Help with properties - they are not working in my template connected w/zotero

[Rosi9293]

Hi, I’m not very good at programming (a historian here, so, I’m sorry if this is an obvious answer). I have been working with this template to synthesize my notes on books, articles, etc. I am using a plugin, the @citekey that links the data from Zotero to Obsidian. Since Obsidian introduced properties, these appear now like this: with an interrogation sign and I cannot edit them.

What I’m trying to do

I am trying to correct this without deleting all my previous notes, thank you!

Things I have tried

I already updated all versions.
I also checked again my template on “literature notes,” this is what it looks like:

Reference

title: {{title}}
authors: {{authorString}}
type: {{type}}
year: {{year}}
pages: {{page}}
place: {{publisherPlace}}
publisher: {{publisher}}
citekey: {{citekey}}
URL: {{URL}}
link: {{zoteroSelectURI}}

---

status: #
links:

---

keywords:

Abstract

Intervention in the field

Criticism

Historiography and Sources

Source notes

Analysis - Permanent notes

Other references to explore

[Yurcee]

Nothing seems wrong with the template.
Only that you have Editor > Properties in document > Visible set.
Set it to Hidden or if you want the currently set (Visible), change to Source Mode and you will see that the template is correctly set with the properties:

title: {{title}}
authors: {{authorString}}
type: {{type}}
year: {{year}}
pages: {{page}}
place: {{publisherPlace}}
publisher: {{publisher}}
citekey: {{citekey}}
URL: {{URL}}
link: {{zoteroSelectURI}}

By “correctly” I mean nothing seems wrong with the YAML block syntax-wise. I cannot say from here that this template should or would work.

So I’d recommend using it again to find out what it does and well enough or not…
The cosmetic problem can be ignored is what I’m saying.

[Rosi9293]

Thank you very much for your response! So, the problem is beyond cosmetic, because every time I want to create a new note based on this kind of template (“literature note”), I cannot edit the content of the property. Does it make sense what I just said? It is difficult to explain, sorry.

So, now I used it in source mode and I was able to edit the properties, and then I turned it again into “visible” and it looks like this. This might be a temporal solution but it seems to add more work (to change into “source”).

Maybe this new version of properties is not compatible with Templater? I’m watching Youtube videos to see if I can find a solution to this one. Thank you anyways!

[Yurcee]

The template is not supposed to be modified but called. You’d need to revisit the plugin docs and the actual workflow. Properties were introduced more than a year ago. Is it possible you didn’t use this workflow for more than a year?

@Rosi9293

I am using a plugin, the @citekey

What plugin is this? Citation? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with it.
I am using the Zotero Integration/Connector, which is mentioned in many threads on this forum too.
Although you mentioned literature notes. Are you then calling it with Templater? I don’t see how you would populate the property values then. You must be using some plugin.

And again, let me remind you that templates are templates, they are doing something and not supposed to be looked at with properties visible as they look broken and messy while in fact they do work.

[Rosi9293]

Yes, indeed. I’m using Citation plugin. I think I managed to fix it by modifying the template and now the properties work!
Thank you!