Use YAML Frontmatter to define variables in the md document

Feature requests
#1

It would be great to use parameters from YAML Frontmatter as a parameter im Markdown documents

Example:
—
title: YAML Front Matter
description: A very simple way to add structured data to a page.
—
# {{ title }}

 {{ description }} 

Page content here...
33 Likes
Display the value of a variable (defined in frontmatter or elsewhere)
#2

Great idea. +1

I’m curious if it might break a lot of third-party plugins that already use the {{ }} syntax. If so, I’m sure that would be a bummer but still probably worth it because first party should get priority on syntax over third-party plugins.

1 Like
#3

iA Writer uses this syntax see its docs:

---
Customer: M. Bluth
Me: Bob Loblaw
Target Date: March 8th, 2016
---

Dear [%Customer],

Thank you for your order. It has been shipped from our warehouse and you can expect delivery on [%Target Date].

Kind regards,
[%Me]
10 Likes
#4

I would love to see support for this method as well. I use this all the time in iA Writer.

1 Like
#5

This would be great. Variables would be a solid step toward doing system-level work with Obsidian.

1 Like
#6

I would LOVE something like this. Is there any other way to get something similar to this working in Obsidian?

#7

The syntax [% ] is also in Marked 2

#8

+1. This would allow for more dynamic notes.

#9

You can do that using either the Dataview or the Templater plugin:

---
birthday: 2000-01-01
---

# Variables from YAML

## Dataview

Birthday: `= this.birthday`

## Templater

Birthday as in YAML: <%+ tp.frontmatter.birthday %>
Birthday formatting: <%+ moment(tp.frontmatter.birthday).format("dddd, D MMMM YYYY") %>

produces:

obsidian-variables-from-yaml

6 Likes
#10

This is because they use MultiMarkdown. That’s a feature of MMD and it is great. I do hope Obsidian gets this feature as well.

#11

If this is implemented, would it be salutary if Obsidian parsed wikilinks within the YAML metadata?

Given Note A with these contents:

---
Relationship1: [[Note B]]
Relationship2: [[Note C]]
---

[%Relationship1]
[%Relationship2]

Note A would appear in the backlinks lists for notes B and C, and the three notes would appear connected in the node graph.

Related feature request: Allow links in YAML front matter.

#12

As per this post, the wikilinks in the YAML header should probably be delimited with double quotation marks.

#13

This seems very good but for me only the third synthax works. Do you have any idea why?

I have dataview and templater installed.

Here is what I see:

image