⚡️ Ideas
RoyHJ RoyHJ Jun 27, 2024

Inline fields

Explain the problem as you see it

Since fields add semantics to metadata/links, they should blend naturally with the flow of writing text.

This is especially useful for stand-alone fields (not attached to supertags) common throughout the workspace.

Why is this a problem for you?

Blending-in fields within the note helps keeping the flow of writing, reduces friction in editing existing information (changing the relation in-text while reading) and the exact context is useful to pinpoint the field to the source context in the note.

Suggest a solution

For example, in a note about "Smaug" I might start with something like this:

Smaug is a (instance of:: Dragon) in [[Tolkien]]'s book [[The Hobbit]] (has question:: are there other dragons in middle-earth?).

with an option of linking notes a little more through the field values:

Smaug is a (instance of:: [[Dragon]]) in [[Tolkien]]'s book [[The Hobbit]] (has question:: are there other dragons in [[middle-earth]]?).

This kind of syntax should add "dragon" to the field "instance of" of this note (and the question...) similarly to setting it in a separate line as a field.

Example implementations of this approach are obsidian/dataview and semantic mediawiki.