Moving this item here from the Questions Category:
I understand that in many instances, atomic notes are preferable to relying on block references, but without the latter I’m hamstrung. I have the Bible in Markdown and would like to link to or quote specific verses in my notes. Reformatting all 31K+ verses into atomic notes isn’t feasible.
There are two key questions to be answered here, and neither the basic Markdown syntax nor any of the common extensions provide any answers:
What is the convention for identifying and delimiting a block within a text file? In other words, how do we know where a block starts, and where one ends? And how is it identified, so that it can be easily referenced from elsewhere? I can think of various possibilities here, but don’t have any obvious answers. @miscemw, it would be interesting to see a copy of your file containing your Bible verses, to see what might work for you.
What is the convention for referencing a block within a Note from another Note?
Obsidian is what I know best, so I’ll reference that. It handles block references with the footnote convention, and that works well. To reference the paragraph, or block, I’m writing here, I’d add a ^ reference (random or otherwise) to the end of it, separated by a space. Eg. ^blk1
A blank line between paragraphs delineates one block from another. The reference should be automatically generated, but also editable. Obsidian might assign ^e38ck9 as the block reference for a particular Bible verse I try to link to if it doesn’t already have one, but I preempt that by assigning block references before they’re needed, based on the verse number - ie ^v23. Typing ![[Genesis#^v2]] gives me just that verse, as an inline transclusion.
In Obsidian I can easily reference a block inside another note, add additional notes around the transclusion, then transclude that entire block—including the earlier transclusions—into another note.
Use case: for each individual book of the Bible, I keep an index page where I transclude my favourite verses. The # Favourite Verse section of each summary page is then transcluded onto another page, containing all my favourites from, say, the first four books of the New Testament.
I don’t think Notenik should become an Obsidian clone, but I do think this feature would help make it a major contender for folks like me whose needs are relatively simple.
Okay, so someone that’s not me has already been crazy enough to put every single Bible verse into its own file! I’m convinced that’s a better way to go than the block reference I originally talked about. My question now is, how do I embed one file into another, so that the contents show up inline? I’ve had a look at the Notenik documentation, and can’t find anything under E for Embed.
The Include command will probably do what you’re looking for. Give this a try:
https://notenik.app/knowledge-base/EPUB/html/include-a-note-or-file.html
You can also use ctrl-S to help you select a second Note and format the Include command for it.
Let me know how this works for you!
Thank you, that’s what I was looking for.
You mentioned above wanting to take a look at my files for the Bible project. Here they are: Bible in Markdown for Obsidian, iA Writer
Files are embedded with the ![[file name without file path]] syntax.
The latest release, 10.7.0, includes a couple of changes to increase interoperability with Obsidian and iA Writer. BTW, I purchased a copy of your KJV Bible project. Nice work!
Great news! Thank you for the support, it means a lot. I’m honoured you thought it worth paying for.
The format of block reference IDs is not the same as footnotes.
Obsidian footnotes take the form of [^1], [^text], or ^[inline footnote].
Obsidian block reference IDs are either automatically generated by the Obsidian editor when a transclusion is created: referencing text from file1 in file2 like this: [[file2^ which presents a list of blocks in file2. When the user selects a particular block, the block reference ID is generated, so the file transclusion looks like [[file2#^8fdfa2]].
Users can create block references, either numeric or textual, like ^this-block-here, but those aren’t footnotes, either.
Good point, thanks for clarifying. Ignorant choice of words on my part.