I think having frontmatter values in canvas files just as in the normal .md ones could be a really powerfull feature allowing us to combine our visual thinking with incredible plugins as Datawiew, Spaced Repetition or the core Search plugin.
As the quantity of .canvas files increases this need of metadata will become more evident just as in any actual Obsidian Workflow
Proposed solution
I wish it could exist a section in the side bar of the canvas plugin with an option to add metadata information
So much this - i really wonder why this isnt requested more often.
Once you start using this more and more, and the number of canvas-files keep growing, you quickly realize that linking to a canvas isnt enough.
Frontmatter is the best way to keep it in line with the rest of the workflows.
I wonder. These could possibly be combined. Because I imagine if this was implemented, the area where any tags or metadata would go would be the same area.
Since tags are just one specific frontmatter entry for metadata, I believe there has to be a frontmatter support for canvas first, before there even can be a tag support for canvas.
The Canvas files are JSON Files with data about nodes, edes and texts. Adding another key:object element should be straight forward. I guess the parsing the additional data (it is JSON and not the regular frontmatter stuff) is the effort here…
I think a good solution would be to have a “meta-data-card”, which should be found ONLY ONCE under the cogwheel-icon.
This special card should then accept YAML, inline:: or inline-tags…
Really want this feature so much…
I use a database (DB-Folder) to track all my files and they all come with a metadata-block…
So it would be damn cool to be able to put all that inside a canvas template aswell…
This is essential, or at the very least allow us to assign tags to the canvas files. There is pretty much no way to index these files. In my opinion, it’s a terrible idea (adoption-wise) to delay this feature any longer, we are roughly 8 months since release and still no way to categorize or fit well into existing workflows.
I use YAML data to create dashboards for my notes, but since Canvases are written with JSON formatting, no plug-in recognizes them. Therefore, Canvases tend to be “invisible” to my workflows.
Proposed solution
Either:
Enable Obsidian to recognize a YAML block within a Card in the Canvas,
Or create a YAML asset at the bottom (e.g. “Drag to add YAML block”) specifically for YAML to be entered & treated differently. There can be only 1 YAML block per Canvas to avoid any clashing.
Current workaround (optional)
I’m currently just adding YAML data directly to a Card in the Canvas, hoping that this feature will be added in the future and that I don’t need to go through all my Canvases in the future to add this information.
Related feature requests (optional)
Similar to all of the posts related to how tagging should work properly within Canvas.
I agree, please add Yaml support. It would also be nice if one could add/insert navigational links to elements on the canvas, in order to create a graphical dashboard.
+1 as well. A great way to make Obsidian’s core features like Properties and Tags feel more native, by having them visible in Canvas as well.
I was also surprised to find that Canvas files don’t automatically show up in Graph View– another case where one Obsidian native feature is not immediately visible with others. There seems to be some workaround by allowing Attachments to be visible in Graph View, but that is less than ideal, as attachments are a whole different ballgame and don’t have rich links in the same way as Canvas files do. So here’s to more integration between these different core plugins!
