Edit transcluded (embedded) notes (blocks) in place (likely requires WYSWYG first)

I tried it out and it is really neat, I think I’ll keep it around. However, @coreyti’s workflow, while a good workaround, is not exactly the same as editing the transcluded notes in place. While you indeed don’t switch over to the other page in the top-level working note, you’re still making edits outside of that space and in the small hover editor. This is fine for small edits, but ideally, I’d like to be able to click or keyboard down (vim) into the actual transcluded block and have the block itself be editable, not just open an editable popup of the actual page that eventually updates the transclusion.

So I am of the opinion that the FR has not been completely fulfilled, though this is an excellent step towards it.

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@ryanwwest you stated:

you’re still making edits outside of that space and in the small hover editor. This is fine for small edits

In the top right corner of the hover pop-up there is an icon to enlarge it to normal pane size so you can edit the note to your heart’s delight.

True, you can enlarge the hover editor which is definitely helpful. I would still ultimately prefer to not have to open any hovering window in the first place, regardless of its size, but just edit the actual transcluded block. I agree that this is a huge step towards the goal.

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sorry for accidental delete above

The hover editor is an awesome solution for this request for now, and for many other cases outside of this feature request. Great work there!

But I strongly disagree that we should close the feature request over this.

The hover editor is a feature-rich pop-up version of opening up a document in a new pane, but it is not a replacement for allowing us to edit translations in place. For an example, imagine you are transcluding a single section or heading from a large document. The transclusion may be a 250 word paragraph, whereas the document itself may be 5,000 words+. The hover editor would show you the 5,000 words. This has a massive impact on the user experience!

Here’s an example: My use case is to have Daily Notes (daily notes) which are transcluded from a Weekly Note. Right now, this feature request would unlock so much potential for my workflow. It would allow me to focus on the “day”", but any changes get reflected in my broader plans when I need them… rather than needing to jump between all of these daily notes (in pop-up editors, or otherwise).

I’m still keen on this feature request, and I know many others coming from other tools that are keen on this as well.

I can also imagine 100 other use cases where this feature would add value. I think we’re getting very close to it as well, which is exciting.

Just adding my 2 cents.

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@Jerry999 I agree with your argument, so in my 2 comments I have now removed references that mention closing the FR.

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It’s the spirited debates between users that make these products awesome <3

Just want to chime in and say this feature would be a huge value add. I really hope it makes it into development.

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I also want to chime in say this would be very helpful. As a recent switcher from Roam to Obsidian (my employer will not allow Roam or Logseq), it is the feature I miss most. It’s also the feature that I was specifically looking for when I first found Roam. Here’s how I use it:

  • Each day I open a daily note.
  • Each meeting that I am in gets a note that header with a back link to the project or feature I am working on.
  • Notes from that meeting are indented below the header.
  • Anything I then write shows in the daily note and on that projects page.
  • I can edit the text in either place.

I recognize Obsidian has a different model, and I am working to learn it and work with that model. I am aware there may be community plugins that solve this, but my work will not allow me to install any community plugins for security reasons. I am also aware that I can use the note composer plugin, but needing to go back to the note and extract and transclude manually adds a lot of friction, as does the need to click through the the linked note to edit.

I greatly appreciate all the work the developers and community have put in to making Obsidian such a great tool. If this feature does not appear I will learn to adapt, but all the same I am keeping my fingers crossed.

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Are there indeed third party plugins to do this? At least until the devs are able to do it (fingers crossed)

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Just curious (or nosy). Why would your employer ban Roam, or especially, Logseq (open source and 100% offline), but allow Obsidian?

Hover editor works well enough for me for quick edits.

I would love to see this functionality. Just adding my upvote!

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+1 vote

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+1 needed feature

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I was just checking on this thread (as I do from time to time) to make sure I hadn’t missed any developments, and I am posting to try to keep some momentum going.

One thing I would note: I am a former Obsidian active user, current Logseq user. Overall the user experience of Obsidian is probably richer but this is the one feature that is keeping me with Logseq over Obsidian.

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Now that Live Preview is already up, I hope this can be worked on.

Editable embeds can be a huge timesaver.

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I’m adding my upvote on this. Would really love to see this feature.

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Checking in on this topic again to see if there is any movement on this feature.

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I also would like to upvote this.

I have the Todo section of my daily notes transcluded in my weekly note.

This feature would allow me to easily move todos from the Todo section of one daily note to another using alt+up/down, all from within my weekly note.

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Upvoting as well!

In my opinion, this is an absolutely essential feature. Philosophically, transclusions exist for the cases when the data belongs equally well to more than one place. Yes, there are other cases perhaps where you simply want to showcase data, but in many many others, the goal is for the data to actually LIVE in more than one place. In order for it to really work, it should be virtually transparent that it is an embed rather than just a part of the note, and for that to happen, of course, it has to be editable.

Yes, you can get something approaching the same effect with the Hover Editor plug-in (which is awesome), but there are two issues with that solution.

First of all, it says right in the readme that Hover Editor is forced to use features outside of those officially supported by the API, which means that it’s going to be really hard to maintain, and probably won’t last forever for that reason. That’s because when a plugin has to rely on features outside of those in the API, they can be, and often are, broken or removed later by the Obsidian devs (because they aren’t officially supported), which breaks the plugin.

But second of all, and more importantly, while that plugin is great it hardly mimics the effect of real transclusions (editable embeds) that exist in many other note apps. The practical difference may not be massive, but the impact on UI and user focus is very significant. When I use an embed I intend for the information to LIVE in both places. I don’t want to see a difference. When I do, it pulls me out of the moment and, worse, makes me miss Roam ;).

Anyway, I hope that all makes sense. If others prefer embeds to not be editable I think it would be perfectly reasonable to make it an option, either globally or per-embed, for it to be view only, but for me I would LOVE for them all to be editable.

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When you open the Hover Editor now it opens at exactly the paragraph that you have transcluded in another note.

If the HE is opened in Reading mode, and you change it to editing mode, then it jumps back to the top of the note and you have to potentially scroll through those 5000+ words to get to the relevant, transcluded paragraph.

If, however, you set HE to open in editing mode, then you can start your amendments in that relevant paragraph because that is where you land.

I have set HE to always open in editing mode and can happily and efficiently make modifications without disrupting my workflow.

That’s a false argument because you don’t use the HE to amend features, you use it to amend your own note’s text, and that will not be affected by whatever future API changes.

Why would you see a difference? If you make an amendment in the source note, it will show up in all the trannsclusions.

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