The use case is binary file management. Obsidian already supports inline rendering of PDFs, audio and video files. This fact invites such files to become integral part of the vault. However, Obsidian does not support assigning metadata to binary files, like it does for markdown. You cannot tag a PDF, for example. The same goes for canvases, AFAIC.
It is possible to use a “twin” markdown file, and there are plugins that try to automate this, but that is cumbersome.
Now that we have properties and property panes it seems logical to extend property support to binary files. It is clear, though, that properties for binaries would have to be stored externally w.r.t. the file, like in a JSON file inside .obsidian.
Proposed solution
The property pane works for binary files exactly as it does for markdown files.
Current workaround (optional)
Creating markdown files that mirror/link to the binary files.
+1 for this - I’m scanning pages from a paper notebook to bring them into Obsidian as PDF files. And PDF files don’t have Properties so they can’t be linked/tagged/categorized/etc. and can’t show up in the Graph display (aside from disconnected orphan PDFs, unless I create mirror .md files or link directly to the PDF from other notes)
The need for this feature is even more apparent with the release of Bases on Obsidian. The majority of Bases features require properties, which are not supported on non-markdown files (e.g. PDFs).
The old property search [property:value] in Ctr + Shift + F doesn’t use implicit properties from bases but rather we have other set of “default properties” tags, aliases and cssclasses. Since bases have their own rich set of default properties, bases are now much more powerful than the old property search [property:value].
Thinking back to the OP… So how would the implicit property file.tags work if I am working with PDFs? Or (less likely) an Excel file? Or an audio file?
I’m reluctantly using the embed-binary-in-markdown-file method for the time being, but it is cumbersome. I wonder if there might be a way to make it less cumbersome… maybe a plugin that could create a metadata container, triggered and integrated in a Bases view, and excluded/hidden from the rest of Obsidian’s UI (already configurable in settings).
Definitely a plugin and not a native feature. Or you could use Finder in mac but the problem is divergence from using Obsidian (but Obsidian cannot do everything like managing files seamlessly). Other nice file manager is OneCommander (has file tags).
I haven’t found the Mac OS tags terribly user friendly, although they are well integrated in Spotlight. And as you say, they are no help when it comes to Obsidian’s file management.
If a user can accept the performance penalty, the backlinks property can be used to approximate tags for binary files. For example, if you use tag pages (in which a markdown note corresponds with a tag in your vault), you can link from the tag page to the PDF and it will create a backlink on which you can filter. Using a filter that surfaces either a tag #cooltag or a backlink [[cooltag]] can generate the Bases results some may be looking for…
