Obsidian-like links

[aidanhadley]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I use Rnote in class. It has dramatically sped up my productivity in class. However, I don't like the default "saving" features or having to put all of the data for the entire class into one file. Describe the solution you'd like
I think the best way to solve this is to do it like how Obsidian does it, a.k.a. links and tags. Being able to add these can combine different .rnote files into different categories (such as classes, like physics and math), and can add a new dimension to organization of files.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Using the "Workspaces" option just doesn't feel as intuitive to me. No other app works as well as Rnote, and having this functionality would make it much better.

[MariusAlbrecht]

this is interesting but I cant really imagine how it'd be implemented in a seamless way. Obsidian is entirely keyboard centered and adding the tags and links is seamless with their md flavour. That same level of seamless-ness seems hard to achieve here simply because handwritten notes can't be parsed like text can (well, they can but this seems wildly out of scope here). This only leaves some sort of ui to insert the links which also seems hard to do without relying on text (aka keyboard input) Do you have any specific ideas how (especially) the links could be implemented in terms of ux and ui?

[aidanhadley]

sorry for the late reply, but i've mocked up some ideas (keep in mind i'm no artist lol). first, the sidebar can look something like this: , and for linking specifically, there could be something added to the bottom bar (maybe lie this) , and it'd open a prompt like this (essentially just the deafult GNOME picker, maybe without the non-rnote items): , it'd look something like this in the actual note: (btw, all of this was made in rnote) let me know if there's any other questions you have! i'd love to brainstorm :)

[MariusAlbrecht]

I honestly dont like this very much. Doesnt really have that "seamlessness" was talking about (in my opinion) I've also made a small mockup: the main idea here is that the thing being linked shouldn't be files (like you do it, or oneonte afaik) or text (like obsidian does it), but areas. Just select an area with a tool very similar to the "Selector" and then either make that selection a link target or link the selection to a target. That way a link could be peeked at or opened very seamlessly (imo). Thats also whats happening in the mockup. The the "keyword" would be an area that links to "some other thext with the same keyword" and that target is shown as a small popup with the option to actually move the main view there. This is quite similar to obsidian as well I think (or the wikipedia links)

What sort of data alongside the area is needed per link and link target is up for debate. In the mockup I require a name for each target but that's absolutely not neccesary.

Recorded targets could possibly have their own tab in their sidebar.

I'd also suggest recording the targets per file but making them visible across files per workspace.

I'd be happy to make some more (though quick n dirty) mockups along the way! (ps, no clue what tags are and how theyre used in obsidian so i didnt pay much attention to that)

[aidanhadley]

i just did a quick test of obsidian, and i see how your idea would be better. having areas instead of files makes everything more precise

what do you mean in relation to "recorded targets?" i don't understand that terminology

perhaps what all is needed is just the file name and the location where the rectangle exists. i don't know how rnote stores it's info however.

i noticed that the sidebar has been improved, and maybe the listed links could go below the files?

i think your visual of a "preview" pane would be nice, but maybe a bit more integrated (as to not mess things up with tililng window managers lol).

tbh i don't really know how tags work either, maybe just links could be a good focus

[MariusAlbrecht]

what do you mean in relation to "recorded targets?" i don't understand that terminology

with my Idea the whole linking process would have two steps.

1. user designates linkable areas (both targets and sources) with a tool similar to the selector
2. user links those together

this means that the areas are somewhat independent of the actual links (so that you can reuse them). That's what I meant by recorded target

[sound-friend]

as an extra note, logseq has a "whiteboards" feature, where when you highlight something, you can choose to link it to a different page. maybe something like that would work in rnote?