Roam Research Docs · Developer documentation

Yet-to-release updates

• if you run into issues with any of the following, please contact me (Baibhav Bista) on the Roam Public Slack or post on the #developers channel there
• IN THE WORKS
  • Roam Alpha API function that gives parsed markdown string for a block (with children blocks)
    • deployment to test in:: https://relemma-git-roamalphapi-getmarkdownstring.roamresearch.com/
    • window.roamAlphaAPI.data.block
      • .getParsedMarkdownString
        • Description::
          • Get parsed markdown string for a block (and optionally, it's children)
          • "parsed" meaning that block refs are resolved to their strings (and block embeds to their block trees!)
          • am not sure I like the shape of the API right now. Let me know if you have any feedback
          • Can't be used for page uids.
            • If you want to get md string for a page, You want to get :block/children for the page, sort them by :block/order and then call this fn for each :block/uid in that ordered list.
            • Why not for pages?
              • pages are slightly but confusingly different because there is no standard to include the page title
                • so page md exports will not include the :node/title
                • however, we want block md exports to include the :block/string
        • Parameters::
          • arg 1: block-uid
            • Type::
              • Block / page's uid
          • arg 2: childrenDepth
            • can be one of
              • true
                • give me all nested children
              • false
                • do not give me children
              • positive integer
                • give me children upto this depth
    • Example::

      • console.log(
          window.roamAlphaAPI.data.block.getParsedMarkdownString("rT56JCmqH", true)
        );
        
        console.log(
          window.roamAlphaAPI.data.block.getParsedMarkdownString("rT56JCmqH", false)
        );
        
        console.log(
          window.roamAlphaAPI.data.block.getParsedMarkdownString("rT56JCmqH", 3)
        );
        

• ARCHIVE
  • isolate Depot extensions to platforms #.rm-falsified
    • Falsified due to:: we will have a native mobile app and they will not run custom code at all
    • deployment to test in:: https://relemma-git-feat-roam-depot-enabled-platforms.roamresearch.com/
      • if you run into issues with any of the following, please contact me (Baibhav Bista) on the Roam Public Slack or post on the #developers channel there
    • Loom video (a bit outdated regarding the options)
      • {{video: https://www.loom.com/share/9adff7cbbf104c17815849a589693aaa}}
    • Basic idea is more for users to be able to isolate Roam depot extensions to certain platforms
      • some examples
        • users might not want to/need to have power-user like extensions like "Workbench" in mobile
          • well to be frank, I don't know if one would want to have "Workbench" in mobile or if it has mobile targeted features. I included it because it was the first thing I thought of when thinking about extensions for power users
        • users might have extensions meant for mobile which do not make sense to be run in browser, like "Mobile Gesture Actions"
    • Options are:
      • 
      • All devices
        • enabled on everything
      • Mobile Only
        • Allows for mobile devices (but not tablets)
        • should work both for the mobile app and for mobile site
        • Tablets are removed from this criteria by checking for if the userAgent includes "iPad" or "Tablet" or if it includes "Android' but not "Mobile"
      • Desktop & Tablets
        • essentially the negation of the "Mobile Only" option
    • Extensions are allowed to have defaults
      • if no default is set or invalid default is provided, it defaults to "all"
      • Assumption is that very few extensions will have to set defaults
        • only few like "Mobile Gesture Actions" might want to
      • Extension devs can select default for their extension in metadata json i.e. in roam-depot-repo/extensions/github-username/extension-name.json as "default-enabled-platforms"
        • Options::
          • "all"
          • "desktop-and-tablets"
          • "only-mobile"
      • default value is signified in the settings, so the user knows the default recommended value for the extension

markdown version · view in Roam Research · exported 2026-07-03