Obsidian Dataview Plugin Tutorial 101

[@BryanJenks]

Want to get your hands on my Obsidian templates, Custom CSS, and Mermaid Diagram code? 👉🏻bryanjenkstech.ck.page/d4ec0713d5 0:00:00 Welcome 0:00:42 Intro 0:00:52 What we are talking about today 0:02:29 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL 0:02:49 Installing and setting up Dataview 0:04:17 the dateformat inside the data has to be the iso format and has nothing to do with what is written in the settings. 0:04:40 The 4 types of Dataview queries 0:04:59 List 0:06:46 Table 0:07:33 the header should be file.etags for it to see #tag tags 0:07:39 Pulling in YAML frontmatter 0:08:28 Task 0:10:58 Calendar 0:13:34 The query syntax 0:13:56 blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/ 0:14:03 GRUD 0:14:24 Reviewing the query syntax 0:14:29 SELECT 0:14:52 1 FROM 0:15:09 Order of operations in query execution 0:15:11 2 WHERE 0:15:19 3 SELECT 0:15:35 4 SORT 0:15:42 5.1 FLATTEN 0:15:59 5.2 GROUP BY 0:16:12 6 LIMIT 0:16:13 *Note 0:16:48 Applying the order of operations to a real query 0:17:35 Where you can get data FROM 0:22:00 you can sort it by the GROUP BY, you just have to give it a name like `GROUP BY file.link as Group Sort Group ASC` 0:24:29 FLATTEN example 0:25:00 like with the tags, there is file.aliases that has all aliases of that file and not just the ones that are inside the frontmatter. 0:26:00 **Note 0:27:05 Intermediate examples of Dataview 0:27:20 Inline queries and data 0:32:20 Built in Functions 0:33:55 this.file is the inherent metadata while this.file.frontmatter is exclusively the frontmatter while this. alone has the frontmatter and the inline metadata. 0:36:23 Outro *Note: The order of operation is not really fixed. the first line is the last that get's looked at. the second line has to be FROM if you include it. the order of the remaining lines is just top to bottom and it doesn't matter what the line has in it. you could start your query with grouping and then flatten and then the first where. it would be valid. the output might not be what you expect but it outputs stuff if the syntax is right. -- Dovos Obsidian Discord **Note: with FLATTEN it is good practice to always name it like FLATTEN file.aliases as "Aliases" because then you can address it correctly again later in the query, for example if you want to run a WHERE on the FLATTEN results. another big thing to note is that FLATTEN does 4 functions at once and has different effects based on context. the same flatten that works on a single value might not work on an array of values and vice versa. -- Dovos Obsidian Discord

[@cives]

Your ConvertKit page always gives me trouble. It does not work and I have no way to download your example vault. Probably because it is not Linux friendly, or Linux hater, to be more accurate. :-D Is there any way I could access it without being stopped by that annoying CK page that does not work?

[@bulletjourneys5255]

You strike a great balance between ensuring you have a solid grasp of the tool AND being willing to learn in public. Understanding your thought process as you troubleshoot things is really helpful as a new learner, and there are so few people who do that. Thank you for your content!

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you enjoy my fumbling around 😅️

[@demystifyingdev]

@@BryanJenks Socratic! Persist in that!

[@mageprometheus]

Thanks. A few weeks ago, I read on the forum that some new things are coming. The obsidian devs are adding cool stuff to the API to help the dataview authors. Better access to the internal data will push the plugin devs' creativity further. The built-in canvas is excellent but my favourites are Excalidraw and Excalibrain.

[@BryanJenks]

It just keeps getting better and better!

[@ditchcomfort]

True. Something for everyone. Although, sometimes it good to take a step back and really think through how easy/hard would it be to move some of your notes to another app or whatever… I feel a lot of people use a whole shenanigans of plugins, locking into Obsidian, and really over-complicating things. But I guess that’s a hobby too 😉

[@mageprometheus]

@@ditchcomfort There is a scale starting from apps which require greater effort setting up and maintaining a workflow, to preconfigured workflow. The many PKM/task apps are spread out across that continuum. (how long I have waited to use that word in a comment 😄). It's an important consideration when choosing an app.

[@agedlace6621]

This was very helpful! I'm now able to automate some things that I've been doing manually. I'm still learning as I've only been using Obsidian less than a week! THANK YOU!

[@BryanJenks]

My pleasure :)

[@MatthewMelville]

Best explanation of Dataview I've seen - so useful, thanks Bryan!

[@BryanJenks]

My pleasure!

[@ashutoshbw]

I was thinking to learn dataview and found this new tutorial. Thanks a lot :) Your tutorials are awesome!

[@BryanJenks]

Happy to hear that!

[@haraldwolte3745]

Great video thanks Bryan. I keep an eye on cool features such as Dataview but at the same time I'm highly aware of the trap of spending more time than I should fiddling with niche features. As much as I think this is cool, I can't see much real world application to make it worth the time. And bespoke features like this tie users in to obsidian, where one of the main reasons to use it is the portability of markdown which makes it easy to shift notes to another system if needed. If I'm wrong or missing something here I'd love to be corrected. Something far more useful for real world applications would be enhanced features for teams using obsidian. I am part of a team that use it but although it's ok for individuals it's not great for teams. Thanks again anyway for your time and effort and very good teaching style.

[@BryanJenks]

Good analysis, pros and cons and maybe it will be more helpful to someone else :)

[@psengath]

Fair comment, but just in case that's what stopping you, note that (core) dataview just harvests the metadata, and the metadata is just YAML, which is just more markdown (well, markup). So yes the sweet dataview functionality is tied to dataview, but it's not working on anything proprietary, and you or someone else could crawl the YAML (which you own) to get a similar result.

[@vyacheslavsunday2285]

Cool tutor, man) It helps me a lot. My head understands that dataview is one of the best feature-plugins, but I think it is better then I can imagine now)

[@BryanJenks]

glad it helped!

[@Busterblade20]

I hope the next video about data view comes soon. Thank you, Bryan.

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@marci.abraham]

Masterful, as always. Thank you! (Love that you added GRUD to the timeline. I will add that to my vocabulary.)

[@BryanJenks]

:)

[@nadiamorand9961]

Thank you so much for this insights! So many useful infos! I have an issue though, when trying inline queries, it only work for me on the Reading mode and not with live preview as for you. do you have an idea why? Did I miss something?

[@BryanJenks]

Not sure, you’re not the only one who has had issues, check the data view settings for inline query syntax

[@ddoddiii]

Thank you for the great video ! Jumped up my obsidian experience to whole another level !

[@BryanJenks]

That’s awesome!

[@kevinrice5563]

This is much-needed and much appreciated Brian, thx man. Must have been the relentless pleas on LInkedIn 😂

[@BryanJenks]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tummalatube]

1) Is there a way to copy the result of a Dataview query from obsidian and paste it into Notepad/MS Word/Excel etc. Any plugin which can help us in doing this? 2) If i have text in obsidian with formatting like [[ ]], bold etc.., how can i copy the text without formatting/[[]] and paste it into notepad/MS Word as plain text? Thanks in advance for your help.

[@BryanJenks]

DB folder plugin allows export directly to CSV

[@anthonymelohorstmann1238]

Definately inspired by SQL queries, love those

[@BryanJenks]

:)

[@Junetao916]

Amazing tutorial Bryan

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you think so!

[@Junetao916]

@@BryanJenks I actually enjoyed it and learned from this episode. Thank you keep up the great content! Noti’s are always on 🔔

[@timbridgman423]

Thank you for not making me feel stupid 😁

[@BryanJenks]

Well I’m glad I didn’t :)

[@gamerscodex5454]

Shit, this is just what I've needed, Dataview is so powerful, yet I'm driving it like a Prius...THANK YOU!!!

[@BryanJenks]

glad you find it helpful! :)

[@plathanos159]

Thanks, this was the video that I just needed, btw, how do I activate that little source mode button that appears in the top right corner of the tables?

[@BryanJenks]

codemirror options plugin!

[@plathanos159]

@@BryanJenks Thanks!

[@Anita028]

Great video, looking forward to the dataviewjs one :)

[@BryanJenks]

You and me both!

[@gvs9039]

Best video I see on dataview, thanks !

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you liked it!

[@toppanam611]

Hi Bryan, Thanks for the great video. Can I use Data view to find the # value that is in the contents, e.g. #US (appears in one of the paragraph of the body of the file)

[@BryanJenks]

I think so, haven’t done it myself but if not with plain data view then with data view.JS for sure

[@ToriZealot]

Many thanks, I love the idea to enter arrays. But how can I filter with WHERE? If I enter all values it works (e.g. [4455, 5678]), but single values like 4455 won't work. Any idea? Found it (cas=field; 4455=value): WHERE contains(cas, 4455)

[@BryanJenks]

:)

[@ClarkeScott]

Can I use an inline query inside a dataview?

[@BryanJenks]

i do not think so

[@WokeSoros]

Dendron has shutdown development. Show I move to obsidian?

[@BryanJenks]

you dont have to, it's open source, and Kevin is still going to maintain the current feature set, but i personally am consolidating back into obsidian

[@WokeSoros]

@@BryanJenks Thanks for responding. I'm thinking Obsidian might have more to offer long term. I've not tried it yet. Today might be the day. Great content by the way, as always. Anyway, Dendron's graph I don't think will ever get fixed if I don't do it myself...and I'm not that cool. Have you tried this yet? Have ChatGTP make you a tutorial about something, then ask it give it to you in markdown code. Edit: I want to be clear that I'm not talking poorly of Dendron. I love dendron, it changed my life, and I'm sad to see its not going to be so actively developed, but I can move over to obsidian for a bit and try it, and if not go back to dendron...:) I never looked at obsidian after I found dendron specifically because I was worried I'd waste time moving back & forth, but not that I've got a good workflow in dendron I'd like to see how easy it is to import and what Obsidian has to offer.

[@ukana5315]

How do you use emoji with your keyboard? Do you have a video on it?

[@BryanJenks]

I use the Mac Alfred app

[@hl2lmm]

Thank you for watching how can i have to make to emojo " v" check ?

[@BryanJenks]

I use Alfred on Mac to use a snippet text replacement

[@mn0]

@7.36 you should add file.tags instead of tags to see the tags. No need to add it to the metadata. Thanks for this tutorial.

[@BryanJenks]

perfect, thank you!

[@s4mm1ch324]

Awesome video! Thank you!

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you liked it!

[@rebeccadevere8034]

Love youuu thanks for this!

[@BryanJenks]

You're so welcome!

[@eltongarcia6105]

Great content! very well explained. Thank you

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@landonporter77]

Thank you sir, this was fantastic.

[@BryanJenks]

My pleasure!

[@SpencerSkelly]

Great video, really useful. I appreciate your effort. Thanks

[@BryanJenks]

Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@clydebelasso5826]

AMAZING TUTORIAL!!!

[@BryanJenks]

glad you enjoyed it!

[@mohamedezawi6815]

Amazing, learned a lot

[@BryanJenks]

I’m glad!

[@חנוךעפיפון-ס2ו]

Please do a questionnaire with this

[@BryanJenks]

Questionnaire?

[@חנוךעפיפון-ס2ו]

@@BryanJenks Is the grass green? A1:: yes Is the grass purple? A2:: no 😃 response: `= choice(this.A1 = "yes" AND this.A2 = "no", "I'm proud of you", "bruh?")`

[@חנוךעפיפון-ס2ו]

@@BryanJenks I figured it out unless you feel like taking the questionnaire idea a step further

[@petrvictorovich]

How to make inline queries from other file?

[@BryanJenks]

im not understanding the question

[@petrvictorovich]

@@BryanJenks `= this.var1` - means show me var1 from this file. How to say: show me var1 from another file?

[@petrvictorovich]

Oh i see! `= [[SomeFile]].gnss[0]` = show me element 0 of array gnss from SomeFile. =) I make a dictionary of abbreviations this way.

[@martinboycott-brown1994]

I know it hasn't been released yet, but does anyone know how Datacore is going to fit in with Dataview (if at all)?

[@BryanJenks]

it looks like it might be a superseding plugin that wont use the same syntax as dataview

[@DavidTopps]

@@BryanJenks Therefore I am curious as to why you are posting this now since Datacore is coming out very soon. Sorry to sound ungrateful for your excellent work but the syntax change may make all this Dataview stuff rather irrelevant.

[@Flower-fx5zy]

@@BryanJenks This is my first community plugin that I just installed. Your tutorial helped me a lot to understand. Thanks! If it will be superseded in the near future, it was all the better that I was able to quickly familiarize myself with the help of your video. I'm already looking forward to datacore. 😀

[@ydherdn]

Thank You

[@BryanJenks]

My pleasure!

[@rockychen2231]

牛，都是现场操作的 牛=Cool

[@BryanJenks]

🐄️

[@mattbookout-varner4585]

Dat hair doe

[@BryanJenks]

🤣

[@pbpk23]

Why bother with all this coding when Notion is more intuitive and most of this stuff is done by the app without me having to type the code? As a non-coder I don't understand a thing and the learning curve is steep for me.

[@BryanJenks]

then perhaps this isnt the better tool for you, notion can do a lot of what obsidian can, everything has its pros and cons, for those that are interested in getting into the weeds a bit more, this always unlocks more potential, power, and customization in anything not just note taking applications. i personally dont like notion because of its data interchange format last i checked, how slow it can get comparatively, and the lack of plain text file emphasis

[@padrecopeland955]

🐄

[@BryanJenks]

🐄

[@Biffnib]

I learned a lot about obsidian from you. I would love someone to talk about how to output dataview results in something other than pdf. If you use pandoc to create the output for example it shows the query not the results. I want to share data with non-obsidian users that can be edited by them.

[@BryanJenks]

That’s not something I’ve actually heard anyone ask about before or do for that matter ._.

[@ukana5315]

Comments 😊😊😊 to support 😊😊😊

[@BryanJenks]

🥰

[@xm_tech]

Aliases: - one - two - three

[@BryanJenks]

✅️

[@RobCurrent]

+1 to YYYY-MM-DD

[@BryanJenks]

ISO 8601 FTW!