Podcast Voice Notes

This article details the workflow I set up to easily record voice notes while listening to podcasts and store them in obsidian.

Overall Workflow:

Get a button on top of preferred podcast app. Click it to record voice note.
Note will get transcribed and saved to obsidian.
Templater script to organize all podcast voice notes.

Implementation:

Create Android Automate App Flow:

Install the Automate app in android: Automate - Apps on Google Play
- Create the following flow:

Module	Purpose	Input Arguments/Options/Output Variables
Speech Recognition	record voice note and transcribe NOTE: Added 3 modules as each module seems to stop within 2-3 sec irrespective of the time set in its params.	Output Variables: Array of spoken texts = spoken_text
Write file	write note to podcast_voice_notes.md file in obsidian vault	Input Arguments: Content: `<br>"\n\n---\n" ++ dateFormat(Now, "datetime") <br>++ "\n\n" ++ spoken_text[0] ++ " " ++ <br>spoken_text2[0] ++ " " ++ spoken_text3[0]<br>` File: `<PATH_TO>/podcast_voice_notes.md"` - Set "Append to file" to true
Has notification	Check if podcast app has notification on. If so, get podcast and episode names.	Options: - Proceed: "Immediately" - Package: PODCAST_APP Output Variables: - Title: "title" - Message: "message"
Write file	If podcast notification is available, write podcast/episode names to podcast_voice_notes.md file in obsidian vault	Input Arguments: - Content: `"\n\nNote from Podcast: \n" <br>++ title ++ "\n" ++ message<br>` File: `<PATH_TO>/podcast_voice_notes.md"` - Set "Append to file" to true

Create widget for the above flow on the home screen.

Overlays app:

Objective is to get a mic overlay as follows:
With the mic overlay, I can easily take voice notes without needing to get out of the podcast app.
Install Overlays - Floating Launcher - Apps on Google Play
Steps to create the button:
- Go to "Triggers" tab
- Add new trigger: "Foreground Application"
- Select your preferred podcast app
- In "Add Overlay", select the flow widget
- Tap the flow -> Icon -> select the "mic" icon (or anything else)
- Re-position the overlay anywhere in the screen. That will be the default position.
This will open the mic overlay whenever the podcast app is opened.

Obsidian Template:

With the above steps, any voice note will be recorded in the podcast_voice_notes.md file.
Now, the file itself will be disorganized, as each entry will be concatenated at the end.
Following templater script can be used to quickly reformat all notes in that file:
Template (save as podcast_voice_notes.md in the templater templates folder):

# Podcasts:
<% tp.user.podcast_voice_notes(tp.file.content) %>

---
## Raw Notes: %% fold %%
---

Script (save as podcast_voice_notes.js in the templater scripts folder):
- The script even removes any notes with no information.

function my_function(msg) {
  // Split the input string into blocks
  const blocks = msg.trim().split('---').filter(block => block.trim() !== '');

  const podcasts = {};

  // Process each block
  blocks.forEach(block => {
      const lines = block.trim().split('\n').map(line => line.trim()).filter(line => line !== '');
      const phrase = lines[1];
      const podcastName = lines[3];
      const podcastEpisode = lines[4];

      // Filter out empty phrases and specific phrases
      if (!phrase || phrase.toLowerCase() === 'hello' || phrase === 'Note from Podcast:') {
          return;
      }

      if (!podcasts[podcastName]) {
          podcasts[podcastName] = {};
      }

      if (!podcasts[podcastName][podcastEpisode]) {
          podcasts[podcastName][podcastEpisode] = [];
      }

      podcasts[podcastName][podcastEpisode].push(`- ${phrase}`);
  });

  // Format the output
  let output = '';

  for (const podcastName in podcasts) {
      output += `## ${podcastName}: %% fold %%\n`;
      for (const episode in podcasts[podcastName]) {
          output += `### ${episode}:\n`;
          output += podcasts[podcastName][episode].join('\n') + '\n';
      }
  }
  return output;
}

module.exports = my_function;

Conclusion:

Following above steps, voice notes can easily be recorded from any podcast app.

Sample Output:

Raw notes:

5/25/24 11:04 PM

Note from Podcast:
Medical Murders
Jack the Ripper Pt. 1

5/25/24 8:46 PM

Jack the Ripper committed a lot of murders in Whitechapel London in 1888

Note from Podcast:
Medical Murders
Jack the Ripper Pt. 1

5/20/24 7:32 PM

early humans started off in Africa it's called Out Of Africa Theory

Note from Podcast:
Philosophize This!
Episode #001 ... Presocratic Philosophy - Ionian