The point of YAML, however, is that it is interoperable - that if anyone moved away from Obsidian to another tool, the obsidian:// links that are pasted elsewhere - word docs, task managers, zotero, etc… - wouldn’t break. All that would be necessary is a simple global find/replace for obsidian:// to the new protocol.
I agree that Bear or whoever is unlikely to implement that, but maybe that’s more reason to stick with Obsidian or for new apps to adhere to this sort of interoperability standard, which YAML headers seems to be a major part of.
Anyway, whatever the case, I doubt anyone here is at all opposed to it being an internal part of the tool, but I have low expectations of that happening any time soon. So, if @fanantoxa or someone else can figure out a plugin that can handle this in a reasonable way, with YAML seeming like the best way to do that (can a plugin access the internal index?), that would be a great starting point.
I see no reason why note linking couldn’t stay exactly as it is, but obsidian:// links use a UUID that points to whatever the note name happens to be. Again, this is precisely what all of these other apps do, for good reason. Its somewhat bizarre that this was not how Obsidian was designed from the start.
IMO to achieve a robust note-taking system that can be used in various ways (and also linked to/re-used by external tools), it’s crucial to:
have a unique & stable identifier for each note
write notes that are as self-contained as possible
“self-contained note” means that the note’s body text (or its metadata) contain all relevant information (including things like citation info and, of course, the note’s ID) – ideally in a format that can be easily searched and/or parsed (see also this related zettelkasten.de discussion).
As also discussed in this reply, if the note’s ID is included in the note itself, it will always travel with the note and will not get lost if you transfer your note into environments where there’s no file path info, like a database, a single text file, or an app that stores files internally using its own naming scheme. Your notes would still remain intact and can be retrieved again w/o loss.
In the same sense, it’s also beneficial if the note ID gets included in the file name itself since this helps with third-party file-based integrations.
So, do you have a particular suggestion for how to implement a feature like this? Does a YAML UUID tag, as has been somewhat settled on here, suffice for you?
IMO, the note metadata are a good place for the note‘s ID, e.g. like this:
---
id: NOTEID
---
Ideally, this ID would be provided by the app itself. But even w/o this I think it‘s good if each note has one, and other tools/plugins can build upon this.
On a sidetrack (about IDs): For my own use case, I wanted to base my note IDs on timestamp-based IDs (and not UUIDs). This is since timestamp-based IDs have the huge advantage that they can be generated manually, w/o the need for a machine. However I’ve wanted millisecond precision to allow for automated ID generation (e.g. on import) w/o the need for manual intervention. Still, the IDs shouldn’t get too long, and stay somewhat readable/recognizable.
To suit the above, my IDs take the note’s creation date (but any date will suffice) with millisecond precision in its reverse base32-encoded form (after Crockford). For comparison, here’s an example:
1) UUID: 9B5D722E-4C58-441F-997F-C086B097E2C7
2) shorter timestamp: 202104130930
3) longer timestamp: 20210413093059456
4) my ID based on (3): 1T5F-CGC0-8PQJ
The encoding keeps the IDs short while still maintaining precision. While these IDs are not as intuitive as pure date-based IDs, I find them more legible than the longer timestamps – the inserted hyphens & the 4char-blocks (together with the fact that it’s digits and letters) actually make them more recognizable for me. In any case, I find them more manageable than UUIDs and sufficient for a PKM use case. And since this system is based on timestamps, these can be also used (if notes are generated manually or externally).
Seems reasonable enough and in-line with what has generally been proposed here previously. I wouldn’t be opposed to a date-based ID, though I think I’d prefer something that looks like gibberish (1 or 4) rather than legible (2 or 3). I’m pretty sure Obsidian already handles metadata like Create Date - I wonder if that could be leveraged in some way?
Which tools do you use to implement this currently? It sounds like its not Obsidian
For base32-encoding, I’m currently using AFBase32. And, for manual conversions in my text editor, I’m using a similar Perl module. I’m also aware of a Ruby library but I haven’t tried that. An example screenshot with these IDs in use can be seen here.
To workaround the potential issue of breaking Obsidian URLs, it might be an option for a tool or plugin to specify a separate URL scheme (or amend the current URL scheme), then use this (together with the note ID from the note’s metadata) for external URLs. The resolver would then need to either transform to standard Obsidian URLs, or resolve the note itself directly.
Hi, we can use URI’s to open a note, make a new note, search, but I am concerned for longer lasting links. For example I have a note in my vault called “Project X Reference” and I link outside of obsidian to open this note for my project stuff;
This might be a long lived note, and at one point I change the title, because I either split up the project in multiple sub-projects, or I change the title from “Vacation” to “Krete Vacation 2021”. In that case the obsidian URI is broken. I have to know where I left it to restore the link.
I want to propose linking to a YAML ID inside the note, or can even be in the Alias YAML metadata where there is a static ID, or generated ID (like a UUID)
For now I need to be mindful that I do not change titles too much if for example URI’s are shared, or I need to tag a label somewhere that I know it is a static reference, but it would be awesome if obsidian can be robust enough to reference longer lasting notes that might travel and change titles a few times.
Looking at the way that Obsidian links work - the reference in the Obisdian URL is to a relative pathname. If you rename the Obsidian note (or move it, or re-name the folder), the link breaks.
This impacted my use of Hook, but also something as simple as posting a link to an Obsidian note into an Omnifocus task.
Any thought on using a Unique ID to craft these links, so that the note will maintain the same link?
I second this request. Currently, I try very hard to never move an Obsidian .md file, but it’s frustrating to not be able to reorganize as my Vault grows. I’m a big Hook user.
Obsidian has an internal link looks like obsidian://open?vault=Test&file=Text.
It is not a good idea to made links name-dependent because:
Page can be with typo
Page can be renamed
…
In this case we can’t get access to page from another program and inside links that was made in plugins (like Katex).
Proposed solution
Solution 1. Create a link with note hash that will be permanent and use a table hash - name. Once name will be changed nothing happened.
Solution 2. Find and replace all text in all notes - find: obsidian://old_name – replace: obsidian://new_name.
Asked by @moberaptor to create a plugin that will create and open UID notes by UID.
Currently, it only opens notes by UID. In the future would like the ability to generate those UID for your notes.
EDIT
Now I think what I can allow open any note using any frontmatter field(s) and not only id
And i also like the idea of using note’s id for the url of notes in Obsidian Publish beside of obsidian-uri. This will make the url of notes unaffected by the change of note’s name
I just ran into this issue when trying to store Obsidian URLs in my task manager, and I immediately realized that would be extremely fragile, especially for work in progress that’s likely to be refactored (files moved, renamed, etc.). Obsidian should store a UUID in YAML frontmatter and use that ID for the URL. Glad to see it’s already being discussed.
It would be nice to have external links that magically work everywhere and don’t rely on any app-specific functionality but I feel we are looking for a complex solution for a rather simple problem here.
There is an easy 100% bulletproof way to refer an Obsidian note in any app or even on a piece of paper. It worked for original author of Zettelkasten and it works even better with computers we have nowadays. It does not depend on any databases, URI schemas or paths.
All you need is a unique ID anywhere in your note. You use it in a plain textual form anywhere you want to “link” to that particular note. Then you use search to find it. It’s only marginally more cumbersome than a link but it’s infinitely more reliable and future-proof. It can be automated to some extent too.
Personally, I use a YYYYMMDDHHmmss ID in my YAML frontmatter. When I see such an ID in another app, a click to select it and 1-2 shortcuts take me to an open Obsidian app that has already found a note I wanted to see. Works on my tablet and phone as well, although with slightly different mechanics of course. And if I give up Obsidian, none of those connections will be lost and searching will remain just as easy.
