2021-06-19: QuickAdd, a plugin updates channel, & new guides

Community

• There was a very informative discussion about pricing models and why Obsidian charges for certain features while some competitors choose not to charge for those specific features.
• @person put together a rough experimentation guide intended for folks new to Obsidian.
• @anthonyg over at Obsidian Office Hours shared this in-depth Zotero-with-Obsidian  deep dive by @argentum.

Plugin News

New

• @Christian released a Templater script as a new plugin: QuickAdd. It’s incredible.  At it’s core it lets you add pages from templates, do quick capture, etc. But now there’s a new and improved GUI for choices, and a custom macro engine to let you execute JS scripts and Obsidian commands like macros. Also, choices can now be added as Obsidian commands so you can activate them with hotkeys etc. There’s even added automatic suggestion for tags and file names in the input prompt.
• The argdown plugin is now available in the community downloads list.
• There’s a new plugin called pluck that lets you insert the contents of a webpage into a note. If you’re not already familiar with it, this thread from the forum is full of great recommendations for browser extensions to capture web pages as markdown.

Updates

• The file-tree-alternative plugin now has a feature for pinning files to the top.
• Jump to link now can jump to words or any other Regexp based symbol. This is configurable.
• The Adjacency Matrix Maker can now show folders on the matrix up to any depth.
• Templater (1.8.0) has new internal functions in the tp.file module and syntax highlighting in edit mode.

Scripts

• @Nick_At_Day shared this templater script intended for folks who use "ABC" lists to try to come up with tags. It will allow you to select the table and return only the tags.
• @Witt shared a nice, simple, straightforward example of how to use inline dataview queries that act as formulas manipulating a variable.
• @Christian created a script to move all notes with a tag to any folder.

Under The Radar

• Image in Editor was resurfaced as a super useful plugin for folks who hate switching over to preview mode to see the images they’re embedding.
• This plugin lets you assign a hotkey for underlining the HTML way: <u>.

Workflow Stuff

• There was a really nice discussion about the difference between the backlinks panels and outgoing links in the new core plugin. It begins here and even has some nifty infographics.
• @Aonto shared how to use metaedit, dataview and Kanban to track projects with a progress-bar.

Feature Requests

• @Sam Baron created a feature request for Obsidian to create a changelog file. There’s a pull request if you’d rather look into that, and in the interim we’ve got a new channel in the Discord for #plugin-updates where the github bot will post new plugins and developers can post updates there.
• The feature request to create references for headers or blocks by drag-and-drop got resurfaced.

Appearance

• @Kepano's css snippet for image zoom got resurfaced.
• @mano shared this code to get the navigation on a publish website in a specific order instead of alphabetical + files following folders.
• @mano also shared this snippet for larger popovers, which has been requested a lot lately.
• @Mara shared a WYSIWYG snippet along with a forum post with video to explain.

Knowledge Management

• There was a lot of great discussion in this Reddit thread asking how do you write permanent notes?
• @drgraham put together a starter vault for history students aimed at helping  undergraduate students be mindful about how they’re taking notes from academic literature, but in a bit more of a simplified way than the full-on personal knowledge management vocabulary we often see.

Ancillary Tools

• There was a nice review of mailbox.org vs. ProtonMail shared by a community member (@Jeppe Klitgaard)
• @Briwats put together a forum thread compiling images and videos of Obsidian on the Onyx Boox eink tablet. Full disclosure, these convinced me buy a Boox ;)
• For folks who use a static site generator like Hugo to run websites (or self-host your digital gardens) there was a great discussion about various comments options in the Discord.
• @Silver shared a cool game made by friends of the Obsidian developers: Keyword is a narrative thriller where you’ll depend on skills of logical deduction, hacking, and social engineering to solve challenging puzzles as the only means of finding your missing daughter. Keyword demo will be available during Steam Next Fest till the end of this month.