Support for wiki style links as used in Notational Velocity derivatives #1765

Open jonmoore1 opened 6 years ago

At the moment the the only way to create local links to notes in the same folder is to use GitLab style linking, which mirrors Markdown link style as follows:

[LinkTitle] (./DocumentName)

And the document name can be utilised minus the (.md) file extension. This is good for many use cases but lacks the simplicity of Notational Velocity style linking (which mirrors the system popularised by personal wiki apps). The link style here works as follows:

[[DocumentName]]

Much like with the existing local link scheme, the file extension isn't required (which aids readability). If you happen to store your text files in multiple local folders you can use POSIX style / notation to direct to the location of the note (but this does of course kill readability and add unnecessary complexity to a plain text note taking system). The other main benefit of the [[ ]] double bracket notation is that the plain text notes are totally portable, as they don't rely of the fragility of file paths across multiple platforms (and random folder structure changes over time).

I work across macOS, Linux and Windows, and Typora has proven to fill a massive gap on both Windows and Linux with regard to plain text 'note taking/document drafting'. For many years on macOS I've relied upon 1st, 'nvALT' and more lately 'The Archive' (both of which are based on Notational Velocity) for inter-linked note taking. Typora allows me to continue to access my notes on Linux and Windows and I get to benefit from the live rendering of my Markdown formatted notes as a much appreciated added extra. Unfortunately none of the wiki style links between local notes function when using Typora.

I'm not suggesting a change from the current system of Markdown based local linking, just the addition of the wiki style link notation to support it. Much like myself, there's a huge audience of macOS users that are either transitioning to Linux/Windows or put in a situation where work/life means they're forced to work with multiple OS's; and many again have come to rely on Notational Velocity based apps for Markdown based note taking. Wiki style local linking, would be a welcome attraction to the delights of Typora for those very same macOS nomads, looking for a suitable Markdown app to call home on Linux & Windows. :)

I forget one extra behavioural thing I'd like to see changed with regards to local interlinked docs/notes. At the moment opening internal links opens another Typora window/session. I believe a more ideal behaviour would be for local note links to open in the same Typora window/session. The behaviour should be no different to opening another document/note via the sidebar.

Do I need to add this as a separate request for tracking?

I think this would be an excellent addition! Probably not too difficult to implement, either.

I too think this would be absolutely great. More and more apps are implementing the double brackets system (notable, bear, zettlr, the archive, 1writer for the ipad, ... ) so I think it will become a standard.

As OP I've use The Archive which is great but lacks the live rendering experience Typora offers, sure you can use it with external editors like typora, marked and similars but every time you change the current open document in the window by changing files on the sideber you have to manually open a new instance of those external editors (Typora/Marked...)

nValt has a preview markdown window that "moves" or changes whenever you navigate in the sidebar so the editor document and the preview document are always the same and in sync, however, in my experience it doesn't render images, so it isn't really an option.

+1

+1 also. This would make a huge difference to organisation, allowing a Roam Research style of navigation, especially if all links were automatically renamed when the source page is renamed.

+1

+1 for this feature! That would make Typora my goto app for md.

+1 This would make Typora comparable to something like obsidian.md and Typora is miles ahead in terms of editing

+1

+1 Thank you

+1 would love this.

+1 for this request

+1 This is the future.

Yes please consider this feature.

+1 Also would love to use [[...]]-wiki-style links in Typora.

It would be great if it could be configurable per folder how to resolve such links - usually these links are not resolvable using the file system but need a notes/wiki system to resolve them. So I wish to be able to configure Typora to resolve [[foo]] in some folder (and sub-folders) to https://wiki.example.com/w/foo.

+1 This would make using Obsidian and Typora supplementary much easier.

+1

I'll throw my voice of interest behind this one as well.

+1

If Typora I were able to define a "parent folder" for a Typora project, and have the [[keyword]] syntax find references to that filename and/or header anywhere in the parent folder, that would be pretty cool. If there were also an auto-complete ability when typing it out, that would be double cool.

I realize this is beyond the scope of a markdown editor to create a knowledge-management system. However, if it could recognize syntax from other systems....super cool.

Still love the program, love how it does image handling, TOC. Not giving it up any time soon.

+1

+1 I badly want this.

+1

Definitely something that would make me use Typora way, way more.

Same here! Even if, as others have said, it would only be able to recognize the [[...]] syntax, say as a toggleable alternative to the regular Markdown links (like Obsidian does), then I'd be very happy: I'd use Obsidian for the connections/graphs and Typora for its absolutely stunning and focused interface (which is a tremendous help for my productivity).

+1

The main advantage of wiki-style links is that they are more flexible than standard links, even when using relative paths, because they are based in queries. That means that you can move your files between sub-folders, or even changing the name of these sub-folders, without having to update over and over again all the links. In addition, supporting wiki-style links would provide a welcomed compatibility with Zettlr or Obsidian.

+1

I’m sure the developers already considered whether and how to implement wikilinks. My workaround so far is copying and pasting the link text using the built-in search feature in the side panel. Perhaps it’s possible that wikilinks trigger a search when clicking them?

It would be also good for Obsidian compatibility, because now the [[links]] created in Obsidian are unusable in Typora. I think the main problem is that Typora does not have any context to know where to search the linked files, but it would be good if it would work at least with the documents in the same folder.

+1

I have over 700 files crusted with Obsidian using wikilinks and would be amazing if Typora implements this too!

+1!

+1

+1 Please add this feature

This is a killer feature in obsidian. I still use typora though because of its much better editor.

Obsidian has an option where you can make the links regular markdown.

E.g. you start typing

[[so

And a popup will show files starting with so. Selecting one then shows:

[some doc](some_doc.md)

+100!

Quite a popular request

Also badly wanting this. Is there any progress?

typora / typora-issues

Support for wiki style links as used in Notational Velocity derivatives #1765