How to (auto) create a MOC of all base files including their views?

Lise · August 19, 2025, 7:36pm

What I’m trying to do

I’m trying to create an Index page (MOC/TOC) that includes links to all of my bases, including their views. Something like:

Contacts.base

friends & family

social media

business

I would like it to update automatically.

Things I have tried

manually embed:

[[Contact Base.base]]
 - [[Contact Base.base#Friends and Family]]
 - [[Contact Base.base#social media]]
 - [[Contact Base.base#Business Contacts]]

works, but I need something automatic that updates.

search/query

I can get search/query results for the main base name but not views:
path: .base → main base file
file: .base# → no results
`file: Contact base.base#Business → no results

Which leads to a 2nd question:

How to search for a view under a base?

For example, how can I search for my “social media” view in general, especially if I don’t know which base it is in?

szdavid · August 20, 2025, 12:14pm

Hi
Sorry not an answer but just a thank you as at least it gave me the idea of create a base of my bases,.I think it could be helpful

jcbriscoe · August 20, 2025, 12:28pm

I have a similar question.

Like many of you have, I have MOCs. I’d like to make a base that tracks my MOCs.

For example, I have a MOC “Moral Formation.” Within that MOC, I have headings, e.g., “Habits,” “Relational Understanding,” etc. Under those headings, I have sub-headings which are actually their own sub-MOCs, e.g., under “Habits,” I have “Good Habits.” Within “Good Habits” I have the atomic notes related to that area.

I’ve tried tinkering around with bases in the ways you’ve described but haven’t gotten what I want yet. I’d like a base where I can see, at a glance, notes within an MOC and what heading and sub-MOC they belong to. I’m imagining a table in which I see, across columns, note title, MOC, sub-MOC.

I’ve tried nested tags, but the tags can get quite long and the text doesn’t wrap, e.g., “Moral Formation/Habits/Good Habits.” Furthermore you can’t have multiple tag columns (or multiple columns of any single property).

I’ve tried making a separate list property for MOC, and then another for sub-MOC, but there’s no way to link up a sub-MOC list element with a particular MOC list element, e.g., the system can’t tell that “Good Habits” sub-MOC belongs within “Habits” heading MOC and both those within “Moral Formation” MOC. Base filters also can’t detect nested elements, e.g., within a property list element, filter “Habits” from “Moral Formation/Habits.”

Abhuva · August 20, 2025, 1:05pm

Unlike Dataview, Bases only works on the frontmatter / properties / yaml data.
It is not searching or indexing the content of notes.

In regards to your MOC´s - if you, for example have tagged all those notes with something like moc - its easy to filter for them with bases.
If you need more granularity, utilize properties. Like make a property called “topic” (or whatever else fits your needs) in those notes that specifies wich “subsection” this belongs to.
So, if you have a large amount of moc notes, its easier to filter them more narrowly.

But if you really need to utilize the content of these notes, then Bases is just the wrong tool for it.

jcbriscoe · August 20, 2025, 3:56pm

Thanks for the reply. I’m willing to pull the sub-sections into the properties if bases will do what I need using properties.

I have multiple MOCs - e.g., Leadership MOC, Moral Formation MOC, etc. I could make tags for each of these.

However, if I made a tag “MoralFormationMOC,” and then a “Topic” property, I run into two problems:

If I make the topic a “list” property, it doesn’t recognize nested lists. So, for example, “Habits/GoodHabits.” Bases won’t filter onto “Good Habits” as far as I can tell. I’ve tried tinkering with the filters and I haven’t found a way, but it would be great if there was. I thought the filter “contains any” would distinguish between “Habits/GoodHabits” and “Good Habits,” but that’s not the case.
Bases doesn’t detect that “Habits” is a sub-set of “MoralFormationMOC.” This is important when a sub-section belongs to multiple MOCs (e.g., “Virtue” is relevant both to LeadershipMOC and MoralFormationMOC, and I want it nested under both). This all works the way I have my notes linked, but it would be handy to visualize it in bases: a column listing the MOCs, and the next column showing the sub-sections of those MOCs (as defined in some property/frontmatter).

If I make multiple items in the list property, e.g., “Habits” and then “Good Habits,” so that I can filter onto “Good Habits,” there’s no way to distinguish that “Good Habits” should be nested under “Habits.”