That would be nice, but is very different than what I am requesting. I basically want the ability to create my own cross-reference library based on notes that I’ve taken. I’m not after a reference for the original text, I’m trying to link ideas together.
IMHO this is the kind of thing that tools like Obsidian are built for. Honestly kind of surprised to run into this roadblock.
The trick is that Obsidian’s fundamental principle (all files are just markdown files) clashes a bit with this kind of feature. Obsidian doesn’t necessarily know which block is which at all times—that is, without a layer built on top of those files, parsing each block and generating the UI you’re looking for. I suspect it’s doable, it’s just non-trivial, and hasn’t been done yet.
Makes sense. I guess the workaround for now is to make 30,000+ individual text files? 
No need! I got it. And I’m well aware. Was one of the first things I discovered. 
Oh, you’ve been here this whole time! how awkward of me
Great, though. Was one of those yelling at podcast moments!
@ryanjamurphy I pointed him to this thread. He’s helping me not make 30,000 text files by hand (but his real motivation is getting me off of Roam as quickly as possible )
Oh, that reminds me! The Note Extractor plugin can do some of the work, if you choose to go the route of taking some of these verses out into their own notes. Otherwise I’m sure @joebuhlig has it covered
A quick shell script can do wonders.
At the moment it’s all split out into individual text files by verse. Right now we’re just waiting for the app to catch up with indexing and such. Any tips on encouraging that process?
@Licat would be the one to comment on that, although I wouldn’t expect it to take that long. A quit and restart is always healthy! (The first load after a big vault change might take a little longer than usual.)
Should be pretty easy to tell just by looking at CPU usage of the app without doing anything. It should be close to 0 when the app is done indexing.
Apologies for all the moving around! I merged the wrong threads, I’ve moved the topic back to its original thread (hopefully correctly). Lesson learned: Do not attempt to reorganize threads without enough tea in ya!
I’m also hoping for the feature Mike describes. I was thinking for any file in preview, the app should know which blocks have references, because these are the only blocks that have caret IDs attached. It could then search for these IDs in the background and display a number in the preview to the side (like Roam or in some other way). Bonus points if the number is clickable and opens a search pane or something to show all the links to that referenced ID.
+1 for this. The beauty of obsidian is that it stores everything in simple files, if it can be implemented it will be cool.
I am from Roam as well & have noticed limitations as well within Obsidian in regards to the block refs
One of the key things I would love is if I could see the content of the block ref vs *title & block UID number. In Roam when the cursor is within the block then you can see the ID number
It is a little different here as when the term block is used this could encompass a paragraph etc where in Roam it would be 1 bullet pt, 1 idea. So a paragraph here would be a bit different w/o using the embed but I would like the ability to take 1 idea (bullet pt) & see it inline with the other content. If I cannot see the content & only the UID number it is not very useful for me. Although I can use the cursor hover these are extra steps that take away from fluidity. I can embed it but since the link is now not in context it also creates friction points for me.
As mentioned I would also like to see the number of items being referenced from the original. I am not sure how it will work with the WYSIWYG editor but right now I have no idea if a block has been referenced if in the preview mode.
I want to ref my blocks in content but cannot do so in Obsidian as I have to keep stopping to figure out what it is or use an Alias. That’s not a very useful step if you use block ref a lot, though
Hi! I justed submitted a plugin to the community plugins that I think folks on this thread will be interested in. It adds the count of a block reference next to the reference, along with a way to see where those references are made!
You can see a preview of it here: - YouTube
This is great, I suggest you open a new thread in “share and showcase” for follow-up discussions.
that’s really good, but i can’t install it, would you be so kind and tell me how to do so
I haven’t used Roam intensively, but I’m all for this feature request. I think it’s a key feature for any bi-directional notetaking app.
A similar feature in VS Code is find all references/ peek reference. An example is shown below. That is, wherever a reference appears, you can list all references.
Thank you, this was one of the key features I was missing in Obsidian!
Though splitting into atomic notes is a possibility, and it can be automated, the problem is that separate notes cannot be linked as an indented structure like in an outliner. For those familiar with blocks and indenting capabilities, Obsidian becomes a huge tradeoff. Going by the exchanges on the discord and the forum, heavy Obsidian users do not use blocks at all and therefore I doubt if this will find broader support going forward.
