Adding the date to each note

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1

Hello,

A question,
What would be the easiest way to automatically add the date to each new Note?

Cristian

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2

You can use the Template plugin. The {{date}} placeholder is expanded upon insertion.

Or you can use some third-part app that does text expansion, such as Keyboard Maestro, Alfred or Espanso.

None of the methods is fully automatic. You still need to manually insert the template or trigger a shortcut.

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3

I believe I’ll write such a plugin. I really need it.

I was thinking about adding it as metadata such as:

---
title: Metadata about what we write is really important
date: 10/11/2020
modified: 21/11/2020
---

All the contents of the note

But I ignore if there is some standard way of doing this, or what are good names for the dates for instance.

Any ideas on this?

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4

Obsidian supports YAML frontmatter, so I think it’s a good choice. As for the plug-in, that’s out of my league, but I’ll probably use it when someone makes it :sweat_smile:

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5

In the end, I wrote the functionality in a plugin
you can find it in Obsidian, it’s called Markdown Prettifier

it allows you to setup a template and will add or modify the date each time you ‘prettify’ your note.

2 Likes
6

Awesome. I’m on my way! :smiley:

Thanks!

7

I’ve used only a small portion of its features yet, but it’s working great. Thanks again.

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8

The “daily notes” core plugin adds some of that functionality AND Templates allows for some date formatting of your choosing AND the Zettelkasten plugin can add a file title with the full date down to the hours and minute if that is of use to you.

I have not had much use for that at the moment but it was nice to see how many options are available for that.

9

What do you use?

10

I just installed your plugin, but can’t get it to work. I thought invoking the hotkey should add a YAML frontmatter to the current file if one is missing. But nothing happens when I try. What am I missing?

11

I’ve been using a template with nothing but

{{date:YYYYMMDDHHmm}}

There’s a key mapping for inserting a template, which mean you can insert the date wherever you like in your notes. This has worked well for me.

12

thoresson

Assuming you have enabled the plugin in Obsidian Settings > Third Party Plugins…
Double-check that the following two settings are enabled in Obsidian Settings > Plugin Options for Markdwon prettifier: create header, and update header.

Then use Ctrl Alt L to create the frontmatter within a note, and Ctrl Alt O to update existing frontmatter.

13

Activated in all places – but when I remapped the hotkeys it worked. Thanks.

14

I was looking for such a date stamping feature. I found that if i click on the three little dots in the upper right (More Options) and then look toward the bottom of the list, I can click on “view sync version history”. It shows a date that I’m assuming is the note creation date.
But I will go back to my long established habit of adding it myself i.e." 221217" like I’ve done on Evernote for 10 years.