Obsidian is pretty reckless with file creation dates. If you modify a note in Obsidian, it updates the file creation date. This renders Dataview queries that rely on it useless. For an introduction to this issue, see this lengthy thread on the Obsidian forums.

Workarounds

There are a several solutions to this problem.

1. YAML-based dates

One can include a cdate (or similar) field in the note’s front matter and just direct the Dataview query against that, e.g. LIST FROM "" WHERE startswith(cdate,"2023-05-29") SORT file.ctime asc. This works, but of course it requires you to always place that field ahead of your note content. Some people like that; others not so much.

If you modify a file in-place using sed with the -i option, you will get a file that has a new file creation date. On macOS 13.3.1, this is absolutely 100% true, although you will read claims otherwise. I ran into this problem while implementing a Hazel rule that updates YAML automatically in my Obsidian notes.

Background

I have use YAML frontmatter in my Obsidian notes. It looks like:

---
uid:     20221120152124
aliases: [20221120152124, AllAboutShell]
cdate:   2022-11-20 15:21
mdate:   2023-05-18 05:14
type:    zettel
---

My goal is to update the mdate field whenever the file changes. Hazel is the perfect tool for this, so I set about writing a rule that covers this case. The heart of the rule is a shell script action that writes the modification date:

Some airports in X-Plane have terrain issues that can be quite entertaining.

This Delta 737-800 got lost in the maze of cargo ramps at PANC and was trying to taxi back to the terminal when it encountered a steep icy taxiway. It required 65% N1 just to get up the slope.

Clearly a fix is required. It turns out to be quite simple. In the global airports file apt.dat, find the offending airport. In this case, it’s PANC where its entry looks like:

I use Hazel extensively for automating file management tasks on my macOS systems. Recently I found that Hazel aggressively matches an invisible system file that appears whenever you use a custom file or folder icon. I’ll describe the problem and present a workaround.

In a handful of directories, I have a rule that prevents users (me) from adding certain file types. So the rule just matches any file that is not an image, for example, and deletes it. This is all well and good until to try to add a custom icon to this directory. Since the file Icon? that gets created as a result is not an image, the Hazel rule dutifully deletes it.

As its name implies, the AwesomeTTS Anki add-on is awesome. It’s nearly indispensable for language learners.

You can use it in one of two ways:

1. Subscribe on your own to the text-to-speech services that you plan to use and add those credentials to AwesomeTTS. (à la carte)
2. Subscribe to the AwesomeTTS+ service and gain access to these services. (prix fixe)

Because I had already subscribed to Google and Azure TTS before AwesomeTTS+ came on the scene, there was no reason for me to pay for the comprehensive prix fixe option. Furthermore, since I’ve never gone above the free tier on any of these services, it makes no sense for me to pay for something I’m already getting for free. For others, the convience of a one-stop-shopping experience probably makes the AwesomeTTS+ service worthwhile.

Although I’m a relative newcomer to Obsidian, I like what I see, especially the templating and data access functionality - both that provided natively and through the Templater and Dataview plugins.

One missing piece is the ability to dynamically update the YAML-formatted metadata in the frontmatter of Obsidian’s Markdown documents. Several threads on both the official support forums and on r/ObsidianMD have addressed this; and there seems to be no real solution.¹ None proposed solution - mainly view Dataview inline queries or Templater dynamic commands - seems to work consistently.

There are a couple features of the Dataview plugin for Obsidian that aren’t documented and are potentially useful.

For the start of the week, use date(sow) and for the end of the week date(eow). Since there’s no documentation as of yet, I’ll venture a guess that they are locale-dependendent. For me (in Canada), sow is Monday. Since I do my weekly notes on Saturday, I have to subtract a couple days to point to them.

Most language learners are familiar with Forvo, a site that allows users to download and contribute pronunciations for words and phrases. For my Russian studies, I make daily use of the site. In fact, to facilitate my Anki card-making workflow, I am a paid user of the Forvo API. But that’s where the trouble started.

When the Forvo API works, it works OK, often extremely slow. But lately, it has been down more than up. In an effort to patch my workflow and continue to download Russian word pronunciations, I wrote this little scraper. I’d prefer to use the API, but experience has shown now that the API is slow and unreliable. I’ll keep paying for the API access, because I support what the company does. And as often as not when a company offers a free service, it’s likely to be involved in surveillance capitalism. So I’d rather companies offer a reliable product at a reasonable price.