I currently use Sublime Zettelkasten. When I create a new note, it automatically populates the note with a template. It would be nice to be able to start new notes with templates, and maybe even be able to choose from multiple templates depending on type
125 Likes
I could see this working by expanding the link suggest box options:
“Type # to link heading” and “Type | to change display text”
Say your on a daily notes/inbox page.
Perhaps when you are editing/making [[Perfect Breakfast]] another option in the search box could be offered.
“Type / to copy templates file”
List all files with " - Template" in title.
Select: [[Recipes - Template]]
This copies all content in [[Recipes - Template]] file into the newly created [[Perfect Breakfast]].
Another gesture could be send text on this line into a file:
“I should add more protein in the morning. [[Perfect Breakfast]]”
“Type ! to embed/copy text to link”
This copies or embeds all the text on this line to the end of [[Perfect Breakfast]] file.
2 Likes
I think this feature is already implemented. At least if you use the Daily Note feature. If you have that turned on (near the bottom of the Plugins pane in settings) a gear will pop up next to it with which you can designate a template file to use.
The tech is there but the UI isn’t.
You can only set 1 template file at a time; manually - in the settings of a plugin. Super limiting.
Ideally the plugin would search any file ending with “-Template”. (or if it had to be a list of files in a “Template Folder” directory.
This allows you to make & apply templates on the fly.
Making new link [[My New Project]] and in the link suggestion box there’s an option “Type = to copy template” (like # or | ), pulls list of “template files”, select, pastes into the link. (you wouldn’t need to leave the page either)
16 Likes
I was going to request this feature as well. For now I can use text expansion apps to pre-fill content but it would be awesome to have multiple custom note templates available. I could make a long list of frequently-used templates that would come in handy.
5 Likes
To everyone in this thread, I think Generalization of daily notes and zettel Plugins can solve for this problem easily. The daily Notes & Zett plugin have been used by everyone. if they are generalized as given in that suggestion we can have templates for anything basically. If you agree please vote there
12 Likes
I really like how notion.so handles it when working in databases:
in a newly created page you can start blank by simply typing or you can click a grayed out link with the name of the template to apply it.
Maybe something like this can work. It’s simple and clean.
9 Likes
I greatly encourage the devs to implement creation of the notes by templates. Templates may be configurable on the folder level (assign specified template to specified folder, so every new note created in this folder will follow the specified template).
In addition, templates should use preset and user definable Variables.
.
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+1 from me, I would love it if I could fill a page with data from a template, for example metadata for books, articles, people, …
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+1 too. The diary template is good. For quick noting, I probably don’t want to choose a template everytime. But at least allow me define a default template for different type of notes, currently only three: normal note, diary, and ZK note.
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+1 for the “one template per folder” option! I use this method in Tomboy Notes and it really helps remain this flexible.
5 Likes
Yup! +1
I would argue against „one template per folder“ since not everybody uses folders to separate the notes. I just have a „zettel“ folder for all „finished“ notes which are already linked to other notes. Every note is first created in my root-dir and after it‘s finished moved to the zettel folder
4 Likes
Yes, I would argue against „one template per folder“, maybe for fast typing one mechanism to encode creating note from different templates in name of note, the template could be store in specific folder;
This behaviour could be implemented as separate plugin too
for example
[[My diary%%note_diary]]
will create note My diary.md following the note_diary template.
The syntax could be different, like typing == or any specific not so often used combination of characters, the characters could be even not allowed in note names so Obsian will then know that the action on the note is required and this is not the part of the note name
1 Like
Yeah +1 for templates everywhere !
4 Likes
This would be great. I have only been using this for maybe 5 days and it’s one the first things I felt was missing. I may just create some and “make a copy” from them to create my own templates.
I like templates too. I’ve developed a short-term workaround using the MacOS as described here. Maybe this could work for some of you until a more generalized template plugin is developed?
+1 for templates. I think this would greatly enhance the workflow.
+1 here too, I end up writing some of the same structural things all the time at the moment, would be great to have a template feature
That said I love obsidian, so big thanks to the devs!
Text expanders would do that for you with much more flexibility. You could even have one do a whole template if you wanted.
3 Likes