Use H1 or YAML property "title" instead of or in addition to filename as display name

@Klaas Good question, but yes, this is a different topic. We don’t know yet how Obsidian is going to handle metadata.

OK, sorry to have polluted your thread.

Zettlr makes a distinction between filename and note title because of the way it tracks UIDs.
Obsidian does it differently, as do other programs.
Zettlr may be rethinking what they do.

Yes please!!!
Let me use a question mark? in my note title!!!

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Another vote for this please! :slight_smile:

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I’d also find this really helpful :+1:

I’ve been trying to make my mind up about the common question of IDs vs titles as filenames. I currently use the naming convention YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM-hyphenated-title.md and am considering removing the text portion of this to avoid having to change the filename each time I want to change the title of the note. If link auto-complete worked by typing a title as an alternative to filename, this would allow me to connect concepts much more easily.

Having said that, because Obsidian makes it really easy to change links when renaming files, I’ve been trying out using descriptive filenames, which has made the writing experience much smoother because I can just link any [[concept]] as I go, and auto-complete makes this pretty seamless. (This post seems to describe a similar experience.) The problem I keep coming across is that I prefer not to have spaces in filenames (which makes scripting easier) but if I use [[hyphenated-links]], the unlinked mentions feature won’t work :see_no_evil: I think this is probably a separate issue (any thoughts welcome), but being able to search by H1 or title for link autocomplete would get me close to this kind of workflow.

I currently use my notes across mac, windows, iOS and Android :roll_eyes: so would rather avoid using Obsidian-specific or less widely accepted formatting like the [[this-is-a-link|pipe]] for link display. I’ve considered moving to [standard markdown links](filename.md) but they don’t really serve the same function when it comes to this kind of workflow and they tend to break my train of thought and having to switch to the preview pane to click them is annoying.

(First post, so do let me know if this is a helpful contribution or better taken elsewhere.)

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If Obsidian caters Zettelkasten, then I see no reason why this has not been implemented yet.

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To use Zettelkasten I need this option too.

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Excellent request! I would like Quick Switcher to search for the first heading of a file. It would help me quickly recall and select a UID-only filename without leaving the keyboard and the current note or thought I’m processing.

  • Maybe Settings has a toggle on/off feature for the heading search?
  • In regards to performance issues, maybe limit the search to the first heading? After selecting the file, the remaining headings can be displayed for the selected file instead of scanning every heading in the vault during the initial command?

I want to use a clean UID filename without relying on folders, but I need to find the first heading in my notes, which is the title. For now, I’m putting these UID-only files in folders with their title, so I can find them.

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I would love this. If this were implemented and we could still sort the file explorer by actual note title while displaying the frontmatter title, it would solve the problem I’ve detailed here: Retaining the benefits of Luhmann's numbering system without damaging key Obsidian functionality?

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Excellent suggestion

Yes we need this! Is there any way we can contribute and help create these features?

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This is extra relevant to me today since I started setting up templates for various types of media which I reference a lot in the course of my notes. (Creating intermediate nodes which act as touch points for references is something I do quite a bit.)

Because a lot of that media consists of tabletop role-playing games, you find a lot of use of colons in the title – which obviously can’t be used directly as filenames. I make it a definite habit to make an H1 “this is the real title of this thing” entry in every one. Of course, every reference requires in-line aliasing, every time it’s referred to – and that can pile up a lot if I’m using a zettelkasten style to get notes down and then make references in those notes to the media note to localize things.

I would love this feature. My personal preferences would be:

  • include both zettel id and title in the front-matter
  • still offer an option to sort notes by front-matter zettel id in Obsidian’s file explorer
  • file names would be “legalized” version of front-matter title

For example:

---
zettel id: 202009010800
title: Illegal file names: they work too!
---
# H1 heading

The displayed note title in Obsidian editor and graph views would be Illegal file names: they work too!, while the actual file name on the system hard disk would be something like Illegal file names_ they work too!.

This way, zettel IDs no longer appear in graph views or the system file names, which makes it much less cluttered when using the graph views or viewing the notes from other apps.

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This would be essential for my workflow!

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I realize that I never replied here, but this would also greatly improve my workflow.

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One thing that would be nice: to use the selected filename as a default title on note creation! The first time user renames a note from “Untitiled” to “FooNote”, Obsidian could simply insert “# FooNote” in the empty text. Thereafter, the user could just remove or revise it, but still better to start with something

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iA Writer also shows a text excerpt below the filename:

Screenshot 2020-10-18 at 13.03.32

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And the date!

This is crucial for me. I’m coming from Bear background and I have imported all my Bear notes to the Obsidian. The good thing about Bear was that I didn’t need to care about filename or anything like that – note was simply named after the first h1 heading. The most often I simply need to quickly jot something down and link it with some other concepts; the title is an afterthought. I liked to include certain characters ("?", “:”, etc.) and emojis in note titles to visually distinguish them, but these do not work nicely with filesystems’ filename constraints. Ideally (in my workflow), filenames should be only unique timestamps and the title itself would be sourced from the file itself (either title frontmatter field or h1). The question is, however, how internal links would behave – would they point to the filename or to the title?

I actually think that this front-matter idea, if properly generalized, could open a wide range of possibilities and new workflows. They could be extracted, aggregated, queried etc. It would enable one to treat their notes more like database records. For example, I store created timestamp in front-matter field and sometimes I need to sort my notes according to that. But that is outside the scope of this thread.

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