning them on. Also, the setup has custom css snippets (you can turn off them in the Appearance settings), the
Tests.mdfile is here to help you see the difference with/without snippets.
Apart from installing Zotero's add-ons, it is recommended to save all your PDFs from Zotero in Data/'Zotero Files'/ directory. To do this add the path to this directory in Zotfile preferences, on OS X you will find it here:
Zotero --> Tools --> ZotFile Preferences... --> General Settings --> Location of files --> select Custom location
If you know how to improve the setup, feel free to open an issue.
Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.
This setup would not have been possible without Alexandra Phelan's post on academic workflow, definitely check it out.
Links used for this setup: