Obsidian Dataview: Turn Obsidian Vault into a database which you can query from

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • obsidian-dataview

    A data index and query language over Markdown files, for https://obsidian.md/.

  • datascript

    Immutable database and Datalog query engine for Clojure, ClojureScript and JS

  • SurveyJS

    Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

  • obsidian-database-plugin

    Enables creating databases based on files in Obsidian - like Dataview, but with editing!

    This one is still in the manual-install phase, but you might like this plugin: https://github.com/tomaszkiewicz/obsidian-database-plugin

  • leo-editor

    Leo is an Outliner, Editor, IDE and PIM written in 100% Python.

    > What outliners do you know which allow end-users to feed their data into formulas for processing it without using general-purpose programming languages?

    Bit of a pointless constraint, the talk is about outliners, not no-code-datamangment. Which tool today does this even offer on a useful level?

    But you can look at leo editor (https://leoeditor.com), which is active for 20+ years, fully scriptable and extendable. Though, it's a hot piece of garbage for laymen. It's offers a bunch of features and plugins even for non-coders, but I'm not sure it would satisfy you for this area, if you can't code.

    But I'm not sure if there ever is a tool which will satisfy everyone with just a no-code-approach.

  • obsidian-query-control

    An experimental Obsidian plugin that adds controls to embedded queries

    I agree with your issue of reification and I like the concept of a "wit."

    I think we're getting there, too. See, for instance, https://github.com/nothingislost/obsidian-query-control — it renders the results of an embedded Obsidian query and you can interact with checkboxes. Likewise, a collaboration between dataview and the Task Collector plugin might let us manipulate different task statuses from a dataview query: https://github.com/ebullient/obsidian-task-collector/issues/...

    Exciting times!

  • obsidian-task-collector

    Plugin for https://obsidian.md/ that assists with managing tasks within a document.

    I agree with your issue of reification and I like the concept of a "wit."

    I think we're getting there, too. See, for instance, https://github.com/nothingislost/obsidian-query-control — it renders the results of an embedded Obsidian query and you can interact with checkboxes. Likewise, a collaboration between dataview and the Task Collector plugin might let us manipulate different task statuses from a dataview query: https://github.com/ebullient/obsidian-task-collector/issues/...

    Exciting times!

  • obsidian-minimal

    A distraction-free and highly customizable theme for Obsidian.

    Dataview is incredible. Being able to query plain text notes and their metadata has been transformative for my workflow. It has allowed me to move virtually all my thought processing work into Obsidian. I am constantly amazed by how performant Dataview is.

    I sometimes wonder if learning how to use Dataview inside of Obsidian is too technical to get mass adoption, compared to WYSIWYG tools like Notion that let you build databases with nice UI filtering. But the performance of Dataview is so much better, and the control you have over queries so much more granular, that it’s worth the learning curve. The Obsidian community is also incredibly good at helping new users learn, which makes me feel optimistic.

    To help make things a bit more user friendly I have been building an Obsidian theme called Minimal[1] which allows you to take Dataview tables and display them in a card layout[2]. I really enjoy that layout for certain types of information, while having all the underlying power of Dataview.

    [1]: https://github.com/kepano/obsidian-minimal

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  • streams

    TiddlyWiki plugin for rapid data entry with a keyboard driven workflow. Divide content into smaller tiddlers as you write. (by saqimtiaz)

    I do make use of the `backlinks` query extensively, and I use saqimtiaz's wonderful `streams` [1] plugin to recreate a Roam-like experience. This setup leads to a large amount of small-sized tiddlers (2.5k and counting), which might add to the overhead.

    Not to mention downloading and parsing 20mb-worth of html+js each time you open up the wiki can be quite slow.

    [1]: https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams

  • obsidian-alfred

    Alfred workflow for Obsidian note-taking app. Open vaults and files in Obsidian.

    thank you for your work on Dataview! I use it as a read later list in combination with a Mac Shortcut I wrote + https://github.com/hauselin/obsidian-alfred

    It has completely replaced Pocket/Instapaper for me.

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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