Filter by links elsewhere in the note containing the task

[andrercmendes]

Is it possible to filter all task in notes with a certain link?

Exemple

tasks
    not done
    link includes [[link]]

Or something like it?

[schemar]

Have you tried description includes [[link]]?
See here for more:
https://github.com/schemar/obsidian-tasks#querying-and-listing-tasks

[andrercmendes]

Yes, I did try, but only shows if the link is in the task line
A created a note with 4 tasks, place the link on top of note, in one task and at the end of note, but when a query, it shows only the task whist the link in its line

[schemar]

Ah, ok. Now I get what you need. You cannot filter by links in the note of where the task is.

[Rhydderch]

Ah, ok. Now I get what you need. You cannot filter by links in the note of where the task is.

Do you think you could add this as a feature? (I have no idea whether it is possible)

[schemar]

Technically, everything is possible. But the effort to add and maintain this feature is more than I can handle at the moment. I hope you understand.

[Rhydderch]

Sure I fully understand. I already appreciate all the work you have put into this.

[claremacrae]

I've edited the title, to make it clear that this is about searching for tasks based on linked notes elsewhere in the note they are in.

[danrthompson]

Just so you know it should be pretty simple to use dataview to perform this query if you're experienced with that plugin (or if you know how to use javascript and are willing to play around with the plugin for 30 mins).

There is an example in the tasks plug-in's documentation for how to use dataview to do a query where you search for tasks in a single file.

You can use that as a starting point and then:

• Modify the dataview query to return all pages with the link you want (rather than the demo query which just returns the current file's page)
• Then use the sample on the tasks page to build a filter that queries tasks from those pages
  • note that it will be fairly different from the demo because it will be a filter for tasks from multiple pages rather than just one
  • In order to create that, you will map over the pages that return from the dataview query and create a path filter for tasks for each page (this will use basically the same approach as the demo query)
  • Then use join to combine all of the path queries with the OR operator so you end up with a filter that searches for tasks on any of the pages (ie the filter searches for tasks with the paths of any of the files with the link)
  • since the dataview query returns all the pages with the link in question, the OR filter will return tasks that are on at least one page that has the link you want
  • Finally, if you have other filters that you want to apply, just hardcode those after the dataview filter, using AND to join the dataview filter with your additional filter. That way the tasks also have to meet those additional criteria

I think this should make sense if you're familiar with the dataview plugin. If you are, I think you'll be able to generate this query pretty easily.

If you want help I can create a sample for you. But if you have no familiarity at all with javascript or dataview, it might be a bit opaque and hard to modify in the future for your own purposes. But happy to help if this is something you'd find useful

Separately I know this was from a while ago but figured can't hurt :)

And finally, to the developer, thanks SO much for this plugin! I no longer need to use any task management app at all. Obsidian is more powerful than any of them now (not necessarily in terms of all integrations but in terms of functionality for sure).

[claremacrae]

Thanks for the lovely helpful message, @danrthompson.

@andrercmendes Please see the above - and the documentation page being referred to is here - scroll down to the section mentioning dataview:
https://obsidian-tasks-group.github.io/obsidian-tasks/how-to/get-tasks-in-current-file/

[danrthompson]

I figured I could probably write a query pretty quickly, so here one is! This query will show you all incomplete tasks on pages that have the link [[DailyNotes]]. You can add any additional filters that you want. Also, it does a grouping that you can remove.

I can explain it in more detail if necessary, but basically, the heart of it is the pages and filters variables which join up the links with the filter syntax:

const pages = dv.pages('[[DailyNotes]]');

const filters = pages.map(p => `(path includes ${p.file.path})`).join(" OR ");

const query = `
not done
${filters}
group by heading
`;

dv.paragraph('```tasks\n' + query + '\n```');

[claremacrae]

Awesome. Will that find notes that link with [[DailyNotes|some alias]]?

[claremacrae]

@danrthompson Hi Dan, there is currently an issue that this will fail if only a single file is found: #975

I'm working on it now but it's taking longer than I thought, so I don't know if you want to add a special case for that now, or wait until I can release a fix.

[claremacrae]

It's fixed now and I should have the fix released within a day or two.

[danrthompson]

yes that does work with aliases as well, since it uses the dataview cache to find links.

to be clear though, that will find notes with a link TO [[DailyNotes]]. if you want to find notes that have links FROM the page [[(DailyNotes]] you'd use this instead: dv.pages('outgoing([[DailyNotes]])')

dataview also has a ton of other ways to query things, so this can be used for plenty additional features. for example, in addition to links TO a file you can find links FROM a file (as shown), or files with tags, or fields, or that are in a directory, or pretty much anything else

I did notice one peculiarity when testing out the alias thing, which is that if you are linking to a page that hasn't been created yet (as in you have a link on page [[Demo]] to the page [[Example]] but the file Example.md does not yet exist), then if you run dv.pages('[[Example]]') you will see [[Demo]] appear, but if you run dv.pages('outgoing([[Demo]])'), it will show the links it has to pages that exist, but not those that don't (so [[Example]] will not appear). but if you create [[Example]], it will show up in both queries/

anyway, that is probably not useful information, but thought id point it out. ill throw an issue up on dataview as well

[claremacrae]

It's fixed now and I should have the fix released within a day or two.

Just released, in Tasks 1.14.0.