Block-Embed Dashboards
What if your dashboard were not a collection of copies that age from the moment of pasting, but a window onto the real blocks — live, synced both ways, fed by what your team is writing anyway? Block embeds turn scattered truths into one, visible in every place.
- An embed shares visibility — accidentally exposing something confidential in a shared dashboard is the main risk.
- Deep embed chains (an embed inside an embed) can cost clarity and pace.
- Whoever deletes the source block empties every embed — source discipline stays a precondition.
Block references give every claim an address. An embed goes one step further: it shows the block itself in a second place — the same block, not a likeness. That is how you build a dashboard from real content that never drifts apart, because it copies nothing.
An embed is not a copy
Copy a block and you have two truths that start drifting from the very next edit. Embed it and there stays one truth, visible in two places. Change the block in the dashboard and it changes at its home too — and the other way around. That is transclusion: one piece of content, many windows.
{{embed ((6c1b9a2e-7d84-4f12-a3b9-0e5c1d7f2a48))}}
;; zeigt denselben Block — eine Quelle, hier nur ein weiteres Fenster5 rules for block-embed dashboards
- An embed is the block itself, not a snapshot — there is no second version that goes stale.
- Edits synchronise both ways: the dashboard and the home are one and the same.
- Mix embeds with queries — fixed blocks for what matters, rules for what keeps changing.
- An embed also shows the block's children; choose the granularity deliberately.
- Never delete the source block to remove an embed — remove only the embed, the block stays at home.
A dashboard from embeds and a query
## Sprint-Dashboard
{{embed ((a8e2d710-4f3b-4c1a-9e2d-5b7c8a1f0e63))}} ;; Sprint-Ziel, lebt im Planungs-Doc
{{query (and (property "type" "task")
(property "sprint" "aktuell"))}} ;; offene Aufgaben, liveBefore/after — copy dashboard vs embed dashboard
| Property | Copy dashboard | Embed dashboard |
|---|---|---|
| Content | Copies | the same blocks |
| Freshness | ages from the moment of pasting | always live |
| Edit | local only, drifts | in sync, both ways |
| Source of truth | unclear (two states) | the block itself |
| Upkeep | pull through by hand | none |
An honest question
How many of your dashboards show copied states that were already stale at the moment of pasting? The answer decides whether a dashboard shows you the truth or merely a photograph of yesterday.