Hi All
I have been using Obsidian for some months now, and have a question in regards to finding notes again.
I have setup my Vault in a Zettlekast sense, meaning I wanted to avoid the classical folder structure that we probably all know.
In that sense I created an overall structure
00 - Quick Notes (Everything is scratched down here)
01 - Projects (Notes for specific projects that are not completed)
02 - Archive (Completed notes)
03 - Resources (All resources that support a note goes here)
04 - Templates
05 - Tags (Contain two notes that display used tags)
99 - Backlinks (⌠Not sure what to call this, it contains for example the explanation of what a Reward is, overall very generalised notes).
All my notes contain tags in a footer such as
T_Security, T_Network, C_Cooking, C_Book
And I can view my unique tags using dataview (plugin).
TABLE WITHOUT ID length(rows) as "Tag count", join(rows.unique, ", ") as "Unique tags"
WHERE file.etags
FLATTEN file.etags as tag
GROUP BY tag
WHERE contains(tag, "#T_")
WHERE !contains(tag, "#T_ex")
FLATTEN rows.tag[0] as unique
GROUP BY true
Or I can use a query and search for a specific tag, but is this really the best way?
How do you find specific notes again as your vault grows to 100âs or 1.000âs of notes?
Please note, as much as possible I avoid community plugins.
I have a minimal but growing amount of folders that divide up my vault. If I have some larger, completely different area, I may be tempted to offload it to a separate vault (especially if it entails large tables that are difficult to index).
In the meantime, Iâve taken to create Area Dashboards, where there is a button to create notes for that area or space and a dataview(js) table that lists formerly added notes belonging to that space or area (depending how one wants to call it).
I brought up the term âspaceâ because in the publicly available demo vault, SoRobby calls it spaces:
There are already more than a half dozen example spaces leveraging Buttons and Dataview plugins.
Mind you, Buttons is now superseded by the Meta Bind pluginâs button functionality. So you may need to create your own buttons, if you need them.
If the DataviewJs table has many dozens of results, in Reading Mode (my forced viewing mode for my sub-dashboards), you can search your page content again.
Force Note View Mode is another external plugin - it can help dashboard files to be in Reading Mode always. I assume this plugin will not break anytime soon. You can use it safely.
Mind you, in the demo vault, the files are queried per folder, but if you insist on a flat structure, you can query by tags and have the same dashboard pages, where you can further peruse your files with CTRL+F.
And of course, you can use the Search core plugin.
With regex, you can query for ranges, such as: /start.*?end/, which will findâŚ
Starting today, Iâm beginning to see the end.
Itâs a good start, but weâre still far from the end, buddy.
etc.
You can exchange start and end with your search terms, and look more deeply into what regex can offer.
âSort search results by relevanceâ is on the Roadmap, so I think we can expect better native search in the future.
But I am using âAnother Quick Switcherâ which supports Ripgrep for fast fuzzy searching. I also sometimes using Neovim to search my vault with fzf and rg. (2 other fuzzy search tools.)
Another thing I do is heavily limiting my use of tags, so that the tags I do use are more useful. For example, I actively manage a #WIP tag for notes I need to be paying active attention to.
(Thatâs not a complete answer. But those are a couple things I do.)
Omnisearch might be a good plugin for you if youâre looking for something specific.
If youâre note sure and just want to go exploring use the Graph View or hit a Random Note Button.
MOCâs can help you flush out new to old and vice versa
Example:
Days Alive
TABLE WITHOUT ID
file.link as "List from Vault",
(date(today) - file.cday).day as "Days alive"
FROM ""
SORT file.cday DESC
LIMIT 90
Or you could explore searching FROM a [[Topic]] OR #Tag
You could search with a Query Block as you suggested
```query
tag:#focus
`` `
To find notes, you kind of need to know what youâre looking for. If youâre not sure and are just trying to discover an old note that could give you some inspiration then just keep hitting random note until something inspires you.
I would imagine if youâre wanting to flush out something in particular you would have it tagged with links and keywords which could be used in Omni Search.
Identify you Goal then set your Focus. if youâre not sure what your looking for or what you want to focus on then setup a couple of Active Workspaces and jump between interests until you find what youâre looking for.
I didnât see anybody mention dashboard note(s), where you build a mix of your preferred queries. Obsidian uses query but Iâd prefer Dataview.
A dashboard/moc is optimal to query most cultivated, newest notes and also a place for more focused queries to take advantage of note properties. Mocs are nice if theyâre dynamic, instead to add / delete notes manually.
Thereâs no limit to your imagination: genetic as well as specific queries are all useful.
Also, consider to use randomness in your favor, to rediscover notes, use community plugins like dice roller or similar.
Also, make a habit to review/revisit your notes with some repetition, using your own scripts or via plugin.
Yes, some plugins are indeed useful, maybe just for awhile, to refresh your ideas and discover even better routines.
Quality is also discovery, not just some fixed protocol. Depends what you need in the end: I guess youâre in the process to take control over quantity, this requires in my opinion, some better note properties management.