Command Line Interface to open files/folders in Obsidian from the terminal

[piascikj]

Love this feature! Any thoughts about adding a line param to the interface? I like being able to jump to the specific spot I leave an imdone card.

[Philipp]

Is it possible to open files from imdone in obsidian now? If yes cann somebody share a screenshot of the configuration pleas

[piascikj]

Yes, download version 1.8.2.

[esm90]

Now that Obsidian 0.11.0 adds custom URI actions, here’s a simple plugin that adds an open-with-line URI, which opens a file (in the current vault and relative to it) with a line number parameter.
That’s a feature that I needed for a long time, so here it is in case others find it useful.

import { App, Plugin, ObsidianProtocolData, MarkdownView } from 'obsidian';

const actionName = 'open-with-line';

export default class SuperUriPlugin extends Plugin {
	onload() {
		this.registerObsidianProtocolHandler(actionName, (params: ObsidianProtocolData) => {
			if (params.action == actionName) {
				if (params.file) {
					this.app.workspace.openLinkText('', params.file).then(() => {
						var cmEditor = this.getEditor();
						if (params.line) {
							cmEditor.setCursor(parseInt(params.line), 0);
						}
						cmEditor.focus();
					});
				} else {
					console.log('No path specified for open-with-line')
				}
			}
		})
	}

	onunload() {
	}

	getEditor() {
		var view = this.app.workspace.activeLeaf.view;
		if (view.getViewType() == 'markdown') {
			var markdownView = view as MarkdownView;
			var cmEditor = markdownView.sourceMode.cmEditor;
			return cmEditor;
		}
		return null;
	}
}

[dsteinbock]

Is it fair to say this feature request has now been implemented? Or is there more to it?

[raytracer]

The current implementation works for me. (I use the CLI daily to open files from KeyPirinha.)

[raytracer]

@ mrjackphil

FYI I’ve setup Keypirinha to index my Obsidian vault. Each individual .md file is added to the Keypirinha index. (Letting me open files by name from Keypirinha.)

I used the files catalogue plugin:

[profile/Obsidian]
activate = yes
include_files = yes
include_dirs = no
paths = 
    D:\Obsidian\MyVault\*
file_item_label = Obsidian: {title}
python_callback = obsidian_callback

Add the obsidian _callback function is defined as:

# \Keypirinha\portable\Profile\Packages\FilesCatalog\filescatalog_user_callbacks.py

import keypirinha as kp
import os

def obsidian_callback(entry, profile, plugin):
  """
  *entry* is a `_globex.GlobExEntry` object, which is an improved version of
  `os.DirEntry`.

  *profile* is a `namedtuple` defined in :file:`filescatalog.py` as
  ``ScanProfile``.

  *plugin* is the `FilesCatalog` plugin object itself.
  """

  if not profile.include_hidden and entry.is_hidden():
      return None
  if not profile.include_dirs and entry.is_dir():
      return None
  if not profile.include_files and not entry.is_dir():
      return None

  include = profile.filters_default
  for filter in profile.filters:
      if filter.match(entry):
          include = filter.inclusive
          break
  if not include:
      return None

  if entry.is_dir():
      item_label_tmpl = profile.dir_item_label
      item_desc_tmpl = profile.dir_item_desc
  else:
      item_label_tmpl = profile.file_item_label
      item_desc_tmpl = profile.file_item_desc

  formatter = _LazyItemLabelFormatter(entry, profile, plugin)
  item_label = formatter.format(item_label_tmpl, fallback=entry.name)
  item_desc = formatter.format(item_desc_tmpl, fallback="")

  note_name = f'{entry.path}'.split('\\')[-1]
  vault = f'{entry.path}'.split('\\')[-2]

  return plugin.create_item(
      category=kp.ItemCategory.URL,
      label=item_label,
      short_desc=f'obsidian://vault/{vault}/{note_name}',
      target=f'obsidian://vault/{vault}/{note_name}',
      args_hint=kp.ItemArgsHint.ACCEPTED,
      hit_hint=kp.ItemHitHint.KEEPALL)

[pjeby]

Chiming in with another use case here; I’ve been finding that I much prefer to use Windows’ two-pane-plus-preview file explorer over Obsidian’s single pane explorer, but it’s not really possible to open the files in Obsidian by just adding Obsidian as a markdown-supporting Windows app.

I could probably whip up a script and then add stuff to the Windows registry to do it (and probably will), but it would be nice if Obsidian.exe windows-filename-here just worked to detect the vault and note.

As it is, it’s currently necessary to split the file name into vault and file and then use an obsidian://open URL. But at least that can be done by searching upward for an .obsidian directory… though I’m not sure that will give you a definitive vault name. It appears that obsidian.json under AppData/Roaming/obsidian (on Windows) gives the vault paths and their IDs, and that obsdian URLs support specifying a vault by ID, so that would be a viable approach to generating a URL.

But since all that is pretty fragile and has to be duplicated for each platform as an external tool, it would be nice if Obsidian just supported the “open from native file manager” use case to start with.

[argentum]

@pjeby linking another relevant thread for this particular use case: Open and edit standalone Markdown files

[mrjackphil]

Just want to say what you are awesome. I have a quick switcher from Obsidian even when Obsidian is closed now!

[asico]

Awesome, thank you so much!

[vkoivula]

What I would like is to use Obsidian from cmd line as I use for example VSCode or Sublime Text.

I am not sure of all of the use cases in here. But what I would like that obsidian works from cmd line just as any regular editor.

Opening the vault

This opens the vault in that path (if not already open) and closes the current vault.
obsidian myvault

This would open vault in new window.
obsidian -n myvault

Of course if you prefer the above behaviour could be flipped. So then you would specifically need to ask to open the new vault into the current window.

Opening individual files in the vault

Open specific file in that vault in current active pane
If vault is not already open, then also open the vault myvault
obsidian myvault/file.md

Opens file in new pane (so same as cmd+click on obsidian)
obsidian -np myvault/file.md

I guess we could have also possibility to open file in any current pane
with using a number to refer it
1 = first pane from left, 2 = second pane from left, 3 = third pane from left and so on
So this would open it in 2nd pane from the left.
obsidian -p 2 myvault/file.md

Summary

I would just recommend looking how code and subl commands work and improve from my suggested approach from that point of view.

What do you think? Can some of this actually already implemented?

I know Obsidian itself can be opened in macOS with
open -a 'Obsidian'

[truth]

Just in case its not entirely obvious, if you are in windows and you want a command line option for opening to a vault or a file, you can of course just build a batch file to do it for you.

Thus the command line is simply (with %20 being where spaces are):

start  obsidian://open?vault=My%20Dev%20Vault

For instance, here is a autobuilder batch file in plugin development to automatically launch obsidian and then select a plugin to build and then starts a build watch. See obsidian-z2k-utils/AutoBuilder.bat at main · z2k-gwp/obsidian-z2k-utils · GitHub for how it is done. Note: if you put it in a batch file, you’ll need to double up the %% for any %20 used for spaces.

[cocoonkid]

What vkoivula said has my full support. This is a really important “core-feature” that will hopefully be added asap.

I can easily use tdrop on linux with

tdrop -A -am -w -10 -y 100 -h 1000 xdg-open 'obsidian://open?vault=vaultname'

But this doesn’t hide it again when it is focused like it does with all other apps and my terminal

Currently working around it with a “hide window” hotkey but not really efficient

So please let this be true one day.

This opens the vault in that path (if not already open/hides if open) and closes the current vault.
`obsidian myvault`

This would open vault in new window.
`obsidian -n myvault`