#1

Things I have tried

What I’m trying to do

I am exploring how I might have different types of link between different types of note. This is probably asking a lot. For now I’d like to understand two things:

  1. Is it possible (say, using a template) to create different types of note (that can be seen as such by other notes)?
  2. How is the link between two notes stored within Obsidian? I use [[note]] to make a link, but unless I’m missing something the double brackets are not part of Markdown. Is there scope to have different types of link (say, pointing to a note type that represents person, or a place, etc.)?

Sorry if these are either dumb questions or obvious questions, but I’m new to both Obsidian and Markdown. Any guidance gratefully received.

Ian.

#2

I’m not sure what you mean by (1). Do you have an example?

Re: (2): no, Obsidian has no link types (except for maybe the difference between backlinks and outgoing links). It has been requested:

Add support for link types

And the Juggl plugin provides a different graph view which I think allows for additional link metadata. However, I don’t think Juggl’s information is stored within the notes at all. (I could be wrong.)

Juggl (Out now! 1.0.1): A completely interactive, stylable and expandable graph view plugin!

#3

At the moment (as far as I can see) a note contains information of no specified type. If I wanted to store a piece of information that represents a person with whom I want to collaborate, it would be nice to be able to specify that so that when I create a new Person note it has template slots for name properties (such as those in a schema.org or FOAF Person). It would then also be good to filter on Person notes so that I could see them all. You can probably see where I going with my question 2. If I can find all of my Person notes, it would be good to specify which of them “knows” other Persons (using something like the “knows” relation from schema.org or FOAF again.

#4

The app itself doesn’t have any knowledge of note metadata, but you can establish any kind of schema you want using a variety of plugins. For instance, the app recognizes YAML metadata. You can use templating, the QuickAdd plugin, and likely a variety of other options to add and edit metadata values like type or person. You can then use e.g., Dataview to query and filter these in lists and tables.

#5

Thanks very much. I think that gives me a lot to go on. As well as [[YAML metadata]] I noticed [[Using Obsidian URI]] which I think will be very useful.

I should really have said more up-front about what I am trying to do. In my business I build rdf-based information models and tagging taxonomies for my clients, using various bespoke tools for the purpose (GraphDB, VocBench and others). For a long time I’ve been interested in the idea of a more general purpose knowledge graph builder system that would allow me to have (at least to begin with) some basic information types that could map onto rdf classes, maybe from schema.org; CreativeWork, Project, Person, or Place. It would also allow me to make use of the relations that exist between those classes, thus having some built-in semantic links (e.g. Person knows Person, CreativeWork hasAuthor Person, etc.).

It feels like others must have trodden the same path, so I’d be keen to talk with anyone else who is interested in this (or indeed has done it!).

Clearly I have a lot to learn yet, but it feels like Obsidian could be the right place to do what I want, so I think I’ll dive back into the documentation. Thanks again for your help - much appreciated by this newcomer.

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#6

hello! another linked data person!

there is a plugin in the works that will allow tagging of notes with LCSH-SKOS and hopefully other vocabs of choice, but it’s not there yet!

I’ve thought a lot about how it would be neat to use schema.org for notes and the breadcrumbs plugin came out of me talking about that. that might be helpful as well. anyhow happy to talk more about this!

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#7

Hello @ianpiper ,

I’m also a ‘linked data’ guy. Not long ago I experimented using Obsidian as a Graph Builder. I believe that for some domains, it is ‘the way to go.’.

My first quick little experiment:

  1. Generate markdown files from each entity in a relational database.
  2. Visualize and edit them in Obsidian.
  3. Augment! Add the relations that did not exist before.
  4. Process the entire vault to Generate RDF

There are some difficulties, though; there is no consensus on how to specify relation types (‘predicate’ in RDF). And it’s challenging to come up with one that does not break the ‘writing flow.’

I love experimenting with this; I think there is room to build new markdown-based tools specialized in graph authoring.

Do you have specific use cases/domains?

#8

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