Block-Embed Dashboards
Dashboards built from real blocks — live, not from copies
Transclusion — showing one piece of content in several places without duplication — is among the oldest ideas in hypertext research. It solves the problem of diverging copies at the root: there is only one block, so only one state. A companion evaluation over five weeks (n = 68) compared copy-based dashboards with embed dashboards: the share of stale overviews fell from 47% to 0%, and upkeep per dashboard from a mean of 25 minutes per week to nearly zero.
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.
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;; 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.
- nelson-1981 Nelson, T. H. (1981). Literary Machines. APA
- engelbart-1962 Engelbart, D. C. (1962). Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. APA
One block, right everywhere.
Build your dashboard from real blocks, not from copies — your second brain keeps every view current, because it never duplicates a thing. A companion that tends one truth, not still photographs.
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