Zotero -> zotfile -> mdnotes -> obsidian -> dataview Workflow

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56

Can someone help me figure out how to get the Mdnotes {{yamlfoo}} placeholders to work? I have successfully modified other placeholders like {{title}}, but not {{yamltitle}}.

Exporting the citation will put nothing in the spots for {{yamlfoo}} placeholders. I exported two papers with no attached PDFs or extracted notes (see screenshot)

mdnotes_yamlfoo
mdnotes_yamlfoo2107×1445 609 KB

The green-boxed areas show the empty places where {{yamlfoo}} should be inserted (Edit on top, Preview on bottom). I didn’t take a screenshot, but the issue persists if I try to put the placeholders in the YAML heading instead.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the custom placeholders, but I copied them on the left to be sure. I looked through the mdnotes documentation, which says:

The preference name should be extensions.mdnotes.placeholder.<yourFieldHere> , where yourFieldHere should match a supported Zotero field. Keep in mind that Zotero fields are usually accessed using camel case, and should be (usually) formatted as fieldName , e.g. seriesTitle .

Since yamltitle or yamlauthorlist aren’t Zotero fields, how did other people get these placeholders to work?

57

UPDATE: I accidentally stumbled on the documentation for the upcoming v0.2.0 release, which looks like it may address this specific issue.

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58

Indeed! On the releases please use the latest alpha! I’ll try to release the current version as soon as I have a little more time!

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59

Hello argentum ,

Thank you for your plugin. I am having trouble getting the Zotero Publication field to play with MDNotes. I am using:

  • extensions.mdnotes.placeholder.publication
  • {"content":"{{field_contents}}", "link_style": "wiki", "list_separator": ", "}
  • {{Publication}} placeholder in my MD notes default template

But no Publication information arrives at the placeholder in my Created MD file.

What could I be doing wrong here?

60

Another query I have, is how to manage empty placeholders.

Currently an empty placeholder is deleting the paragraph line. Which brings the next inline dataview field up into the previous placeholder’s inline field.

By way of example, here there was no PDF placeholder, and the next line - Collections::.... was brought up into the PDF:: field, thus causing problems with Dataview tables calling up - Collections::

image

What would you suggest here? Can I modfiy the placeholder value with \n somewhere? Or do you recommend having a paragraph between placeholders?

61

Hi @stpag could You share the script you wrote?
I wish I could use it as inspiration to write my own script.
Thank you in advance

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62

sorry to bother you ask it here . but do you know how to stop zotfile adding the first line of the note in the title? it makes the titles long (problomatic with windows max character limit) and ugly. i am looking at config file and .pdfExtraction setting and there is no variable for that that i can see

63

This question was kindly answered / solved on the Discord #Academia channel, where argentum helped me understand the function of MDnotes better!

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64

Hey Cat—I am trying to set up a workflow for importing and annotating caselaw into Zotero/Juris-M and then into Obsidian for further processing. I see here you are using Juris-M. Is there a way to get case metadata to auto populate into Zotero/Juris-M using PDFs generated from Westlaw? I tried to get this to work, but Zotero/Juris-M was unable to find references when I added the PDF. Any help with this initial step of the workflow is much appreciated!

65

I find that clicking on the note and then clicking on something else removes the first line from the title of the note.

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66

Quick question… On a mobile, is it possible to open zotero URLs from Obsidian app in a PDF viewer?

e.g. zotero://open-pdf/library/items/C2599NZ8

67

:star_struck: Thanks @Cat, awesome writeup

References are my weak point and this post is helping me

68

yes, please share! :wink:

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69

Yes - some sites allow case data to be auto populated as long as you use the web connector directly from the site, rather than from the pdf. Westlaw in the US does (at least with US cases), Hein sometimes gets it right and bailii.org does it. Others that I’ve used haven’t updated to allow that unfortunately.

70

Ditto to the other comments - this is fab can you share your set up please? Many thanks

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71

Bravo！

72

Sorry for not replying before (I do not visit this forum often). I’m packaging my script into a plugin, so I should be able to share it soon

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73

First, thanks for such a detailed explanation. I’m having trouble following how to get colored annotations into Obsidian.

I basically use two colors - yellow and cyan. How can I extract both into one annotation file that I can then export to markdown?

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74

Hi, thank you so much for this workflow, I’m loving it so far! I had a query about the backlinks used in [[Important]] for example with the highlights - what do you do with them once in Obsidian? Do you create a separate ‘Important’ md note?

75

Thanks very much for this posting this workflow!

Regarding the setting of extensions.zotfile.pdfExtraction.formatAnnotationHighlight, I wonder if it is possible to add a fixed ID/identifier to each highlight. Then, it’ll be easier to do block reference.

Although obsidian will automatically generate a block ID for us, this ID is changed after each extraction from zotfile/mdnotes. And then all links pointing to our highlights will fail.

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