When I set the wiki link in DEVONthink, it seems only direct to the note being linked. I really like Roam Research include the block of notes that link to it and append it to that page. Is there an option to do the same?
3 Likes
Not yet but it’s planned for future releases.
9 Likes
Sounds great!! That will make a HUGE difference! I think DevonThink can do it better as it is a database system.
I wonder would it be like a “block” of text that append to the headline like Rome? Or it just shows several texts “around” the [[topic]]? Obsidian is struggling with backlink to show a whole block as it is not a database system.
I’m not really familiar with these apps, there if you could some screenshots and how the links look like and what would be preferred this would be really helpful - Thanks!
1 Like
Has anyone followed up on this request yet? I don’t use Obsidian yet — could someone who does post some screenshots?
The supported theory of obsidian and roam-research is Zettelkasten, it’s famous by the book “How to Take Smart Notes”. Some articles explain this, such as “Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive”.
These apps look like
I think DT can do it, because DT support the wiki link.
1 Like
That’s an interesting screenshot but I wonder how the various panes (especially the diagram) are related to each other.
It’s not my screen shot and I have only dabbled around with Obsidian for a short while but I guess I can explain.
Because it can easily get confusing it is really important to know that the middle pane of Obsidian can get split both vertically and horizontally multiple times.
These sub-panes can display either notes or, in Obsidian’s terminology, plug-ins. When a pane has the focus a click on a note in the note list in the left panel displays the note. A click on one of the plug-in icons in the leftmost vertical icon bar displays the plug-in.
So in this case: Plug-in Graph View in the upper middle pane, note “Concepts MOC Ex” in the lower left middle pane, note “Flow Map” in the lower right middle pane.
The right pane shows either tags or backlinks of the note that has focus, in this case: “Concepts MOC Ex”
The Graph View displays the links between notes in a vault. The more links to a note the more lines to it and the bigger its bullet.
2 Likes
Thank you for the explanation!
While the Graph View is without doubt Obsidian’s eye catcher I don’t find it that interesting (which might have to do either with my very limited number of test notes or my similarly limited imagination).
I can definitely see more use in the multiple note panes. (The whole app, but maybe this part at most, looks totally un-MACish by the way.)
But what I like most is the backlink pane. I’d like to add another screenshot to explain:
For test purposes I have split a newspage article that has a lot of UN Secretary-General António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres in it into several notes. And I created a note called “Guterres” with his (German) Wikipedia entry. This note has the focus, meaning its backlinks are displayed in the right pane.
As we can see Obsidian distinguishes between “Linked Mentions”, i. e. WikiLinks in double square brackets, and “Unlinked Mentions”, like DEVONthink’s WikiLinks without double square brackets. Tags are listed under “Unlinked Mentions”, simply because tags in Obsidian are hashtags and as such part of the note body (but not in square brackets of course).
The user can click both types of backlinks to get to the notes that mention Guterres. But in those notes only the Linked Mentions—[[Guterres]]—are clickable as can be seen in “Untitled 2”: It holds the same paragraph twice, once with Guterres without square brackets, once with square brackets. Only the latter will lead to the reference Wikipedia note “Guterres”. Obviously the “Unlinked Mentions” are called “unlinked” for a reason.
So DEVONthink allows bracketless WikiLinks (when activated), and Obsidian provides just the backlinks to them.
You have probably guessed for a while where this is leading: I’d love to see a similar Inspector backlinks sidebar in DEVONthink. I know that scripting sorcerer supreme Bernardo has provided a script for backlinks already and I know all he does is white and not black magic. But I think this interlinking would work better on the program code level.
The Back-WikiLinks (with or without brackets) are, to put it that way, a search attached to the items, for the respective item’s name—and in DEVONthink, if DEVONthink had them, of course its aliases too.
The Graph View on the other hand … well: Unlike in Obsidian links are just one possible connection between items in DEVONthink. A Graph View should show them all, shouldn’t it? So not only a huge number of notes but its mult-dimensional nature would presumably make it unfathomable. But again, maybe that’s up to just my limited imagination.
3 Likes
I am in the group that remains open to being convinced the Graph is truly useful for “discovering connections” in my own database.
I have found it to be helpful however as an alternate form of table of contents in navigating around test databases that others have created and which I am exploring.
I always try for being part of the open-minded group too. So I won’t contradict at all.