#1

I am endeavouring to find an efficient way to organise my notes, I am rather new to Obsidian so excuse my candid questions.

  1. I dont understand the use of YAML why not create a header at the end of each note where we can put all meta datas including tags
    Indeed doing so we have active links

  2. We can search same using dataview’s syntax

As YAML is a standard I am obviously missing something, thank you to enlighten me

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#2

The point of YAML is that you don’t clutter your note with metadata but keep it looking clean instead. Yes, you can put metadata at the end of each note so it’s less in the way, but YAML can keep it completely out of view.

#3

So it is only aesthetic right?

#4

I’d say it’s more than just aesthetic. AFAIK, most other apps that support YAML also add it at the top so it might help with keeping it compatible with most other apps.

As someone who also uses a lot of DataView inline fields, there’s still a distinction I often make to decide which field to use where. As a general rule, any YAML fields apply to the entire note itself like it’s creation/updation date, type, source, etc. And any Dataview fields I use often only apply to the current line/section I use it in. As an example, I use #Watched:: and #Read:: quite a lot in my daily notes. Each of them is in a bullet point since watching or reading something is just that one point of the day and doesn’t really reflect my entire day so it doesn’t need to be in a YAML field.

#5

Tags and links in YAML don’t seem to appear in search or linked references. So I prefer to place information in the body under the heading #### Record which I can collapse. As far as I can see, YAML is only aesthetic.

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#6

If its only aesthetic why is everybody using YAML? There must be something more to it ?

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