Metadata on Tasks and Lists
Just like pages, you can also add fields on list item and task level to bind it to a specific task as context. For this you need to use the inline field syntax:
- [ ] Hello, this is some [metadata:: value]!
- [X] I finished this on [completion:: 2021-08-15].
Tasks and list items are the same data wise, so all your bullet points have all the information described here available, too.
Field Shorthands
For supporting "common use cases", Dataview understands a few shorthands for some fields you may want to annotate task with:
- Due this Saturday 🗓️2021-08-29
- Completed last Saturday ✅2021-08-22
- I made this on ➕1990-06-14
- Task I can start this weekend 🛫2021-08-29
- Task I finished ahead of schedule ⏳2021-08-29 ✅2021-08-22
There are two specifics to these emoji-shorthands. First, they omit the inline field syntax (no [🗓️:: YYYY-MM-DD] needed) and secondly, they map to a textual field name data-wise:
| Field name | Short hand syntax |
|---|---|
| due | 🗓️YYYY-MM-DD |
| completion | ✅YYYY-MM-DD |
| created | ➕YYYY-MM-DD |
| start | 🛫YYYY-MM-DD |
| scheduled | ⏳YYYY-MM-DD |
This means if you want to query for all tasks that are completed 2021-08-22, you'll write:
```dataview
TASK
WHERE completion = date("2021-08-22")
```
Which will list both variants - shorthands and textual annotation:
- [x] Completed last Saturday ✅2021-08-22
- [x] Some Done Task [completion:: 2021-08-22]
Implicit Fields
As with pages, Dataview adds a number of implicit fields to each task or list item:
Inheritance of Fields
Tasks inherit all fields from their parent page - so if you have a rating field in your page, you can also access it on your task in a TASK Query.
| Field name | Data Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
status |
Text | The completion status of this task, as determined by the character inside the [ ] brackets. Generally a space " " for incomplete tasks and a "x" for complete tasks, but allows for plugins which support alternative task statuses. |
checked |
Boolean | Whether or not this task status is empty, meaning it has a space in its [ ] brackets |
completed |
Boolean | Whether or not this specific task has been completed; this does not consider the completionnon-completion of any child tasks. A task is explicitly considered "completed" if it has been marked with an 'x'. If you use a custom status, i.e. [-], checked will be true, whereas completed will be false. |
fullyCompleted |
Boolean | Whether or not this task and all of its subtasks are completed. |
text |
Text | The plain text of this task, including any metadata field annotations. |
visual |
Text | The text of this task, which is rendered by Dataview. It can be modified to render arbitary text. |
line |
Number | The line of the file this task shows up on. |
lineCount |
Number | The number of Markdown lines that this task takes up. |
path |
Text | The full path of the file this task is in. Equals to file.path for pages |
section |
Link | link to the section this task is contained in. |
tags |
List | Any tags inside of the text task. |
outlinks |
List | Any links defined in this task. |
link |
Link | link to the closest linkable block near this task; useful for making links which go to the task. |
children |
List | ny subtasks or sublists of this task. |
task |
Boolean | If true, this is a task; otherwise, it is a regular list element. |
annotated |
Boolean | True if the task text contains any metadata fields, false otherwise. |
parent |
Number | The line number of the task above this task, if present; will be null if this is a root-level task. |
blockId |
Text | The block ID of this task / list element, if one has been defined with the ^blockId syntax; otherwise null. |
With usage of the shorthand syntax, following additional properties may be available:
completion: The date a task was completed.due: The date a task is due, if it has one.created: The date a task was created.start: The date a task can be started.scheduled: The date a task is scheduled to work on.
Access of Implicit Fields for List Items and Tasks
If you're using a TASK Query, your tasks are the top level information and can be used without any prefix:
```dataview
TASK
WHERE !fullyCompleted
```
On every other Query Type, you first need to access the implicit field file.lists or file.tasks to check for these list item specific implicit fields:
```dataview
LIST
WHERE any(file.tasks, (t) => !t.fullyCompleted)
```
This'll give you back all file links that have unfinished tasks inside. We get back a list of tasks on page level and thus need to use a list function to look at each element.