Add ability to filter and group by linked note(s)

[claremacrae]

We've had a request to filter and group by links in tasks: #725.

This Discussion is for questions and answers about what the feature should look like, from a user perspective, in the first version.

Questions that spring to mind:

1. Should it only search wiki-style links ([[...]])?
   • That would be a lot clearer to document and easier to implement. Could wait for feedback for any use-cases of other link styles
   • Other options would be obsidian links: obsidian://open?vault=...&file=...
2. What should the search be called, in the filter and group instructions? Initial ideas:
   • linked-note - it fits with the vocabulary in the obsidian help
   • link
   • wiki-link - lots of people in the community use this term for the [[ style, I think, but it's not mentioned in the obsidian help.
3. Whether it should just search the note name, or also search any text after |

/cc @ainselx

[ainselx]

Thank you for taking it seriously and raising this discussion @claremacrae

on the subject:

1. In my opinion searching via obsidian links would mix two distinct use cases:
   a) indicating task relationship to a specific note (parent - child)
   b) indicating task relationship to a specific file which may not be a note - this is equal to having Task with attachment!
   Scenario b can be done through just adding a link to a file directly in the task description. Also i hardly imaging a case when one would need to, say, display the list of tasks which are related to a specific file in the Vault which is not a note.
   Would be interesting to see other's opinions though.

2. I think that linked-note would be great for consistency with official help.

3. would be ideal if it searches both aliases and note name - similar to how current [[.. suggestion search works. That would provide consistent UX through both main app and the plugin. (but ofc depending on how difficult it is to implement)

[kennygokh]

A simple link to the note is sufficient to my need. See example below.

[claremacrae]

@kennygokh Thanks but I do not understand. Please show the source of that, and tell me what you would like the behaviour to be.

[tilmanbergt]

Hi. Being able to filter for Links to notes (=internal links) would be really great.

Actually my main use case is even more limited: only show tasks that have a link to the current page (the page containing the query in it).

so make it easy to handle and avoid any issues with pages that are renamed (currently links in the query will not be renamed when renaming a page) there should be a generic solution. E.g. "linked-note is this" or perhaps for this particular scenario even have a "contains backlink".

To make it even clearer I give you here what I currently use:

Assume I am on a page called "Peter Pan", then I would have the following query:

```tasks
not done
description includes [[Peter Pan
``

this would work pretty well to get all backlinks to the currentpage, indepent of whether aliases are used or not.
There are two downsides of this approach:
a) it is not very elegant to include page names with half a link like this, feels like hack.
b) it breaks when I change the title of the including page (e.g. from "Peter Pan" to "Petra Pan") or it breaks if I have a typo in the filter (which can easily happen for longer file names).

so instead I would like to have the following:

```tasks
not done
linked-note includes backlink
``

Alternatively

```tasks
not done
linked-note includes [[Peter Pan]]
``

note: I included the brackets, because thereby Obsidian will automatically offer existing page names.
note 2: in the second scenario you would have to ensure that [[Peter Pan]] will automatically updated when the file changes, that is, it would have to count as real link I suppose. Not sure this is easily possible from within a code block.

I would also like to give you some background on why the first scenario would be super helpful:
Mostly I use todo list on pages for persons that I work with, and when I talk to them this page contains all references, so it would be super helpful to have all tasks that were either coming from them, where I need them, or where I wait for them to do them. In all those cases I link to the persons page in the task description. Thinking in GTD terms these pages are context, and the link provides the context. Of course one could use tags for this, but then I would have tags and pages for people, which would be redundant, I rather use tags to indicate tasks to be next, someday or waitingfor.

Similarly I have some conceptual pages, e.g. representing a project or goal, again, I would link this page, if a task would be highly relevant to a certain project. Particular in these cases the names can be long and liable to change.

Let me know if this helps you to implement such feature.

Overall the plugin really helps me a lot organize myself already as it is. Thanks a lot!

[claremacrae]

Mostly I use todo list on pages for persons I work with, and when I talk to them this page contains all references, so it would be super helpful to also great to have all tasks that were either coming from them, where I need them, or where I wait for them to do them. In all those cases I would link to the persons page in then task description.

Wow, that's a really clear description. Thank you very much.

Let me know if this helps you to implement such feature.

It is useful to have actual use-cases, thank you. There is so much I want to do right now, I can't promise any timescales for features, even though I am spending a lot of my free time on the plugin now.

[tilmanbergt]

Hi @claremacrae : thanks for the reply, great it was clear even though I made so many mistakes in grammar ...
Great to have you working on this plugin, but of course you have your own priorities. Let me know if I can help at any point. And of course there is no expectation on this, I was just glad, that you were asking exactly in the direction that I am hoping to find a better solution ...

[Redkoi42]

My use case is very similar. I take notes and record tasks in my daily notes, meeting notes, or lectures. Sometimes they relate to a person or a project or a University subject, so link to that note in the task. Then a query in a note for the person, project or University subject I can see all the tasks relevant no matter where they were captured. Really handy when I meet someone and need to be able see see all tasks relevant to them. I like @tilmanbergt example under "Alternatively".

[claremacrae]

Another request received for this, in #1149.

[kennygokh]

Hi Claire, Please see the source below. In dataview method, it is not able to sort by task due date. However, in the tasks query, it can be achieved for what I wanted except the file.link is missing. ```dataview TASK WHERE !completed GROUP BY file.link SORT file.link desc ``` ```tasks not done # hide backlink sort by due date sort by description group by folder group by filename group by heading # hide task count short mode ``` Regards. Kenny Go

…

On 10 Jun 2022, 18:00 +0800, Clare Macrae ***@***.***>, wrote: @kennygokh Thanks but I do not understand. Please show the source of that, and tell me what you would like the behaviour to be. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[dryice]

Hi,

Just suggesting a possible way to do this "filter by linked note" with "tag inheriting", without adding a new search keyword. And support a multi-layer, multi-inherit "project structure" provided by nested tags.

Basic idea is to make the tasks inherit the tags of

• the page it is in
• the page it links to

And we can reuse the existing tags filter.

Let me try to explain with an example:
file computer.md

---
tags:
  - project/computer
---

```tasks
not done
tags include project/computer
```
- [ ] this task appears here only

file Be a FE Developer.md

---
tags:
  - project/computer/FE_Dev
---

```tasks
not done
tags include project/computer/FE_Dev
```
- [ ] This task appear here, and the "computer" project above, because it inherit the tags of this file

file master Obsidian.md

---
tags:
  - project/computer/master_obsidian
---
```tasks
not done
tags include project/computer/master_obsidian
```
- [ ] This task appear here, and the "computer" project above, too

file learn JS.md

---
tags:
  - project/computer/FE_Dev/learn_js
  - project/computer/master_obsidian/learn_js
---
```tasks
not done
tags include learn_js
```

- [ ] This task will appear in all of the 4 projects. Note this project has 2 parent projects, although the tags/tasks system doesn't care about that.

file John Smith.md

---
tags:
  - people/John_Smith
---

```tasks
not done
tags include people/John_Smith
```
- [ ] Task related to this people

file 2022-11-20.md, daily note

- [ ] Talk with [[John Smith]] that I want to [[Be a FE Developer]]. This task will show up in the first 2 "project" notes, and the 1 "people" note. Because it inherits the tags from the pages it links to

Will this something like this possible?

[claremacrae]

Hi @dryice, Many thanks for sketching out the suggestion. I have read it several times, and created the files.

I worry that this system would be very hard to explain to users, and it would give quite confusing behaviour. Having a tag automatically appear on a task because the tag is present in a file that the task happens to link to is not what most users would expect - and it would also change the behaviour of exiting tag searches.

So no, sorry, it is not something that I would plan to do.

I would certainly consider a pull-request for a new filter instruction that was explicit in what it was searching for. Something like:

task.linked-file.tags includes people/John_Smith
or
task.linked-note.tags includes people/John_Smith

If you would like to put a case for it, please create a new feature request (by going to Issues and then Create) and explain clearly what exactly the change in behaviour is that you are requesting.

[claremacrae]

If you would like to put a case for it, please create a new feature request

Oh sorry, I meant to say why...

This ticket is about filtering and grouping by links to notes. Based on past experience, a suggestion about a different topic (here, changes related to tags) will never get spotted, buried inside a different topic...

[dryice]

Thanks for the detailed reply @claremacrae. You are right, that suggestion means the user needs to use tags and links in some specific way, and for people who don't do that, it becomes confusing.

I'll give it some more thought and probably open a new ticket. For now please ignore it. Thanks!

[Davelortenco]

Filtering by note links is useful, but grouping by note links is powerful for those of us who organize tasks by just including links in them. Try this:

dataview 
task where !completed 
group by outlinks

Note that when one task contains more than 1 note link, dataview cannot decide and the task is included in the group that doesn't have note link.

a correction:

• when a task contains more than one note link, seems that "group by outlink" only takes into account the last note link in the task description (that is the last note link in the outlink list entity)
• still all note links in the task description appear in the query that lists all notes linked by tasks. (LIST WHERE any(file.tasks, (t) => !t.fullyCompleted) )
• external links (htttp, etc) are ignored.

[claremacrae]

outlinks (not outlines) are list entities that contain links to note files. This metadata is already implemented in dataview.
Please note that the dataview query proposed already works. It is not an improvement proposal.

Thanks, but that isn't very clear to me.

For clarity, please supply an actual concrete example picture of what you mean - that does not require someone to know dataview jargon of syntax. Many thanks.

It doesn't matter what dataview does. What does matter is that it is clear and unambiguous what is being requested of Tasks. :-)

[claremacrae]

@Davelortenco Sorry for a slightly terse message, but there is a lot of support email for Tasks these days, and I just don't have time to be developing the plugin and having to interpret descriptions of other plugins too.

I need to focus on developing Tasks, and to make sure that feature requests are clear and unambiguous, so that if they are picked up in future, they can be worked on efficiently.

[Davelortenco]

Sure @claremacrae, no problem. I was only sharing the fact that the requested functionality is partially available through another plugin, so:

• users and @ainselx in post #725 can already get the desired functionality.
• we can know how it's been implemented in another plugin and get inspired (that is good for consistency across plugins)

[claremacrae]

Hi @Davelortenco - brilliant. Thanks very much indeed for the clarification!

[hotemetoot]

This would be a very welcome feature indeed. Personally, I like to link each task to a project note so I can easily group task by project. Wiki links only would be sufficient, and the 'linked-note' naming makes sense or alternatively the name 'outlinks' as used in dataview.

Currently I use the custom grouping to achieve something similar (assuming there are no other '[' signs in the task description).
group by function task.description.slice(task.description.indexOf('['),task.description.lastIndexOf(']')+1)

Ideally, there would also be a way to then remove the link from the task name in the result, so as to not see the project name show up again in the task (Project A is in the heading and again in the task name):

Looking foward to seeing this happen =)

[claremacrae]

@hotemetoot I'm glad you have a workaround.

I'm also glad that you have found group by function useful.

Ideally, there would also be a way to then remove the link from the task name in the result, so as to not see the project name show up again in the task (Project A is in the heading and again in the task name):
Looking foward to seeing this happen =)

It's not going to happen if this is the only place it is requested! 😄

The topic of this issue is specifically about filtering: any requests for independent features would need to be in their own separate request if they are ever to be considered for implementation.

[yshalsager]

+1 for this feature, it would be super useful for me since I link pages of clients/projects/books/media in task name while tasks reside in daily notes.

For the current time, I am using the following query to group tasks by link even if there's more than one link in description.

```dataviewjs
const regex = /\[\[.*?\]\]/g;
const query = `
done
path includes ${dv.current().file.path}
group by function task.description.match(${regex})
`;

dv.paragraph('```tasks\n' + query + '\n```');```

[am4c130d]

Just adding my use case.

Some background on my note taking:

• I use tags to denote concepts or generic things
• I use outlinks to denote primary things: people, companies, objects etc.

I create two types of tasks, all very loosely based on Get Things Done and use a tag to indicate tasks, and specific nested tags to indicate their disposition

• tasks that need to be done by a specific date with text description of what needs to be done, tags and outlinks as above.
• projects that have multiple tasks that relate to a single delivery with an outlink to the primary person/company/product that project belongs to and a nested tag starting with #Project, which is always tag 2, to indicate it's part of project and which project, and a text description of what needs to be done.

I "litter" these all over my notes and then have primary object pages that I use to gather everything back together and see where I am on that object.

Being able to filter by outlink in the task and group by project tag is my primary goal.

Examples of project tasks

• #GTD/Action [[House 1]] #Project/CleanHouse wash the dishes due: 2023-11-15
• #GTD/Waiting [[House 1]] #Project/CleanHouse dry the dishes due: 2023-11-16
• #GTD/Action [[House 1]] #Project/SellHouse find a realtor due: 2023-12-01

Examples of normal tasks

• #GTD/Action let [[Person 1]] know the dishes are #dirty due: 2023-11-15

My conceptual project query (I swagged the syntax, I'm not advocating for it)

not done
(filter by function task.outlinks.includes [[]]) AND (tags include #Project)
group by tag 2

My conceptual regular task query

not done
(filter by function task.outlinks.includes [[]]) AND (tags !include #Project)
sort by due

The [[]] denoting inlink (at the query location) is straight from dataview and is really useful, it would make my queries more robust: addresses the scenario where the file name changes, makes a really simple query for a template and is consistent between dataview and tasks.

Thanks - this is a great plugin and has improved how I work.

[claremacrae]

Just to note that I replied to a Q&A about searching with outlinks...

Here is the answer which works in the current code now:

#2392 (comment)

[am4c130d]

@claremacrae apologies, I buried my message. I'd like the query on the current page to only show the tasks that have links back to this page. I think it's the opposite of the example you provided, but I struggle to read dataviewjs, so I may be wrong - it didn't work as I expected, but I'll play around. Thank you for providing

[claremacrae]

Maybe try changing outlinks to inlinks in the code then?

[am4c130d]

Your confirmation that it should be that simple is encouraging. I did give it a go but the output was not what I was expecting. Let me dig some more - it feels really close. I'll post back if I get it producing something that meets my use cases - thank you!

[am4c130d]

I'm completely wrong. Changing outlinks to inlinks in the dataviewjs query worked and with some tasks query work I was able to get exactly what I needed - perfect. Thank you.

[23426356587]

I work in HR - and I know nothing about programing... BUT maybe this would help?

Dataview released the ability to searach by outlink in 0.5.31 https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/changelog/

I found (I think) the changes they made to their code blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview@251cfbb

Does this do anything?

[claremacrae]

Hi, thank you for the suggestion.

To be honest, the thing that would help most would be conjuring up a few extra hours a day! 😄

[claremacrae]

I have created an issue from this, so that I can track it in the backlog.

Keep up-voting here though...

• Add ability to filter and group by linked note(s) #3308