Hi everybody!
Background: DataView and TextExpand
There are two plugins which allow generate / show a list of data based on some sort of search syntax:
TextExpand
TextExpand uses the obsidian search functionality and directly produces markdown.
Example Query:
```expander
tag:#faction
^## Factions
^|Factions|Description|
^|---|---|
| [[$filename]] | $lines:1 |
```
Example Output:
## Factions
| Faction | Description |
| ------- | -------------------------------- |
| [[F1]] | First line of text from F1 note. |
| [[F2]] | First line of text from F2 note. |
I currently use TextExpand to create “index pages” for specific categories / topics.
DataView
DataView seems to have a more powerful query syntax. For example it allows to define the search order (which has to be manually done in Search UI of Obsidian before running TextExpand).
Why a hybrid of both?
I use Obsidian Export to export my Obsidian Vault to standard markdown (including transclution), after that I use MkDocs and the Material Plugin to generate a static html page.
With TextExpand this works, because it produces normal markdown which is then exported and thus available in the created static html pages.
To my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) DataView only works within Obsidian - and only shows the results in preview mode. This means that when I export Obsidian (to standard markdown and then to html) the list generated by DataView will not be included.
That’s a shame, because I really like the powerful query syntax of DataView 
Do you have any ideas on that?
I thought an option in DataView to “copy result output as markdown” would be great, because it would bring together best of two worlds:
- a powerful search syntax
- having the option to output/generate markdown
How do you judge that? What do you think?