Expander: Search and include list of notes

Are there any users of Text Expand plugin? I researched obsidian plugins and found a lot of plugins which do the same or almost the same thing.

Data-view plugin as an example which does the similar job.

So the question is - should we have a Text Expand at all? I’m still getting GitHub issues from people. I’m going to fix as much as I can when I’ll be able.

So people using it but I’m not sure why they choosing Text Expand over other solutions?

It sounds like I want to abandon the project but that’s not the reason. I want to find out what the main purpose of the plugin for users and focus on that. Or remove it from Obsidian Plugin and help others to improve solutions which does similar job or better.

2 Likes

I think the Text Expand and Dataview still have unique offering. For me, i would still like to keep Text Expand.
Dataview is a great tool for seeing the overall picture, but it only work with preview and process YAML attributes.
While Text Expand return notes with search term in the note itself.
Furthermore, I think Text Expander would be very powerful if Obisidian return heading/block if it does get implemented (Copy Search Results: Add line/block/section function)

3 Likes

I’m using it. It is very useful to display files & lines to create MOCs. Don’t stop the plugin! Thanks! :grin:

5 Likes

Storing results as opposed to searching them in real time at every search is the appeal to me, as well as using Obsidians own query language.
But I don’t use any plugins yet, because I’m looking for a stable one to restructure my notes (creating automatic indices) around its feature set. Expander lacks convenience for me to jump ship just yet. Looking forward to any future developments in this or any other plugin.

1 Like

Just added “Expand all” functionality which should expand all blocks in the file. One after another.

@Jeffurry I saw your post here.

Can I help you with the Expand plugin?

Thanks @mrjackphil - your generous offer prompted me to have another go - and I managed to get a result! If I run into difficulties integrating the result into my workflow, I may take advantage of you later - if that is OK.
Cheers

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Sure. Ping me if you need any help. Here or in Discord.

Added ability to extract the headings


and blocks

Also, it will not open or toggle tabs on the left panel

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It looks really interesting :slight_smile:

Isn’t it on the community plugin directory yet ?

Its on the community plugin directory:
image

Does your plugin support any boolean functions in the query? I’m trying this but it doesn’t return any results. If I remove AND “Conan the Barbarian (1970)” it works fine.

```expander
	tag:#comic/issue AND "Conan the Barbarian (1970)"
```

@Spidrax It uses the Obsidian Search functionality for this.

So all those functionality available:
https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Search

1 Like

0.9.0 Update

  • Auto expand the feature. Automatically expands all queries on the page when opening a file
  • Ability to include a current note in search results (I suggest increase delay, because search functionality can use cache and will duplicate results)
  • $match template sequence which returns a matched text (helpful when use regexp)
  • $match:header template sequence which returns a link to the closest header which have the matched text
  • $header now return links and not the content of headings
  • Add sequence list in settings
3 Likes

Yes, I have installed it today and I love it! Please don’t leave it :blush:

This plugin is exactly what I am looking for to build my Obsidian recipe “database” . I might need some help constructing the right way of searching for things (in the future), but that is mainly because I am relatively new to Obsidian itself.

1 Like

Does $match support several matches, or only one?

I’d like to extract - via regex - several dataview properties with Expander

(why? because I want the “hard-coded” content, real links that update, not the preview-only dataview)

Wonderful plugin! Can I make a feature request? :grin:

I just created a few expander searches and then realized afterward that they were all out of order. Well, they are probably sorted by creation time or update time, but what would be amazing would be to have the option of sorting by daily note tags.

Example:

  • I have several journal entries/blog posts/whatever that all contain links like [[2021-09-21]] on the first line. Can Expander detect those and sort the results accordingly?

… after writing this I’m realizing that this is probably a feature request for Obsidian search, not for Expander.

I actually can’t remember the reason why I did that. I can return it as an extension for the $heading sequence.

I think the idea was about using transclusion to reduce text duplication.

I had an idea of the separate plugin which gets the content of all transclusion and return one markdown file.

There is even a prototype called copy to markdown but there is no functionality what you need, currently.

It makes sense, thanks. I would glad to return that functionality. It’s all about the time. I hope I’ll find some to improve the plugin.