#1

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create a new note.
  2. Right click on the file and choose “Show in system explorer”. Now you can see the directory the file is located in.
  3. Organize those two windows so you can see both at the same time.
  4. Start editing the name of the file.
    5.a) PROBLEM: No matter how much you edit it, it won’t ever be saved.
    5.b) BUG: Ctrl+S does not save the file either.

Interestingly the file is saved if I invoke the Ctrl+P Command Palette.

Why is this a problem?

I have a meta template/templater that applies an appropriate template depending on the name of the file. I have a Win+M hotkey set up for that. I would like to be able to have the workflow of:

  1. Create a new file
  2. Edit the name
  3. Apply the meta template (straight from the title editing field) and start working

With the already-linked-but-not-yet-created note the workflow would be even easier:

  1. Click on the link
  2. Press hotkey and start working

Possible solutions

With the humblest of attitudes, I offer my view on the possible solutions. Solutions are not in any particular order.

  1. Just save it with every change. I don’t know if this will have performance implications (especially if this file is already being linked to from multiple places and all the links have to be updated).
  2. Save it every X time and/or after every Y number of changes.
  3. Fix Ctrl+S to work.
  4. Save every time Obsidian loses focus (if I saw correctly, this is already done) and every time before ANY Obsidian hotkey gets executed.

3 + 4 are the real solutions, IMHO.

Environment

  • Operating system: Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon
  • Obsidian version: 0.12.15
#2

Saving at every change is bad idea.

Why don’t you just hit enter?

#3

ok. Don’t implement the worst suggestion of 4 I had. There are still 3 other suggestions, 2 of which are realistic.

The fact that Ctrl+S doesn’t work is a clear bug. I don’t understand why you chose to send my report into a bug graveyard, unless there is somebody who was able to report it first lately (I searched and I couldn’t find any).

Solution 4 should be part of the equation and would solve my issue and a bunch of other potential issues and would do it in such a way that a constant manual pressing of Ctrl+S wouldn’t even be needed (the saving hotkey bug should still be fixed).

Great software makes doing simple stuff easy and difficult stuff possible. Easy stuff should be a joy to do, not irritating with the extra hassle. It (creating a new file and applying a template) is one of the most frequent actions I do in Obsidian - all the extra unnecessary speedbumps would quickly make my life miserable.

That’s a peculiar question. I report a bug and instead of reporting it to the developers, I am given a more laborious work-around. If a text editing function would be broken, would you suggest I “just use another editor”? It’s not like I ask for extra functionality. I am only reporting a bug of a file not being saved and a manual saving hotkey not working.

For starters, that’s an extra 1 button press.

Unless I want to go back to the title editing, in which case it’s 2 extra presses.

Except when I go to the title field, it gets automatically selected and if I don’t want to delete everything at once, I need to move the cursor first. So if I want to edit from the beginning or from the end, it’s going to take 3 extra presses of different buttons (or combinations).

But if I want to edit somewhere in the middle, it may take over a dozen extra keypresses…

  • If anything, currently the easiest and most reliable way to invoke saving a file is to start the Command Palette and close it. It still would not be a solution/bug-fix, but a workaround.
  • Or I could program a custom AutoKey script that would do the appropriate saving, applying the template and going back in the title editing field actions with one keypress. Still wouldn’t make it anything else but a workaround.
#4

I am not sure I agree Ctrl-S is a bug. Clrl-S is a trigger to save the content of the note not the title of the note. Do you expect ctrl-s to work when you editing the title of the note in file explorer? Feel free to open a feature request about that.

Hitting enter (or tab) is not a workaround, it is the solution. I wrote it explicitly because you never mentioned it. I don’t quite grasp how much more work is hitting enter instead of ctrl-s, but anyway feel free to open the feature request.

Clicking anywhere else (you call it solution 4) already triggers a save action.