Obsidian - Dataview Publish Plugin

Obsidian Publish can’t natively run Obsidian plugins, which breaks “live” DataView-driven pages on a published website. Data view publisher fixes that gap by turning DataView queries into publishable Markdown: it hides the query in HTML comments, then injects the query results into the note so the published site shows updated tables and lists.

The workflow starts with installing the community plugin “Data view publisher” (by UD) and meeting its requirement of having the Time Tracker plugin installed. In the plugin settings, users define a “Data view source” tag (a hashtag-style marker) that tells the plugin which notes should be refreshed. An optional “Update on Save” setting can refresh the active note whenever it’s saved, but the plugin behaves best with Obsidian Live Preview—Ctrl+S and switching into Live Preview tend to trigger updates more reliably than Source-mode-only editing.

Once configured, the core mechanism is straightforward. Users create or edit a note, insert a “data view publish block” via the command palette, and paste a proper (non-inline) DataView query into that block. The query itself can be verified in normal reading mode first, but the publishable output won’t appear until the note includes the configured tag. After adding the tag, running “Update data view publish blocks” forces the plugin to execute the query and write the results into the note as Markdown—exactly what Obsidian Publish can publish.

A key detail is how updates propagate. Editing the DataView query in Source mode may not immediately refresh the rendered results, even with “Update on Save” enabled. Moving to Live Preview, making a change, and then triggering refresh (often via Ctrl+S) produces the expected re-rendering. If users prefer not to rely on Live Preview, they can still force a refresh by running the plugin’s update command, but they may need to experiment with editing modes to match their setup.

The video also demonstrates a practical migration path for an existing TTRPG website that previously used a templating workaround (Templator) to refresh DataView outputs before publishing. With Data view publisher, the DataView query can live in a dedicated note (or inside the published note), and the site can be updated by publishing only the notes marked with the source tag. The result is a “for-like” replacement: published pages show the DataView-generated lists and tables, and updates can be pushed through Obsidian Publish without manually re-running DataView.

Finally, the plugin is positioned as a targeted solution: it works for full DataView queries, not inline DataView. For inline updates, the Metabond plugin is suggested as a complementary option because it updates in real time. Overall, Data view publisher is framed as a practical answer to Obsidian Publish’s plugin limitation—especially for TTRPG use cases like monster lists, stat-block tables, and other structured content that players need on a website.