Amerpie by Lou Plummer

What little extras do you #Obsidian people add to your daily note? I have Templater snippets for a daily quote and to link to yesterday and tomorrow’s notes. I also have a dataview snippet for all the notes created that day and finally a plugin for Things 3 which lists all my completed tasks.

I live the cross-platform life, Windows by day. #MacOS at night. I need clipboard syncing with iOS on both. There are many Mac choices. I use PastePal. On the PC side, I use Clipboard Fusion and it just got its first update in five years! I hate it when much loved apps die on the vine.

If you’re looking for a way to save web pages to #Obsidian on mobile, check out this shortcut to save markdown to #Drafts routinehub.co/shortcut/…

I’ve been collecting quotes for years. Getting into #Obsidian has given me a new way to catalog them. Anyone out there want to trade ZIP files full of Markdown formatted quotes suitable for importing into an Obsidian vault?

Introduction

In the world of markdown note-taking, maintaining tidy metadata in Obsidian is crucial for advanced functionality. Whether you rely on the Dataview plugin or embedded queries, properties play a vital role. Beyond functionality, having easy access to note information like creation dates and source URLs enhances your note-taking experience. Luckily, there are three powerful plugins that can streamline your metadata management in Obsidian: Linter, Metadata Menu and Multi Properties.

Linter Plugin—Streamline Your Defaults

Among the trio, Linter stands out as the most robust plugin. With enough customization, it can accomplish what the other two plugins offer. However, I prefer using Linter for general defaults while using the other plugins for specific cases. Linter excels at applying a default set of properties to all your notes, and I use the following essential properties:

>```
title:
url:
tags:
creation date:
modification date:
```

Furthermore, Linter offers the flexibility of adding additional properties, which it conveniently lists in alphabetical order. You can also choose the date format, with the recommended format being YYYY-MM-DD. Another impressive feature of Linter is its ability to move tags from the note body to the metadata section. Additionally, if you have older notes without properties, Linter excels in formatting existing YAML headers according to the new standards.

Metadata Menu—Customize Note Properties

For applying a specific set of properties to select notes, Metadata Menu is an excellent choice. Whether you want to group notes within a folder or classify them by a common tag, this plugin offers remarkable flexibility. While the Templater plugin can achieve similar functionality, Metadata Menu eliminates the need to learn special syntax. It’s worth noting that Templater can be less reliable on Mac systems. To learn more about how to leverage Metadata Menu effectively, check out Marco Serafini’s YouTube video.

Multi Properties—Quick and Easy

If you need a quick and effortless method to add properties on the go, the Multi Properties plugin is your go-to solution. Simply select a group of notes, right-click, and Multi Properties allows you to apply as many properties as desired. This feature allows you to assign specific tags or add property fields for note-specific data that you plan to fill in later.

Conclusion

By leveraging these three powerful plugins, you can automate a significant portion of your metadata management in Obsidian. This foundation will not only make your note-taking more effective, it will also allow you to harness Dataview and inline queries to amp up the effectiveness of your PKM system.

See all my Obsidian Tips

OMG - my Open.AI account finally refunded, meaning I spent $5 since November 29 - with almost daily use of some sort.

If you are a Mac user who doesn’t mind hacking together a few common services and applications, you can configure a way to use your email client, even on Windows or from iOS or Android, to get emails into your Obsidian vault.

What You’ll Need

Besides an email client and a working copy of Obsidian, you’ll need the following:

• An account at IFTTT.com
• An account at Dropbox
• A copy of Hazel by Noodlesoft Software

IFTTT

Start by enabling Email Integrations - Connect Your Apps with IFTTT. This will give you an email address to which you can forward emails to trigger this sequence of events. The specific applet you’ll need can be access here.

Dropbox

You can use any folder in your Dropbox account, just make sure it’s one where you’ve set up selective sync so the file actually ends up on your hard drive and not in the shadowy netherworld where Apple currently likes to relegate files from cloud services. I like to use a free Dropbox client from Maestral that actually lets me keep my files in the root of my home directory instead in the cloud services folder in the ~/library.

Hazel

If you aren’t familiar with Hazel by Noodlesoft, it is is a utility software for macOS that automates file organization and management tasks based on user-defined rules. It can perform actions like moving, renaming, deleting files, running scripts, and more, based on various criteria such as name, type, date, or content.

The rule you’ll make will rename the text file you created by emailing the IFTTT address. It will give the file a “.md” extension so that Obsidian will recognize it. Then it will move the renamed file into a folder you choose within your Obsidian vault. Mine is originally named “Email”. This works best if you a Mac that’s always on, but if you don’t, Hazel will run the rule as soon as you log in to you device.

Another Method

Quick and Dirty Prototyp- Receive Mail for Obsidian - dit und dat

See all my Obsidian Tips

Phanpy

Summary - A web-based Mastodon client with some useful features; 1) Visually separate original posts and re-shared posts (boosted posts), 2) Nested comments thread - Effortlessly follow conversations. Semi-collapsible replies. 3)Similar notifications are grouped and collapsed to reduce clutter. 4) By default, single column for zen-mode seekers. Configurable multi-column for power users. 5)Up to 5 hashtags combined into a single timeline.

Due is a hybrid of a reminders app and an alarm clock. You can set one time or persistent reminders for things like moving the trash to the curb, clocking in or out at work, changing the filter in your Britta, the time you need to make a phone call or visit someone’s office. You can’t ignore Due. It’s alarms repeat every minute on the minute until you turn them off, up to five times by default and configurable up to ten times. It also has reusable precise countdown timers for things you repeat constantly like brewing tea. It has natural language input capabilities. It’s a snap to set up a reminder on the fly. It cost $7.99 for all the features it has right now and has an IAP to insure your rights to upgrades. There is even a Mac app that syncs via iCloud. I’ve had Due on my homescreen since iOS 4. You should add it to yours.

I like to have a note in my vault that shows all the notes created on the current day. I’ve been using a query that I have to update each day with the new date but I recently got a great tip from the Obsidian forum. Now I have a dynamically updated note that resets each day at midnight. You can use the dataview query below to achieve the same thing. (Note - You must have the dataview community plugin installed)

```dataview 
LIST WHERE contains(creation-date, date(today)) 
SORT file.name DESC 
```

To further this idea, I decided I’d like to have a section of my daily note listing all the files created on that particular day. Obviously, i can’t use a dynamic variable for this or the data would change depending on what date I opened the note. Returning once again to the Obsidian forum, I got the solution to this problem as well. I use the following dataview query under a level two heading of “Notes Created Today”

```dataview
LIST WHERE creation-date = this.creation-date
```

See all my Obsidian Tips

I knew this day was coming. I’ve been using #Evernote for 16 years. It’s integration with IFTTT, the web clipper and the mail to Evernote feature are all valuable parts of my workflow. I’m trying to rely on #Obsidian these days but I think I’ll bite the bullet and pay for one more year.

The geek in me is celebrating the conversion of a 236-line CSV file to markdown files this morning. Now the quote collection I’ve been piecing together for years is in #Obsidian instead of an iOS app that’s been deprecated since 2016. It’s the little things.

So, IFTTT just raised prices by 33% and you know what, I’m just going to pay it and keep going. I get so much value out of the automations I have set up. I need them to make my emails to #Obsidian work. Another plus, their tech support stays with problems until they are resolved.

The new Arc Search app for iOS is better than just a chatbot on top of a search engine. It builds you a web page (with sources) to answer your search queries. The info it provides is up-to-date and easier to access than scanning a list of possible related links.