# [[Obsidian 1.4.0 - Frontmatter and property changes]] ![](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxqkIhh9L8) Related:: "" Related:: "" ## Pre-production ### Thumbnail ### Title 1. Obsidian properties in YAML frontmatter (v1.4) ### Hook The YAML frontmatter support in Obsidian is one of the best things about it, but there *are* a few problems with it. 1. Most people are not familiar with YAML, so it's very easy to get the syntax wrong. Leave a dash out, or forget to put it at the very top of a note, and things break. 2. Links aren't supported within frontmatter. This means that while you can *add* a link to a note, if you rename the note, the link doesn't update like it would if you had put it outside the frontmatter. This is why I, like many people, have preferred to put links within comments instead. 3. There's nothing that helps you stay consistent to your own properties. I have some properties that should have been the same, but are slightly different, and because of that, I've created a [[Data model]] page to track everything. But it's not pretty. Until now. v1.4 of Obsidian is out, and with it is a whole new UI for frontmatter properties. ### Structure - Frontmatter UI (core feature) - Add property - Change type of properties (like date, string, tags, boolean) !! - [!] Types are automatically inferred, which means you might have invalid ones. - Ex: nested keys don't work. Instead, you have to define arrays. - If you have some Dataview queries, you might have to adjust them so that they keep working. Instead of using `where property = X`, `where contains(property,"X")` , for example. - Links are automatically parsed - URLs are automatically parsed - When setting a property value, you can choose from the ones you selected before! - Properties pane + core plugin - Edit - Things to keep in mind - There's another learning curve here as you get used to not seeing YAML frontmatter. (At least for me, this was the case.) I suggest hotkeying switching to Source mode so that you can always see the underlying text. - Properties aren't selected when you hit CMD/CTRL A to select all. You'll have to switch to Source mode for that. - Protected keys - Plugins - How does this work with Templates/Templater? - You may want to make sure the properties in a template are set to the correct type. You may run into issues if you've set values that are of different types for the same property. - There's no way to ignore certain files (like templates) so be careful about setting property types, because it will enforce that for the template as well. - Fantasy Calendar: Nested keys - Some plugins that use frontmatter and haven't been updated may not yet work, like [[Banners]]. ### Outro The main takeaway: consistency. - Types are enforced across notes - you can't put text in a date field without changing the type first. - Properties are suggested. - Values are suggested. I used to keep a [[Data model]] page for this, but now I no longer need to. The last few releases of Obsidian have brought some pretty exciting goodies. The last release, v1.3, brought an improved PDF viewer and PDF deep links. v1.2 brought us Bookmarks. v1.1 brought us Canvas. All really cool features, but I think this release, with frontmatter, has me more excited than any of those, because rather than giving me something new, this release improves my workflows around something I'm already using pretty heavily: frontmatter. This release still works really well with the Dataview community plugin, so if you want to know how to use that, check out this video for a tutorial. Thanks for watching! *Ĝis la venonta fojo!* ### Related videos and resources ### Pinned comment ``` This is available for Insiders (Early Access/Catalyst plan) only for now! It'll be released to the public in a few weeks. PLUGINS MENTIONED: Dataview, Templater, Fantasy Calendar, Banners, ExcaliBrain THEME: AnupPuccin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-SOwxpZQNI ``` ### Timestamps 00:00 Issues with Obsidian frontmatter 01:48 New Obsidian properties and property types 05:38 Changing property types 06:53 Links update in frontmatter 08:52 New core Properties plugin 12:20 How this changes your workflow 14:13 How this affects Templater 16:12 Nested keys - Fantasy Calendar 17:50 Banners plugin 18:39 Plugins not affected: ExcaliBrain, Dataview ## Post-production - [ ] Create captions using Rev, then edit them. - [x] Take a thumbnail photo and create one for YouTube (1280 x 720). - [x] Add description. - [x] Include the title and any keywords in the first few sentences, but in a natural way. - [x] Add related videos and resources as links. - [x] Add end screen. - [x] Add cards if necessary. - [x] Add chapters/timestamps for YouTube if longer than 5 minutes. - [x] Add mid-roll ads/check monetization settings. - [x] Add pinned comment. - [ ] Post video preview on Patreon. - [ ] Schedule on YouTube. - [ ] Add video to relevant playlist(s), or create a playlist if necessary. - [ ] Schedule on Mastodon. - [ ] Create a blog post on [site](https://nicolevanderhoeven.com). - [ ] Add to [video-database](obsidian://open?vault=obsidian-playbook&file=video-database%2FVideo%20database). - [ ] Add to other notes in my vault as appropriate.