I want the length of the body of my file (without the frontmatter)

[Hawkins]

What I’m trying to do

I made my shopping list into a swell Dataview table. Each item in my TABLE is (duh) a file.

Some of the files have lots of useful frontmatter, like #traderJoes, or custom properties like emergency: true.

Some of my files have content beyond the frontmatter: notes like “Don’t get the store brand, it sucks” or even a photo! Some do NOT have notes.

I feel like a freaking WIZARD.

But here’s what I want: I want something in my view to indicate the presence or absence of these notes. Why? If there’s a note about the item on my list, I want to know that I should click on the file name to read the note.

Things I have tried

I have tried using a CHOICE() based on file.size, thinking that if it’s zero, then there are no notes. But file.size includes the length of the frontmatter, which varies wildly from one note to the next.

I thought I could subtract length(file.frontmatter) from the file.size, but length(file.frontmatter) returns the count of frontmatter objects, not the size

So I am stumped.

in summary: Is there a way to tell if a file has anything in it beyond the frontmatter?

[Hawkins]

I suppose one could put the notes, into a file property called Notes, and then test for the presence of this property.

But I want the file contents to be flexible: pasted-in images, scrawled diagrams, internal and external links… you know, all that stuff that makes Obsidian so useful and fun.