Properties search improvement: Value selection as with tag search

[ryadaj]

Use case or problem

Searching properties is awesome, but could be made more user-friendly in a way that offers greater ease of use as well as visibility on the values one has entered into their various properties.

Proposed solution

When a user navigates to the search bar, they are presented with the following query selector.

Upon selection of the [property] search, the user can select one of the properties they have entered.

At this point, the user can then type their desired value. This isn’t especially optimal.

I propose the user be able to select from a list of values associated with a given property. For example, if a user has a property status: and the values unread, read, active, boop, bop, yay, then these should appear as a selectable list in the after selecting the status: property in the search menu. This is a significant benefit of the tag search, which allows the user to select any tag used in the vault:

I would say the benefits of this are significant for ease of use and visibility of all values associated with that property. Let’s say I want to quickly search for files that are unread books. Presently, that means I have to do something like the below:

It’d be much quicker to click from a list which is automatically populated with values associated with each of my chosen properties.

Current workaround (optional)

Typing the values manually.

Related feature requests (optional)

• The remaining advantages of tags over properties in Obsidian ← this is related inasmuch as it makes the case for the ease of use offered by tags
• Properties Wrangler: Add a way to "Insert", "Rename" and "Remove" properties and values in all files ← this is related inasmuch as it makes the case for greater visibility and management of properties`

[blue_emperor]

Thanks! This is well thought, much better properties improvement than my super properties which I wrote about some time ago (see the link below).

The remaining advantages of tags over properties in Obsidian

See my previous message about how tags could be used: About the automatic link generation i.e. “clickable and easily searchable”. You can use Obsidian URI to perform searches by clicking links. Putting these links manually into properties can mess up property value based queries but you could maybe use css to display links so that property values would remain untouched. I’m 100% sure that in future there will be a feature in Obsidian to easily generate links from searches. You could then put …

[ryadaj]

Thanks for the added value of your reply! We were both active in that topic, and I remember now your post. I think your suggestion would certainly add some nuance here that could enhance the FR.

[nickmilo]

A great suggestion. +1 !