Rename "Excluded files" setting to reduce misunderstandings

Feature requests
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1

Use case or problem

The setting in Files and links > Advanced > Excluded file causes two problems to a lot of members in the community:

  1. It’s confusing. Even though the setting’s description is there and the documentation is clear, people keep asking about misconceptions from time to time.
  2. It’s a feature we miss. Lots of us would love to have a ignore setting, for several reasons.

Proposed solution

The easy solution we could deploy in the next release (at time this is accepted): Rename this setting to “Faded files”. The current description reads: “Ignored files will be hidden in Search, … less noticeable in Quick Switcher…“, so this new name seems to better fit.

I think this greatly reduce the expectations “we” have from this setting, and will help reducing the amount of questions, and the amount of frustration towards how this behaves. It’s a simple label update.

Later on, a second step would be to introduce a “Ignored files” setting.
Ignored file would be not indexed, not read on vault opening, not anything. Obsidian just bypass them. Until the file is embedded, or read by a plugin.
However, as discussed below, there’s already an existing FR for this, so most of the content from here is actually redirected to a comment there!

Current workaround

None.

What gets solved & Related feature requests

It gets us ride of the confusions and assumptions around the Excluded files term.

  1. /t/ignored-folder-not-really-ignored/47542
  2. Number of Discord messages. “I thought excluding a folder would”

If you have other good reasons, related FR, or want to suggest an edit to this post, please comment here or ping me on Discord (DM accepted).

2

Here’s the request for “actually totally ignore”: Ignore/exclude completely files or a folder from all obsidian indexers and parsers.

Renaming the setting is an interesting idea. I think “faded” may not be intuitive enough but I don’t have a replacement suggestion. Brainstorming a bit:

  • Muted
  • Deemphasized
  • Suppressed
  • Backgrounded
3

I should have search more intensively
Thanks for the link!

Adding other alternatives as well:

  • Dimmed
  • Deprioritized (too long?)
  • Shadowed
  • Minimized (meh)
4

I changed the title to focus on the unique part of the request, and on the general idea (was “Faded files”).

5

Thanks!
I’ve rework the post a little to make it shorter and more in line with the title :innocent:

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