TaskNotes 4.0 Roadmap and Breaking Changes

[callumalpass]

I'm planning a major refactor for TaskNotes 4.0 and want to share the direction before proceeding.

Obsidian 1.10.0 introduces official plugin integration with the Bases system. This creates an opportunity to significantly simplify TaskNotes by replacing our custom view implementations with Bases-powered views. The native views were originally modeled after Bases, and now that Bases has matured and added plugin support, maintaining parallel implementations no longer makes sense.

The core change is replacing native TaskNotes views with Bases views. Task List, Kanban, Calendar, and Agenda will all become Bases-powered views configured through base files rather than custom view settings. The Notes view will be removed. The underlying task management functionality remains unchanged, including properties, time tracking, and calendar integration.

There's one significant limitation: blocked and blocking task filtering will not be immeditately available in beta versions of 4.0. This feature requires querying properties across multiple notes, which Bases formulas cannot currently do. The Obsidian documentation mentions that plugins will eventually be able to add custom formula functions, but there's no timeline for this capability. Rather than implementing a complex client-side workaround that would become technical debt, I've decided to wait for proper API support.

If you rely on dependency tracking, you should stay on version 3.x. The 3.x branch will continue receiving bug fixes through a maintenance branch. When Obsidian adds support for custom formulas, dependency filtering will return in a future 4.x release.

Development is starting now. Obsidian 1.10.0 is already available for Catalyst members, and beta releases of TaskNotes 4.0 will be available through BRAT for early testing within the next few weeks. A stable release will follow shortly after Obsidian 1.10.0 becomes generally available.

For users on stable Obsidian releases, version 3.x will continue to be maintained during this transition period.

The beta releases should be considered unstable. View configurations and Bases view options will likely change as development progresses, which may require recreating your base files. This is expected during the transition to the new architecture. Early testers should maintain backups and be prepared for breaking changes between pre-release versions.

Before proceeding with this direction, I'd like to understand whether there are other concerns about moving to Bases-powered views. This will also be an opportunity to bundle any other breaking changes that should be addressed in a major version update.

[renatomen]

Thanks @callumalpass ,

No concerns from my part.
The only thing I'll miss initially is the search bar, which I use for doing quick ephemeral searches. However, even if we don't implement that in the Bases view, I have a workaround.

[prayidae]

The search bar is also important to me, so I am interested in what your workaround is. Is it something I could implement in my vault without coding knowledge?

[renatomen]

Probably yes. However, it requires using the "Meta Bind" plugin.
Conceptually, the solution is:

1. Create a note to act as your "Bases View". E.g. "My Base View"
2. Embed your "My Base" Base into that view.
3. In the "My Base View", add a property to store a search term. e.g. view_full_text_search_term
4. In your "My Base" base. Edit your filters adding a logic to, for each column you'd like to include in your full-text search, accept all values when the property is empty or filter by it when the property is not empty:

5. Use the Meta Bind plugin on the "My Base View" to edit the property using an input textbox in the note.

Video - Search Box Workaround using Meta-Edit - Demo

I use a template file for the filter so that it can be reused in all my views.
The reason for embedding useing meta-bind instead of normal embedding is because metabind enables the textbox to modify the properties of the host note (where the template is embedded) as opposed to the template note properties.

Here's the sample codeblock pointing to the template:

```meta-bind-embed
[[Bases - Universal Filter, Embed, Meta-Bind - Template]]

```

And here's is a simplified meta-bind syntax just for the full text search. This is the content of the [[Bases - Universal Filter, Embed, Meta-Bind - Template]] template.

Search Term |`INPUT[text:view_full_text_search_term]`|

[prayidae]

thank you! This is great and I'm going to start adding it to all my embedded bases

[prayidae]

Thank you for this announcement. This decision makes sense to me for the sustainability of the plugin. My only concerns are dependencies and the search bar which have already been discussed above. I will likely stay on 3.x until those features become possible in 4.x.

[edakimling]

This makes total sense. And adds the benefit of being able to embed the bas with TaskNotes views anywhere.

One thing preventing me from using this now is that the TaskNotes views under bases is quite slow. There is a performance hit. It also does not help that out of the gate TaskNotes view will query all files, before I can even enter filter for #task. Given that the views are slow, when this happens it becomes unusable for several minutes.

I am hopeful that:

• refactoring to use bases will provide same speed as native base views, or close to
• you add the task tag from TaskNotes settings and add it as a default filter.

Cheers

[renatomen]

Hi @edakimling ,
Thanks for sharing.
I'm curious about the slow performance you mentioned.

One thing preventing me from using this now is that the TaskNotes views under bases is quite slow

Would you mind sharing some stats from your vault?

• How many notes do you have in your entire vault?
• How many TaskNotes are displayed in your slow base views (on average)?
• Are your native TaskNotes views faster than their corresponding Bases versions?
• Is the slow performance device-specific? E.g. Desktop, Mobile or both?

Thanks

[edakimling]

Of course @renatomen.

Here are the answers:

• vault has 1595 files
• vault has 552 notes
• vault has about only 20 tasks;
• the 3 day view shows on average about 10-15 tasks
• yes, the TaskNotes views are much much faster
• I only for now use this on Linux Desktop

I only got started very recently; thus the small number of tasks as I am slowly manually re-entering them from another file I used with the Tasks plugin (I run both Tasks and TaskNotes at present till I fully migrate away from Tasks)

NOTE: I checked it out again. And the issue is that initial rendering, when choosing one of the TaskNotes views. It freezes obsidian for several minutes because it pulls ALL the notes from the vault. Obsidian views also pull all the notes upon creating a view, but obsidian does not freeze for several minutes. In fact sometimes the TaskNotes views freeze so bad I have to force quit Obsidian altogether...

Once I get control back and put in a filter - in my case for tag #domain/task - then it behaves proper and I don't notice any slowdowns.

[renatomen]

Thanks for sharing @edakimling
That's intriguing 🤔
On a much larger valut with:

• 8000 files
• 400 tasks

Both native and Bases TaskNotes view load instantly (400 tasks in the results), even on an old Mobile Device: Xiaomi Note 9 Pro.
No perceptible performance difference between native vs bases.

I never tested on Linux.

[callumalpass]

Which version of Obsidian are you using, @edakimling (1.9 or 1.10) ? Do you see any errors in the console (CTRL+SHIFT+I) when you open these views?

I've seen other people report similar behaviour elsewhere, but I've never been able to reproduce it. I use Linux so that shouldn't be the problem.

I'd be very keen to get on top of this!

[edakimling]

Hi @callumalpass
I agree, this likely has little to do with Linux; I mentioned it for completeness.
I am on catalyst 1.10 version. I am on the latest version for TaskNotes
I would love to give you more info; however I am now struggling to create ANY TaskNotes views because obsidian just freezes. I honestly am not sure how I even managed to get that one kanban view in bases. Now that that view has the filter for the task, it works fine. It's that initial all files load like I said that freezes things. As such I cannot open the debugging console to check as I have to kill obsidian.

I could of course go into source mode and just write in the filter and then go into preview mode and it would be fine.

Note: this is done on an otherwise empty note file that contains only the base. This initial issue happens whether I chose a kanban or agenda or any other TaskNotes base view.

Wish I could provide more details. If you think of something, let me know.

Cheers

[Representat]

[edakimling]

@Representat - This is a wrong place to file a bug. Your image is also impossible to properly see; perhaps disable the background and recapture it. But do it in a separate bug report. Cheers

[endquote]

I'm new to the plugin but this sounds like an exciting improvement.

[NODRT]

Bases don't allow grouping tasks/files, do they? Personally, I love the current views that allow me to group tasks by a scheduled date.

[Oblique82]

I really appreciate the direction this plugin is taking