Backend API not returning ContentAsMarkdown?

Using the backend API, I can get a valid response but it seems to be missing a few fields that the documentation says it would have. (Specifically, missing content and contentAsMarkdown)

Per RemNote
|found|Boolean|Was a matching Rem found?|
|_id|RemId|The Rem’s ID.|
|parent|RemId | Null|The Rem’s parent.|
|children|Array|The Rem’s children.|
|name|RichText|The Rem’s name.|
|nameAsMarkdown|String|The Rem’s name as markdown.|
|content|RichText | Undefined|The Rem’s content.|
|contentAsMarkdown|String | Undefined|The Rem’s content as markdown.|
|sources|Array|The Rem’s sources.|
|remType|Enum (string)|The Rem’s type.|
|isDocument|Boolean|Is this Rem marked as a document?|
|visibleRemOnDocument|Array|The descendant Rem that appear when this Rem is opened as a Document. (The order is arbitrary.)|
|updatedAt|Date|The date at which this Rem was last updated|
|createdAt|Date|The date at which this Rem was created|
|tags|Array|The Rem’s tags.(The order is arbitrary.)|
|tagChildren|Array|The Rem that are tagged with this Rem. (The order is arbitrary.).|

And here’s my json payload
Request returned 200 : ‘OK’
{’_id’: ‘redacted’,
‘children’: [‘redacted’],
‘createdAt’: 1644869250521,
‘found’: True,
‘isDocument’: True,
‘name’: [‘Software List’],
‘nameAsMarkdown’: ‘Software List’,
‘parent’: None,
‘remType’: ‘default_type’,
‘sources’: [],
‘tagChildren’: [],
‘tagParents’: [‘redacted’],
‘updatedAt’: 1644870773634,
‘visibleRemOnDocument’: [‘redacted’]}

This is missing the content field. Am I misunderstanding what the field should return? The Rem has text; I assumed contentAsMarkdown was essentially the same as hitting Share->Export->MD

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Just bumping this to see if there’s any developer comment (If there’s a seperate bug forum I’m happy to post there).

TL;DR: The backend API isn’t returning some of the fields that the documentation says it should.

Feel free to @ me if you feel I’ve missed a topic :sweat_smile:


@Samuel_Cochrane Rem have two parts:

  • a key/name/front side of the card and
  • a value/content/back side of a card

If your rem does not have a back side the content* fields will not be in the API response.

Can you make a rem like this (type name::content)
image

and check what the API returns? It should be something like

image

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Hey @hannesfrank, that explains it!

I assumed content referred to the body of the document, following a title/body pattern in name/content.
Might I suggest the api documentation be updated to clarify this?, since even Remnote itself rarely uses content to refer to the back of a card.
image

Suggested change:
The Rem's content as markdown.The backside of the Rem's flashcard as markdown.


As to what I guess is my “real” question,
I’m trying to create an automation to download certain pages as markdown so that I can automatically repost them on my website (in a Digital Garden-esque way).
So I was essentially looking for a way to hit File -> Export via the API.
image.

I could theoretically loop through the list of child Rems to get their names and build each doc that way, but that seems tedious and requires a lot of API calls (one per each rem of each article).

It seems like I should perhaps aim to accomplish this via browser automation instead of the API, like in this similar Roam Research project.

browser automation example code: https://github.com/everruler12/roam2github/blob/da116c5efcfea7ef18b1c567dd03d94ac9ed0630/roam2github.js#L163

I know a possible release of Remnote Publish has also been teased, and that might solve this for me as well? (I have no insider knowledge on the features obviously :laughing: ) Is Remnote Publish still active? - #6 by improvingStudent

Haha, you are the third one who trys this!

  1. I tired this last year (before I started working at RemNote). Using the backend API and a scheduled Github Action it would build a blog by pulling #Blog Post documents out of my KB, transform them to markdown and build the website using a static-site generator. It’s really hard to work with powerup slots like header sizes this way.
  2. @Muhammad_Muhajir made one using the raw json backup. This is superior imo because you can access the powerup formatting data just on the crt field. See a demo here: Discord and some discussion above.
1 Like