This is impressive @cristian
To be honest I’ve only ever imagined having a dedicated button or typing in some command into the note to activate a python script and paste its output.
I see the python script as a function. It could either paste onto the page or possibly create a new note with the output.
The biggest pain point for me right now is an activation that uses the current note I’m working on as the source input without having to pull up terminal/VS code, drag the file path, run the script and study its output.
What would be cool is if you could have a place for scripts, link to them from the settings page and then assign a way of activating them. Go to the note I want to be the focus, hit an activation command and it automatically passes the contents of the note/file path of the note to the script and prints its output in the file.
What I’m aiming for is one script that could easily be debugged in a terminal but is instantly productionalisable within obsidian.
I’ve been very silent lately (because work ), but I wanted to drop by and say this is discussion is looking really promising.
This was the hardest, when using Alfred. My workaround was to have the action paste a unique random string into the note and then run a shell find command with it as the input.
This would be awesome. I have another Alfred Workflow with a bunch of “text factories” that are basically recipes for sequential regex replacements, and I use them in a similar way: select text, type shortcut, select recipe from list, run recipe.
Doing part of the heavy lifting and having a better integration with Obsidian (i.e. without resorting to external apps) would be huge for me.
Again, I may be in radio silence, but I wanted to show my support and throw in my two cents.
I would like that using and sharing scripts with others is easy, just cloning a github repo. Perhaps the plugin could just detect different directories with scripts and add them as options.
I wonder how an interface to this would look like, how to sync etc. I can work a little on this in the weekend
Annoyingly I don’t think there is anything similar available we could use as a reference.
But as I find myself using python scripts more and more the value is only growing for me and I’m thinking of new ways it could be employed.
For example, as I generate lists of related notes I would like to create indexes from the tags associated with them or be easily able to jump from one related note to the next easily.
I could actually have a go at this starting with some user stories and possibly some mockups.
So I had a first pass at what the behaviour for such a plugin could be with some user stories.
Let me know what you think.
Obsidian Python Plugin User Stories
MVP
Python script using a single note
As a user
When i’m working on a note
I want to be able to run python scripts that will use that note as input
So that I see and potentially paste the output based on the title, text and metadata of that note
Passing variables to Python script
As a user
I would like the following variables passed to an activated python script while working on a note: filename, filepath, contents of the note, date created, date modified
So that I can easily use these variables in my script
Python script output
As a user
After I run a python script and get an output
I would like the output to be pasted into my active note
So that I can easily see the output or enhance my current active note
Python script management
As a user
I want to be able to add or remove python scripts used in my Obsidian vault
So that I can easily manage which scripts are available to use
Python script activation
As a user
I want to be able to trigger a python script using a keyword shortcut or button while working on an active note
So that I can easily see or paste the output of the python script without having the leave my note
V1
Select Python Version
As a user
I would like to configure which python version installed on my machine my script will use
So that I can easily experiment in the same environment using terminal or VSCode without having to use Obsidian all the time
Custom variables for Python Script
As a user
I would like to be able to pass custom variables to a script when it is run
So that I can change how I want my script to behave e.g. showDetails=False
The “recipes” folder contains all the rule sets that I’ve used so far. Some are from my time with Bear, but may retain some usefulness. Others are more specific and experimental. You can create or delete as many recipes as you want. They’re simply .txt files.
Each recipe is a set of “find and replace” pairs that use regex.
Inside recipes, each line is a transformation, with the first half being the “find” expression, a separator string (-> surrounded by a space on each side) and then the “replace” expression.
Some expressions are commented (comments are whatever you write between a # and the end of the line). This feature was work in progress and may need to be redone or removed.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
I really like how this automatically pulls an index from a list of scripts which is then easily run.
I can see why something of python scripts could be so useful
I had not considered these options actually.
The ability to specify in the plugin how you would like the output to be applied could be really interesting.
For the MVP I thought just appending the text at cursor point would be a good start.
But I especially like:
Replace the whole text ← Would like to head a use case for this one
Replace only the text that was selected upon running the script ← this could be really cool, not sure this could be expanded to only sending the selected text to the script as input
Inputs:
- The script id (mandatory).
- The vault path (mandatory).
- The active note name (optional).
- The current text selection (optional).
- The frontmatter data (optional. Contains date modified, tags etc).
Output options:
- A list → GUI:[Appears in a pane, as a clickable menu].
- An object → GUI:[Output to be shown in pane].
- A text → GUI:[Output to be pasted into my active note].
And an operation to ‘reindex’.
After experimenting a little with my scripts with the POC, I’m not so happy :/. I think I’ll try an implementation with a little HTTP-service to see how it goes.
Sorry for the delay.
I downloaded this and played with it a few days ago.
This is quite ingenious.
I had never considered running the python script on flask and invoking it via a localhost.
You have certainly given me more to think about.
It’s great to get a proof of concept up and running but is a bit of setup work.
I wonder if @trashhalo suggested Pyodide could ease the process.
Equally, I had not considered the side panel as a source of output - so many more possibilities.
In response to your points:
I agree with all these
Again, agree with all these.
Specifically of interest in a text to me.
I want to experiment more with this but a source of potential inspiration could be the plugin Templater especially if we are planning to use Flask and localhost to invoke scripts.
Looking at what you have now I guess the closest thing would be a nice visual interface to set the configurations of new endpoints.
But I would say this is “a nice to have” rather than essential.
I feel like this covers most of the requirements I had in mind.
Working on instructions to make it even easier for people to setup could be handy, but you have already done a pretty great job here.
Some things stood out:
Probably should rename the random.py name because it causes issues with using ‘import random’
Some of my scripts can be a bit process heavy and take some time. It could be cool to show some kind of loading indicator within obsidian.
something like:
As a user
When I run a script
While it’s running I would some indication it’s being processed
So that I know its running in the background
This could be achieved by pasting some text in the note e.g. “Processing” which is then replaced or removed when the task is completed.
I’m going to play with this more but i’m just so impressed by what you have done so far.
I’m trying to think how we get this plugin out to a bigger audience.
What is misses for me is the ability to cluster notes (that was my initial motivation), but I still don’t know how to interact with the graph… (probably that’s for another thread)
Thanks!, will look at that
I bet the scripts take most of the time while reading the all notes. Perhaps having different phases, to ‘index’ (few times) and ‘execute’ (many times) can diminish the latency greatly.
I think that having a set of exciting scripts could attract people
I feel topic modelling can help here.
I think it would be interesting to have like 15 main topics for all my notes and create a structured note for each topic with a list of the documents within it
Fair, but even with optimisation it would be nice to have some kind of indicator to show the script is running rather than checking the terminal
Also very true.
So next step?
Create a directory of example python scripts people can use with your awesome plugin
), but I wanted to drop by and say this is discussion is looking really promising.
