Bases currently allow for creating filters on views. In some cases, it would be nice to be able to filter based on properties you know are in the view. Imagine, for example, a view with books: It has a row for titles, a row for authors, and a row for series.
Sometimes, I might want to search up a specific series or author, without creating an entirely new view for this.
Proposed solution
Allow for searching through CTRL/CMD+F or add a search box at the top of the base. This could either be normal text based search, or use a similar format to the filtering used for base view filters and/or graph view filter. However, it would not be persistent.
Current workaround (optional)
Create temporary filters and delete them later, or create very specific views.
Currently, views allow for predefined filters to narrow down records. However, this approach can be overkill for quick, ad hoc lookups. For example, in a base displaying books with rows for Title, Author, and Series, a user might want to quickly find all entries from a specific author or series without having to create a dedicated view or modify existing filters.
Does my FR here to quickly enable/disable filter groups (Bases: Quickly enable/disable filter groups via buttons) serve as a decent solution to this problem? You could make a filter group per author or whatever, and quickly enable/disable it as needed.
I would personally add large “fuzzy” search box at the top to quickly narrow notes by filename, as well as little search boxes on each property (or some syntax like tags: test for the large main searchbox) to narrow specific property.
I envision this feature like searching any other note in Reading View with Cmd-F. The search terms should be highlighted. Cmd-G moves to the next result.
+1 for a quick search being a huge value, particularly if the contents of the base can be searched using the existing cmd+f find. This seems like it would quick, flexible, and allow for quickly locating the search string within either the base OR the page it is contained in (while the column search would only relate to the base).
Using cmd+f (or the search bar) for the current page and a temporary filter in the base there is currently a way to search the two separately, but there isn’t a way I’ve found to do both together (let me know if I am just missing something obvious).
That isn’t to say that searching a column wouldn’t be useful, it is just something I would reach for far less often personally when trying to quickly navigate through my vault.
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for me i think that most often bases will be inserted into an existing page to show relevant files based on tags, links, etc. they will hopefully be replacing existing dataview queries that serve this purpose for me at the moment.
It is common for me to open a file that is quite long and also has one or more large dataview queries within it. Often i will have a rough idea of what i am looking for within the file and do a quick cmd+f to find it. my biggest hassle with these existing dataview queries has been that they don’t work with cmd+f so i have to edit the query or use the search bar and just replicate what the query is looking for in addition to the original cmd+f search.
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Also, maybe finding a solution to the base contents appearing in cmd+f would also mean they could appear when searching using the search bar? This comes up for me periodically where i would like the base contents to function similar to a normal link inside a file and be searchable (i.e. the file containing the link which matches the search criteria appears in the search results, instead of only the linked file appearing).
I hope this becomes a feature, for now there is a semi-solution for this. All credit goes to Matelob from the obsidian discord, I did not come up with this.
Create a property, let’s call it filter title .
Create a formula in your base: if(this["filter title"],file.basename.lower().contains(this["filter title"].lower()), true), lets call this formula matchesFilter.
Create a filter where matchesFilter must be true (its a boolean property).
Now if you type something in the filter title property, the base view will only show notes whose title matches the text in filter title. So you can add this at the top of your note with the base in it, treating it like a search box. Note it only updates once you click away from the property.
It is not ideal, and you have to make a new property for every column you want to filter (though you can make filter groups to search multiple columns with one field). But it is a temporary fix which doesn’t rely on plugins.
This solution can be adapted to match text on multiple columns. Another adaptation is to use a list property rather than a text property, and match on any of the items in the list (effectively implementing an OR search).
A search bar at the top of each Base view to allow advanced filtering
QlikView/Qlik Sense has one of the most powerful and intuitive in-product search interfaces in the business intelligence space. Its associative search engine allows users to dynamically filter data using natural, flexible syntax directly in a search box and bringing similar functionality to Obsidian Bases could significantly enhance usability, especially for non-technical users managing structured data in a note-taking environment. Here is a demo of how it works (see also QlikView Search documentation:
Core Features to Implement (Qlik-Inspired)
Feature
Description
Example
Field-Specific Search
Search within a specific column/field
Title:Meeting
Full/Precise Matching
Use quotes for exact match
“Final Report”
Partial/Wildcard Matching
Use * for prefix/suffix/infix
notes, idea, testcase*
Boolean Modifiers (+/-)
Include or exclude terms
+research -draft
Aggregation-Based Search
Filter using numeric comparisons
Word Count > 500, Priority >= 3
Fuzzy Matching
Match similar terms (typos, variants)
~reciept → matches “receipt”
Logical Operators
Combine conditions (AND/OR)
Status:Done OR Status:Review
Expression Support
Evaluate simple expressions
len(Title) > 20, lower(Tags) like “work”
Combine Qlik-Style Search with Obsidian Core Search and Base filtering mechanism
Obsidian native search functionality is a powerful core tool that helps you find data in your Obsidian vault by using search terms and operators to narrow down results. Given that Base views already include filters, it’s likely their current filtering mechanism is an adaptation of the core search functionality tailored for metadata.
Suggestion: To create a more powerful and consistent experience, I propose to *adopt a superset of both Obsidian’s Core Search syntax and Base filters, then extend it with Qlik-style expressive features .
Suggestion: To create a more powerful and consistent experience, I propose to *adopt a superset of both Obsidian’s Core Search syntax and Base filters, then extend it with Qlik-style expressive features .