My logging system in Obsidian

Updated: 12/20/2022

Inspiration

I was watching the recordings from the Linking Your Thinking Conference and I got to Leah Ferguson: Start and End Your Day With a Daily Note. One takeaway I got from her talk was, "I too could use a low friction way of adding some logging in my vault!" I thought I would do just what she said but it quickly got out of hand.

The requirements

For this to work, you'll need some plugins:

• DataView
• Templater
• Sequence Hotkeys (optional)

The basic how-to

• In your daily note, you use a DataView field to log things, like log-thingy:: Did the thingy!

In Leah's example, she's using log-podcast:: amongst others. I've got that and a few others like log-music, log-play, log-tv, and log-read.

• I used Templater to create some tiny templates for each of these so I don't have to type them perfectly each time.
• I use Sequence Hotkeys so I can have one main hotkey have multiple functions
  • Ctrl + L t fires off the log-tv:: template
  • Ctrl + L m fires off the log-music:: template

Here's one day (out of 3) in the daily log:

Wherever you want a list of things you logged, you add a DataView query. Here's the basic idea from Leah altered for my vault. Let's do TV.

Copy
1TABLE log-tv As "TV Show"
2FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
3WHERE log-tv
4FLATTEN file.link
5SORT file.link desc

This creates the following.

For each episode I watch, I make a quick note in my daily note log. Sometimes, I might just jot down a note. Sometimes, an episode, and if there is a note on the show, I'll put a link to it.

• log-tv:: wasn't really watching but I know I was in the room for a few Guys Grocery Games
• log-tv:: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - Inflation
• log-tv:: [[) Good Girls]] - S4E15 - We're Even ¹

Expanded use case

Now that I've started entering notes in the log, I want to see a log on the note itself! My initial idea was to add the note to the WHERE clause in the query.²

Copy
1TABLE WITHOUT ID
2  "📆 " + file.link AS "Date",
3  log-tv
4FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
5WHERE contains(log-tv, "[[) Good Girls]]")
6FLATTEN file.link
7SORT file.link desc

Unfortunately, while this does give me only days where that show was watched, it includes all of the other log-tv entries as well.

I looked through the Dataview documentation and found the filter() function. That'll do it!³

Copy
1TABLE WITHOUT ID
2  "📆 " + file.link AS "Date",
3  filter(log-tv, (x) => contains(x, "[[) Good Girls]]")) AS "TV Watched"
4FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
5WHERE contains(log-tv, "[[) Good Girls]]")
6FLATTEN file.link
7SORT file.link desc

Sure enough, that almost works!

At least now I'm starting to come up with some success criteria:

• ✅ Multiple logs for a day include all entries
• ❌ Single log for a day is included in results

A bit of console.log()-ing and I find that if there are multiple logs for a day, they are stored in an array (makes sense) but if there's a single log, it's just a string. The filter() function needs to work on arrays and the string just isn't included in the results magically.

At this point, I went off into DataView JavaScript land, sent everything into an endless loop, hard quit Obsidian, and went to bed.

DataView JS time

The next day, feeling refreshed, I remembered seeing a way to get a dataset in Dataview using normal Dataview syntax. I thought this would be best since I'm so close. It appears I can just plug my initial query into the dv.query() function and get a nice result set. I removed the aliases and the filtering, thinking I'll do that in JavaScript.

Copy
1const data = await dv.query(`TABLE WITHOUT ID file.link, log-tv
2    FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
3    WHERE contains(log-tv, "[[) Good Girls]]")
4    SORT file.link desc
5    `)

My plan is to run through this data and create a new array wherein everything is an array so it looks consistent. My JavaScript skills are less than stellar but I sure thought I'd be doing something without forEach() but here it is with forEach().

Copy
1if (data.successful) {
2  let output = []
3  data.value.values.forEach(function (e) {
4    if (typeof e[1] === 'string') {
5      output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
6    } else {
7      output.push([e[0], e[1].filter((e) => e.contains(`[[) Good Girls]]`))])
8    }
9  })
10
11  dv.table(['Date', 'Episodes'], output)
12}

Using console.log({data}) I could see there was a bit of nesting going on, hence data.value.values is my starting point.

• "values is an array of stuff" is how I'm thinking of this. There are two possibilities for each row in the array:
  • link, string - When [0] is a link and [1] is a string, there is only one log entry for this type (i.e. log-tv) on the day and, because of the WHERE clause in the Dataview query, it is for the current show.
    • I thought at first I could just push this string into the new array but it has to be converted so it is an array itself. This was so much easier than I thought it would be. Array(string) does the trick, at least here.
  • link, array - When [1] is not a string, it's an array of shows on that day and I want to filter that array so it only includes the current show
    • Again, because of the WHERE clause above, there's at least one record for this show for each day, [0], so it's safe to push a new entry for this day.
    • Then push the current array but filter it for the current show.

There's S4E15!

• ✅ Multiple logs for a day include all entries
• ✅ Single log for a day is included in results

New requirements

Even when you're wasting time working on important projects for yourself, you run into things you know you'd like to change.

• I like the idea of having an emoji next to the date and I don't want to go through Supercharged Links to add it as I really don't want it everywhere. It seems easiest to do it in the query as I was doing that originally.
• I'm on the page, I don't need to see a link to the page!
  • I'd done this before using .replace()
  • Since I'm basing lots of decisions on the current show being in the data, I wait until the end to fix this up

Copy
1if (data.successful) {
2  let output = []
3  data.value.values.forEach(function (e) {
4    if (typeof e[1] === 'string') {
5      output.push([e[0], Array(e[1].replace('[[) Good Girls]] -', ''))])
6    } else {
7      output.push([
8        e[0],
9        e[1]
10          .filter((e) => e.contains(`[[) Good Girls]]`))
11          .map((e) => e.replace('[[) Good Girls]] -', '')),
12      ])
13    }
14  })
15
16  dv.table(['Date', 'Episodes'], output)
17}

New problems

Yes! Done! Ready for Season 5...er, not done...

For my log-music entries I have some that are just a link to the tune. Like this!

• log-music:: [[} Stanley Clarke - Silly Putty]]

What does this mean? By default, I suppose it means I listened to the tune. On this date, for this tune, I was getting ready to transcribe it. Find a recording, see if there's already a chart on the Internet⁴, and decide whether I need to transcribe it or not.

I went to the note in Obsidian for that tune and saw nothing! Nothing in the Weekly note showing all log-music entries either. Time for a couple more criteria for success!

• ✅ Multiple logs for a day include all entries
• ✅ Single log for a day is included in results
• ❌ A log entry that is just a link displays in results of log type (i.e. log-music)
• ❌ A log entry that is just a link displays in results for the linked page

A few more console.log()'s later and...

• When there is a single value, if it's a string, it needs to convert to an array.
• If it is only a link⁵, then it also needs to convert to an array. In this case, it is a Link object and it has a path property.

This will fix it for my weekly view and should work anytime you want to display a list of all of a log type (i.e. log-music).

Copy
1data.value.values.forEach(function (e) {
2  if (typeof e[1] === 'string') {
3    output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
4  } else if (typeof e[1] === 'object' && e[1].hasOwnProperty('path')) {
5    output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
6  } else {
7    output.push([e[0], e[1]])
8  }
9})

• ✅ Multiple logs for a day include all entries
• ✅ Single log for a day is included in results
• ✅ A log entry that is just a link displays in results of log type (i.e. log-music)
• ❌ A log entry that is just a link displays in results for the linked page

The final problem

Now, I'm looking at having a log on the note page that shows I did do something related to this note on a day but I wrote absolutely nothing else about it.

Options

• Have some sort of default text in the note. But what?
• Have nothing in the note other than a link to the daily note, rather like a back link. But we already have back links.
• Always include something in a log entry. It could be quick! For music it could be listened or practiced.

Currently, I've left things so if the log is just a link, it will not display in the linked note. I think I'd rather force myself to add a word or two rather than just put a link and be done with it.

Final code

Here are the templates I came up with for my Weekly and Individual Notes. Place these inside of dataviewjs code fences.

Temporal query

• Change all occurrences of log-tv to whatever your log field is called.
• This is in my weekly note. You can use whatever you need for the date range. Perhaps this goes into your monthly note? Perhaps remove it to show all entries?
• Change the header, Watched, to something that makes sense for what you are logging.

Copy
1const data = await dv.query(`TABLE WITHOUT ID "📆 " + file.link, log-tv
2    FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
3    WHERE log-tv
4      AND file.ctime >= date(<% tp.date.weekday("gggg-MM-DD", 1, tp.file.title, "gggg-[W]ww") %>)
5      AND file.ctime < date(<% tp.date.weekday("YYYY-MM-DD", 8, tp.file.title, "gggg-[W]ww") %>)
6    SORT file.link desc
7    `)
8
9if (data.successful) {
10  let output = []
11  data.value.values.forEach(function (e) {
12    if (typeof e[1] === 'string') {
13      output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
14    } else if (typeof e[1] === 'object' && e[1].hasOwnProperty('path')) {
15      output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
16    } else {
17      output.push([e[0], e[1]])
18    }
19  })
20
21  dv.table(['Date', 'Watched'], output)
22}

Note query

• Change all occurrences of log-tv to whatever your log field is called.
• Change the header, Episodes, to something that makes sense for your log field.

Copy
1const data = await dv.query(`TABLE WITHOUT ID "📆 " + file.link, log-tv
2    FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
3    WHERE contains(log-tv, "[[<%tp.file.title%>]]")
4    SORT file.link desc
5    `)
6
7if (data.successful) {
8  let output = []
9  data.value.values.forEach(function (e) {
10    if (typeof e[1] === 'string') {
11      output.push([e[0], Array(e[1].replace('[[<%tp.file.title%>]] -', ''))])
12    } else if (typeof e[1] === 'object' && e[1].hasOwnProperty('path')) {
13      output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
14    } else {
15      output.push([
16        e[0],
17        e[1]
18          .filter((e) => e.contains(`[[<%tp.file.title%>]]`))
19          .map((e) => e.replace('[[<%tp.file.title%>]] -', '')),
20      ])
21    }
22  })
23
24  dv.table(['Date', 'Episodes'], output)
25}

Refactored note query

As I started using this a lot, I noticed if I ever wanted to change the title of the note, I had to go and manually fix the title in the query. This smelled funny to me.

I realized I was being very Obsidian-centric when this is just JavaScript code. I should have refactored to remove duplication of <%tp.file.title%> everywhere.

I introduced a new variable for the note title.

Copy
1const noteTitle = dv.current().file.name
2const data = await dv.query(`TABLE WITHOUT ID "📆 " + file.link, log-tv
3    FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
4    WHERE contains(log-tv, "[[<%tp.file.title%>]]")
5    SORT file.link desc
6    `)

Then I replaced all the hard coded spots with noteTitle using string interpolation.

Copy
1const noteTitle = dv.current().file.name
2const data = await dv.query(`TABLE WITHOUT ID "📆 " + file.link, log-tv
3    FROM "10 Journal/11 Daily"
4    WHERE contains(log-tv, "[[${noteTitle}]]")
5    SORT file.link desc
6    `)
7
8let output = []
9data.value.values.forEach(function (e) {
10  if (typeof e[1] === 'string') {
11    output.push([e[0], Array(e[1].replace(`[[${noteTitle}]] -`, ''))])
12  } else if (typeof e[1] === 'object' && e[1].hasOwnProperty('path')) {
13    output.push([e[0], Array(e[1])])
14  } else {
15    output.push([
16      e[0],
17      e[1]
18        .filter((e) => e.contains(`[[${noteTitle}]]`))
19        .map((e) => e.replace(`[[${noteTitle}]] -`, '')),
20    ])
21  }
22})
23
24if (data.successful) {
25  dv.table(['Date', 'Episodes'], output)
26}

Now I can change titles without having to manually update this query.

Have fun!

Attributions

Photo by Oliver Paaske (@photolli) on Unsplash