Embedded search

Added in v3.3.0

General information

This feature implements the query code blocks functionality of Obsidian, with which we can embed search results into the note. See also https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Search

Status of the feature

Not all search functionality of obsidian embbeded search has been implemented yet. See the Supported syntax at the moment for what has been implemented already.

If you want your most important usecase to be added first, please make a description of it here: https://github.com/obsidian-html/obsidian-html/issues/324

Whoosh

We use Whoosh as a search engine for obsidianhtml.See https://whoosh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/querylang.html for how that syntax works. A large part of implementing Obsidian's search syntax will be to configure Whoosh correctly. Where needed a user provided query from a note will be rewritten so that whoosh gives the desired result.

Enable

As the feature is still in alpha, it is disabled by default.

To enable it, add this to your config:

toggles
  features:
    embedded_search:
      enabled: True

Also make sure to install the latest master branch code: Install a different version.

Search example

-``` query
convert automation webserver ssh
-```

Remove the dashes in front of the backticks, they are only there to avoid the query being processed in the example code.

Gives this block:

convert automation webserver ssh

We aim to get these result as close as possible to what Obsidian gives .

Just links

Getting all those matches is nice for yourself, but for other people browsing your sites, perhaps only a list of links would be better, you can do this by writing query list instead of the normal query.

This code:

-``` query list
convert automation webserver ssh
-```

Remove the dashes in front of the backticks, they are only there to avoid the query being processed in the example code.

Gives this block:

</div>



I will use this format in the other examples where we only care which notes are returned, and not what the matches exactly are.


# Supported syntax at the moment
## Query versus query list
Write `query list` instead of `query` if you want to only print out links to notes (no matches).
See also [Search example](#search-example), where the two are compared.

I will use `query list` in these examples where seeing the matches/tags is not important.

## Search for keyword
This will search in `["content", "title", "path", "file", "tags"]`

<div class="lang-general">

</div>


<div class="lang-query">
``` query
babayaga

Search only in note name (file)

-``` query list
file:babayaga
-```

</div>



## Search for tags
To search in the list of tags, and not in the note content, or title, use this syntax:

<div class="lang-general">

</div>



Note the absence of a `#`.

An example:

<div class="lang-general">

</div>

<div class="lang-query">
``` query
tag:babayaga

Search for a specific tag

If you are looking for a specific tag, do add the #

See how both queries below only return their exact results:

-``` query
tag:#babayaga
-```

tag:#babayaga

-``` query
tag:#bla/babayaga
-```

tag:#bla/babayaga

Search for inline tags

Unlike normal words, just using #tag will search just for tag, not bla/tag, tag/bla, etc.

" #babayaga "

Search for path

-``` query list
path:babayaga
-```

</div>




## Exclude syntax
In the example above we also got a note where babayaga was in the filename. If we want to find notes where that term is only in the path, but not also in the filename, we can use `-` as an ANDNOT operator.

<div class="lang-general">

</div>

<div class="lang-query list">
``` query list
path:babayaga -file:babayaga

Search for a phrase

Supported by default, search for an entire phrase, instead of OR-ing keywords together.

-``` query list
"query with quotes"
-```

</div>



## Standard simple search
Compare that result with the query without quotes around it (implicit OR):

<div class="lang-general">

</div>

<div class="lang-query list">
``` query list
query without quotes

Note that the current implementation filters out common words (limited to English) such as "a" and "for", so the list in the html output will often be a lot shorter than in Obsidian.

Here I link to the test notes so that they are included in the vault.

• babayaga in title only
• bbyg_in_text
• bbyg_in_tags
• bbyg in path only