Arbitrary Yaml Block Usage

[m-paul]

I have worked out how to introduce my own YAML blocks, outside of the front-matter header.

There is one way I could make it better but could use some help.

Rationale

Obsidian doesn't include backlinks stored in a file's frontmatter when showing outgoing links or the graph. One work-around to this is to store links as inline fields that dataview supports, but dataview doesn't support objects. There are some hacks I have used where I describe objects as tasks, but if Dataview ever were to implement YAML block support, I'd have to rewrite how my pages work (besides, I like using YAML).

One draw back to this approach is that the YAML block looks like a comment block instead of a code block. I'd use code blocks, but Obsidian hides links from the graph in code blocks the same way it does for frontmatter blocks.

Preview

Source

%%
name: team
members:
 - person: "[[Jane Doe]]"
   role: Product Manager
   group: Product
   lead: true
 - person: "[[Joe Smith]]"
   role: Product Owner
   group: Product
%%
^yaml-block

```dataviewjs
let path = dv.current().file.link.path;
let id = "yaml-block";

let file = this.app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(path);
let metadata = await this.app.metadataCache.getFileCache(file);
let contents = await this.app.vault.read(file);
let block = metadata.blocks[id];
var result = contents.substring(block.position.start.offset, block.position.end.offset);

let pattern = /(?<=^%%\r?\n).*(?=%%$)/s;
let content = result.match(pattern)[0];
let frontFields = obsidian.parseYaml(content);

dv.table(
	["Person", "Role", "Group"],
	frontFields.members.map(i => [i.person, i.role, i.group])
);
```

Help

The dataview plugin has a function named parseFrontmatter that can spice up the yaml values. For example, it can replace "[[Jane Doe]]" with a link object. Ideally, I'd like to make use of that function, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to import that function and use it in the dataviewjs block.

So, for example, if you were to print out the content of the yaml via the console, you'd see this:

members: Array(2)
  0:
    group: "Product"
    lead: true
    person: "[[Jane Doe]]"
    role: "Product Manager"
  1:
    group: "Product"
    person: "[[Joe Smith]]"
    role: "Product Owner"
  length: 2

Where, ideally, I'd like to pass the object through parseFrontmatter so that I have an object shaped like this:

members: Proxy
  values: Array(2)
    0:
      group: "Product"
      lead: true
      person: Link { path: "Jane Doe", embed: false, display: undefined, subpath: undefined, type: "file" }
      role: "Product Manager"
    1:
      group: "Product"
      person: Link { path: "Joe Smith", embed: false, display: undefined, subpath: undefined, type: "file" }
      role: "Product Owner"
    length: 2

[blacksmithgu]

I will expose parseFrontmatter as an api function (dv.literal()) for your use case.

[m-paul]

Awesome! I was about to just modify the plugins/dataview/main.js file directly in my local version; I couldn't think of another way. Thank you!

[huyz]

Noob here. So is this parseFrontmatter the only way to have YAML blocks for inline fields?

[AB1908]

Pretty much.

[AB1908]

I've also found folks writing JSON and parsing it later instead of relying on YAML.