Dataviewjs that pulls random notes only from a subfolder

Help
1

What I’m trying to do

Hello, I would like to rewrite my dataviewjs script to pull only from a subfolder, not any notes from the main folder or other subfolders. I have this setup for inspirational quotes to randomly appear on my homepage and I thought I’d like to see art appear as well (on another page I’ll have in the sidebar). Here’s my current setup, with examples of the random output.

“Homepage” file has a custom callout that has an imaged Wikilink to the “Inspirational Quote” file which has a dataviewjs script that pulls random notes from my “Inspirational” folder, except the “Inspirational Quote” file itself, and now two subfolders (might be convoluted but works for me!).

ObsidianHPInspirationalQuoteExamples
ObsidianHPInspirationalQuoteExamples1812×968 158 KB

const notes = dv.pages('"Inspirational"').where(page => !page.file.path.includes('Inspirational/Art', 'Inspirational/Book Notes', 'Inspirational/Inspirational Quote'));
const randomNote = notes[Math.floor(Math.random() * notes.length)];
dv.span(`**![[${randomNote.file.name}]]**`);
dv.span(`[[${randomNote.file.name}|Source]]`);

I had written this script using AI, begrudgingly, because I don’t know Javascript well and Google is not what it used to be… (I think I referenced this forum at the time, too.) I still had to use multiple prompts from a couple AIs, and frankenstein the result to this (and look up how to use span since neither OpenAI nor DeepSeek gave that).

Things I have tried

Now I want to rewrite this script to pull only from the “Inspirational/Art” subfolder. I messed around the first line and I just can’t seem to do it myself, I don’t know where I’m going wrong to only get errors. And AI is no longer free to prompt over and over, and Google is still as frustrating as ever now.

Any help would be much appreciated!

2

Hey ShoulderMonster

I’m in the process of learning to pull a random note as well, and before i move to pure javascript in Templater instead of dataview (will share my method when done), let me share here a simple dataview implementation that may work for you :

­­(```dataview)
LIST quote 
FROM "Inspirational/Art"
FLATTEN hash(dateformat(date(today), "YYYY-MM-DD"), file.name, date(now).hour + date(now).minute + date(now).second) AS hash
SORT hash
LIMIT 1
(```)

In order to output more than one random note, you could either :

  • use LIMIT X where X is the number of random notes you want to see
  • or import this dataview more than once but make each hash variable unique, like hash1 and hash2 for example

Thanks to this forum post and this reddit post helped me with figuring this out.

3

Apologies for such the late response! I thank you for your time in helping me with this issue. :slight_smile:

I tried your script and it’s cool, I’ll keep it for use elsewhere, but it’s not what I’m currently looking for. I need a javascript dataview so images can display in the output.

4

Putting the folder path in the first line ought to do it:

const notes = dv.pages('"Inspirational/Art"');
const randomNote = notes[Math.floor(Math.random() * notes.length)];
dv.span(`**![[${randomNote.file.name}]]**`);
dv.span(`[[${randomNote.file.name}|Source]]`);

Nice layout by the way!

5

Deepest apologies for such a late reply. Life happened, then distractions, then more life, then my laptop charging port shorted on me so I couldn’t access my notes and certain accounts for a while, and I’m just now getting back with you on my Steam Deck :laughing:

I tried out your script and it does give a nice output! I’m thinking to clean up my original script with yours a bit. However, I think the problem is I didn’t have the right expectations for dataview outputs. I thought I could be lazy and somehow get it to display direct image files I dump in a folder anytime, but that’s looking like it’s not possible. So I will just have to create multiple notes that each link to one displayed image, then have the dataview pull those notes.

At least this approach will ensure I’m mindful of each curated inspirational image, and I could even add notes or other images under the main one for further appreciation.

Thank you for your assistance! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: :sparkles: