My Obsidian vaults go back over 5 years to the first week the app was available in public. Over the years I added a lot of Dataview tables, tags inserted in text, and inline metadata – across thousands of journal entries and notes of all sorts. Obsidian always supported YAML front matter, and solidified and structured that support a couple of years ago with the Properties feature. I never used YAML properties much. I like having metadata close to the relevant text, not in some obscure table at the top or in a sidebar window – the Properties options.
Now, Obsidian introduced a new Bases plugin which builds tables based on properties in files in the YAML headers of files in the database. All cool, except this feature has no knowledge of metadata outside of the YAML header – as far as I can tell. So Bases – as great as it might be (Nick really loves it) is blind to most of the metadata in my notes. It feels like the developers just ignored the legacy inline metadata that they supported all these years.
Dataview still works although it’s no longer actively enhanced, and Dataview can build much better reports, in my opinion, than Bases. Datacore from the Dataview developer is coming along someday, and I hope it will still see all the inline metadata in my vaults – don’t know yet.
This feels like the classic transition model for apps. They build a feature, you go down that path with them big time, and suddenly the app forks into a different direction that leaves behind a chunk of data.
(Also, FWIW, the live search features in Tana are far superior to anything Bases can do for now.)
I understand your frustration, but I don’t know that I’d agree this is the “classic transition model for apps.” In my experience, I’ve never had that happen with a mainline app.
But it does illustrate the danger and always present potential of app use that is based on plugins, many of which are not sponsored or supported by the base application. It’s one of the reasons I have chosen to move away from Obsidian.
The Linter plugin has an option to move tags from note bodies into the YAML header. However, it will only work for tags. I.e. if you have arbitrary metadata (not tags) scattered through the notes, it won’t move it.
I think (but I’m not certain) the Metadata Menu plugin can be configured to move all metadata into frontmatter YAML.
I also see, on the Obsidian Roadmap, that a Bases API is at the top of the active work. No idea what plugin developers will do with such an API, but it could lead to better integration with legacy metadate. I hope.
Thanks for mentioning this, it looks useful for something I’ve been thinking of for a long time. Sure, I could have used Excel or Numbers, but they both remind me too much of work to use for a passion project
I do enjoy Obsidian a lot, but realise that my usage is probably much like driving carefully around a vacant parking lot, and only briefly getting into 2nd gear.
I just switched from Dataview to Bases in one of my vaults. Was able to use this site to help me convert.
Bases doesn’t do lists, so Dataview still possibly has a place, but I switched the tables to Bases for future proofing. Fairly minor change for me as it went in that particular vault as I think I had about 5 tables.
I agree with others about being cautious when deciding to use 3rd party plugins. I’ve kept my Obsidian install as plugin free as possible for a few reasons.
simplicity - my time is precious. More plugins = more management overhead
reduce impact if plugin is abandoned
portability - make it easier to switch note apps
I’ve seen apps , like Plex Media Server drop official plugin support despite there meeting a thriving community.
I’ve also seen app features, like the watched folder in Evernote, completely disappear.
So being aware that you don’t control the direction of the product or plugin that you are using is important!
I’ve watched a few youtube videos about Bases but I haven’t had time think about how to integrate it with my notes. i’m glad that it uses the front matter of my notes and leaves the content of my notes alone .
I think the reason that I avoided using dataview was that was intermingled with my note data. I was tempted to use it but stayed away.
