Template Property Types (Beta)

Native support for proper Obsidian property types in QuickAdd template front matter.

Overview

QuickAdd now supports automatic property type formatting for template variables in front matter. Instead of converting everything to text, template variables become proper Obsidian property types: arrays become List properties, numbers become Number properties, booleans become Checkbox properties, and so on.

The goal is to make note creation easier and more intuitive. When we've reached that point, the option to disable this feature will be removed. While we're in beta, we appreciate your feedback and suggestions.

Before:

authors: "John Doe, Jane Smith, Bob Wilson"  # Manual string formatting

After:

authors:
  - John Doe
  - Jane Smith  
  - Bob Wilson

Enabling the Feature

⚠️ This is a beta feature - enable it in settings:

1. Open Settings → QuickAdd
2. Toggle "Format template variables as proper property types (Beta)"
3. The feature is disabled by default for safety

Basic Usage

1. Set Structured Data in Scripts

Instead of manually formatting data as strings, use native JavaScript types:

// ✅ NEW: Use native data structures
QuickAdd.variables.authors = ["John Doe", "Jane Smith", "Bob Wilson"];
QuickAdd.variables.tags = ["research", "ai", "papers"];
QuickAdd.variables.metadata = {
    rating: 5,
    conference: "ICML",
    keywords: ["ML", "AI"]
};
QuickAdd.variables.published = true;
QuickAdd.variables.year = 2023;
QuickAdd.variables.notes = null;

// ❌ OLD: Manual string formatting (no longer needed)
// QuickAdd.variables.authors = "John Doe, Jane Smith, Bob Wilson";

2. Use in Templates

Your template syntax stays exactly the same:

---
title: "{{VALUE:title}}"
authors: "{{VALUE:authors}}"
tags: "{{VALUE:tags}}"
metadata: "{{VALUE:metadata}}"
published: "{{VALUE:published}}"
year: "{{VALUE:year}}"
notes: "{{VALUE:notes}}"
---

# {{VALUE:title}}

Content here...

3. Get Perfect Property Types

The result is properly formatted as Obsidian property types:

---
title: "My Research Paper"
authors:
  - John Doe
  - Jane Smith
  - Bob Wilson
tags:
  - research
  - ai
  - papers
metadata:
  rating: 5
  conference: ICML
  keywords:
    - ML
    - AI
published: true
year: 2023
notes: null
---

# My Research Paper

Content here...

Supported Data Types

JavaScript Type	Property Output	Example
Array	List property	["a", "b"] → - a - b
Empty Array	Empty list	[] → []
Object	Object property	{key: "value"} → key: value
Empty Object	Empty mapping	{} → {}
Number	Number literal	42 → 42
Boolean	Boolean literal	true → true
Null	Null literal	null → null
String	String (unchanged)	"text" → text

Respecting Obsidian Property Types

QuickAdd now looks at the type you've assigned in Obsidian’s Properties UI for each field and formats the value accordingly:

• tags / multi-select (multitext) / list → strings such as foo, bar or bullet items become proper arrays.
• Scalar types (text, number, date, datetime, checkbox) stay as single values, even if the text contains commas or line breaks.
• Unknown type → falls back to the v2.0 behaviour (we’ll still split obvious arrays like YAML lists or JSON arrays).

This means you can safely type natural prose like Hello, world into a description prompt without QuickAdd turning it into a YAML list, while sources marked as a multi-value property will still receive a properly formatted array.

Complex Nested Structures

The feature supports deeply nested data:

QuickAdd.variables.paper = {
    title: "Advanced Research",
    authors: ["Alice", "Bob"],
    metadata: {
        year: 2023,
        conference: "ICML",
        tags: ["ML", "AI"],
        metrics: {
            pages: 12,
            citations: null
        }
    },
    reviewed: true
};

Results in:

paper:
  title: Advanced Research
  authors:
    - Alice
    - Bob
  metadata:
    year: 2023
    conference: ICML
    tags:
      - ML
      - AI
    metrics:
      pages: 12
      citations: null
  reviewed: true

Real-World Examples

Academic Papers

Script:

// From Zotero or other source
const paper = {
    title: "Attention Is All You Need",
    authors: ["Ashish Vaswani", "Noam Shazeer", "Niki Parmar"],
    year: 2017,
    venue: "NIPS",
    keywords: ["attention", "transformer", "neural networks"],
    metrics: {
        citations: 50000,
        pages: [3000, 3010]
    }
};

Object.assign(QuickAdd.variables, paper);

Template:

---
title: "{{VALUE:title}}"
authors: "{{VALUE:authors}}"
year: "{{VALUE:year}}"
venue: "{{VALUE:venue}}"
keywords: "{{VALUE:keywords}}"
metrics: "{{VALUE:metrics}}"
---

# {{VALUE:title}}

## Summary
Paper by {{VALUE:authors}} published in {{VALUE:venue}} ({{VALUE:year}}).

Output:

---
title: Attention Is All You Need
authors:
  - Ashish Vaswani
  - Noam Shazeer
  - Niki Parmar
year: 2017
venue: NIPS
keywords:
  - attention
  - transformer
  - neural networks
metrics:
  citations: 50000
  pages:
    - 3000
    - 3010
---

# Attention Is All You Need

## Summary
Paper by Ashish Vaswani,Noam Shazeer,Niki Parmar published in NIPS (2017).

Project Management

Script:

QuickAdd.variables.project = {
    name: "Website Redesign",
    status: "in-progress",
    team: ["Alice", "Bob", "Carol"],
    priority: 3,
    tasks: [
        { name: "Research", complete: true },
        { name: "Design", complete: false },
        { name: "Development", complete: false }
    ],
    deadline: "2023-12-01"
};

Result:

project:
  name: Website Redesign
  status: in-progress
  team:
    - Alice
    - Bob
    - Carol
  priority: 3
  tasks:
    - name: Research
      complete: true
    - name: Design
      complete: false
    - name: Development
      complete: false
  deadline: "2023-12-01"

Captures & Fresh Templates

When a capture choice creates a new file, QuickAdd now analyses the just-generated front matter instead of relying on cached metadata. The capture payload is inserted after the closing ---, so YAML stays at the top of the note even on first run.

For list-style placeholders inside the front matter, QuickAdd resolves the parent property and respects the type you set in Obsidian:

---
sources:
  - "{{VALUE:sources}}"
description: "{{VALUE:description}}"
---

Property type (in Obsidian)	Behaviour
multitext, tags, list	sources becomes a YAML array (- value) using your prompt input.
text, number, checkbox, date, datetime	Values remain scalars; commas or line breaks no longer force list formatting.

Example output:

sources:
  - [[Episode 1]]
  - [[Episode 2]]
description: This stays a single string, even with commas.

Feedback & Support

This is a beta feature - your feedback helps improve it:

• Report issues: Include template examples and variable data
• Request features: Suggest improvements for your workflow
• Share success stories: Help others learn effective patterns

The feature is designed to be safe and backward-compatible, but please test thoroughly with your specific use cases before relying on it for important workflows.