Things I have tried
Obsidian added callouts using the block quote syntax. The reason for using block quotes is compatibility, which is fine. But people who use a lot of multiline math blocks i.e. $$$$ in their notes will be well aware of how annoying it can be, when we use them inside block quotes.
There have been some attempts made to mitigate the UX issues for this case. For example the following will render correctly:
> [!NOTE] Title
> $$
> re^{i \theta} =
> se^{i \alpha}
> $$
The block quote symbol "> " is not only automatically added when doing a line break inside the math block, but also isn’t parsed by MathJax. Good job!
Though the annoyance starts again as soon as we add community plugins to the mix. The one I use is called obsidian-latex-suite, which adds TeX templates inside math blocks by some trigger. The templates it injects may contain line breaks, which for example can lead to the following:
> [!NOTE] Title
> $$
> \begin{}
\end{}
> $$
Or similarly, the template core plugin will create:
> [!NOTE] Title
> $$
re^{i \theta}
$$
When inserting the following template to a block quote:
$$
re^{i \theta}
$$
The list of issues that come with the block quote syntax (or any syntax requiring a leading symbol per line for that matter) goes on and I’m sure that most people will have experienced them.
There is a well-known community plugin called obsidian-admonition. It enables alternative syntax for callout/admonitions like the code block syntax:
```ad-info
title: Title
Text
```
Since code blocks do not require a leading symbol per line, using math blocks or templates is straight forward. The only issue is nesting of code blocks thereon. But I’d deem this to be rather manageable and only slightly annoying.
But using code blocks for anything but raw text comes with different issues. For example, links inside code blocks won’t be recognized by Obsidians “update links” feature when changing note titles. Also links inside code blocks won’t be correctly recognized as linked mentions in backlink lists.
Previously obsidian-admonition supported other syntax than the code block, which didn’t have those issues. But they got removed in newer versions. The plugin developer also suggests to start using callouts with block quotes instead. Which brings me back to being annoyed by block quotes.
What I’m trying to do
So nobody likes to be annoyed (afaik) and in almost any other aspect, using Obsidian for note taking is a pleasure. Hence what I’d like to know is how others handle using math blocks and templates inside block quotes. Are there workarounds to avoid those issues?