First Steps

Welcome to Project Planner! This guide walks you through opening the plugin, understanding its interface, and creating your first project and tasks.

Opening Project Planner

There are three ways to open Project Planner:

  • Ribbon Icon — Click the Project Planner icon in the left-hand ribbon bar.
  • Command Palette — Press Ctrl/Cmd+P, then type Project Planner and select the command.
  • View Menu — Use the Obsidian View menu to open a new Project Planner pane.
Tip: You can customize the ribbon by right-clicking on it and hiding icons you don't use. Drag and drop to reorder.

Understanding the Interface

Project Planner provides six views, each designed for a different aspect of project management:

  • Dashboard — A high-level overview of all your projects with completion stats, upcoming deadlines, and quick-access cards.
  • Grid — A spreadsheet-like table where you can view, sort, filter, and bulk-edit tasks.
  • Board — A Kanban-style board that lets you organise and drag tasks between configurable columns.
  • Timeline — A Gantt-chart view showing task durations, milestones, and scheduling across a calendar.
  • Dependency Graph — A visual node graph that maps out how tasks depend on one another.
  • Task Details — A focused single-task view for editing every field, managing dependencies, and viewing activity.

Creating Your First Project

  1. Open Project Planner using any of the methods described above.
  2. Navigate to the Dashboard view.
  3. Click the + New Project button.
  4. Enter a name for your project and, optionally, a description.
  5. Click Create. Your new project will appear on the Dashboard and a corresponding folder is created inside your vault.
Note: Every project and task is stored as a plain Markdown file inside your vault. This means your data is always portable, version-controllable, and fully yours.

Adding Your First Tasks

  1. Open your project and switch to the Grid or Board view.
  2. Click + Add Task (or press Ctrl/Cmd+Enter as a shortcut).
  3. Type a title for the task.
  4. Optionally fill in additional details:
    • Due Date — When the task should be completed.
    • Priority — Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
    • Status — To Do, In Progress, Done, or a custom status.
    • Tags — Labels for filtering and grouping.
  5. Press Enter or click Save to create the task.
Tip: Use Ctrl/Cmd+Enter from anywhere inside a project to instantly create a new task without reaching for the button.

Basic Task Management

Updating Status

  • Grid View — Click the status cell for a task and select the new status from the dropdown.
  • Board View — Drag a task card from one column to another.
  • Task Details — Open the task and choose a status from the dropdown.

Setting Due Dates

  • Click the date field to open a date picker.
  • Or type a natural-language date such as next Friday or in 3 days, and Project Planner will resolve it automatically.

Adding Dependencies

  1. Open the task in Task Details.
  2. Click Add Dependency.
  3. Search for and select the task you want to depend on.
  4. Choose the dependency type (Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish, or Start-to-Finish).

See the Dependency Graph docs for a detailed explanation of dependency types and circular-dependency handling.

Working with Markdown Sync

Project Planner keeps your task data in bidirectional sync with your vault's Markdown files. When you edit a task inside the plugin, the corresponding .md file is updated instantly. Likewise, if you edit the Markdown file directly, Project Planner picks up the changes the next time it reads the file.

Each task file uses YAML frontmatter to store structured fields. Here is an example: 

---
title: Design landing page
status: In Progress
priority: High
due: 2026-03-15
tags:
  - design
  - sprint-4
dependencies:
  - task: Gather requirements
    type: FS
---

Additional notes and context for the task can go in the body of the file.
Important: Avoid renaming or moving task files outside of Obsidian while Project Planner is running. Use the plugin or Obsidian's file explorer to ensure links and references stay intact.

Next Steps

You've covered the basics — here are some features to explore next:

  • Task Tagging — Organise tasks with tags and filtered views.
  • URI Linking — Deep-link to tasks and projects from anywhere in your vault.
  • Dashboard Analytics — Track progress, velocity, and overdue items at a glance.