#1

Things I have tried

Lots of web searching and experimenting with BBEdit

What I’m trying to do

I’m seeking a way to make batch changes within the YAML header. Mostly adding and removing tags. But I wouldn’t want to affect anything outside the header.

I’m thinking this is beyond the power of regex. You need to select the text between the two “—” and then do a find/replace within that selection. It seems like some app would have to drive this–and be able to do it for all files in a folder.

I thought there might be a community plug-in for managing YAML, but found nothing. Is this a weird idea? Seems like a lot of Obsidian users would want some kind of YAML manager.

Or is there a much easier way to do this that I just haven’t figured out. I’m an artist, not a developer. :wink:

Thanks!

#3

You can use the metaedit plugin.
I made a script where it updates the frontmatter and “completes” a habit by adding a “:heavy_check_mark:” emoji. The script takes a completed “true” and “false” argument: it removes this “:heavy_check_mark:” emoji from the frontmatter. I create 2 templater notes so I can tie those to a button from the buttons plugin.

Perhaps my code can help you out for your project:

Frontmatter in my daily note:

---
habits:
  - uhive::
---

Templater notes

Change Metadata Uhive

<% tp.user.change_metadata(tp,app,"uhive",true) %>

Remove Metadata Uhive

<% tp.user.change_metadata(tp,app,"uhive",false) %>

Templater script file

change_metadata.js

async function my_function (tp,app,habit,completed) {
    const filetitle = tp.file.title
    const file = tp.file.find_tfile(filetitle) 
    const {update} = app.plugins.plugins["metaedit"].api
    if(completed == true) {
        completed = "✔️"
    } else if (completed == false) {
        completed = " "
    }
    await update("  - "+habit,completed,file)
    console.log("Finished")
}
module.exports = my_function

Optional: button configuration from buttons plugin

Change metadata:

```button
name Uhive
type command
action Templater: Insert Obsidian Vault/Templates/Templater/Metadata/Change Metadata Uhive.md
color blue
class button
\```
^button-uhive

Remove metadata:

```button
name Pinterest
type command
action Templater: Insert Obsidian Vault/Templates/Templater/Metadata/Remove Metadata Uhive.md
color blue
class button
\```
^button-rmuhive

Swap button which swaps between both buttons up here

```button
name Uhive
swap [uhive,rmuhive]
color blue
class button
\```
^button-swapuhive

Now you can use button-swapuhive in your daily notes and the button will update + remove the “:heavy_check_mark:” emoji when clicked.

Optional: Display the metadata beneath the inline button we just created in a table

This is a code block for the dataview plugin

```dataview
table without id
date.day as "Day",
habits[0]["uhive:"] as "Uhive"
from #daily and -"Template"
where date = date(2022-03-14)
sort date
\```

Sorry if I went overboard with this, my script goes even deeper than that, but I guess this might already be overwhelming.

Conditional linking? Or separate linking tags?
#4

Thanks for the generous and comprehensive reply. I’ll check it out…

Regards,
Russell

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