Deep linking to location within md file stored in DTP

DEVONthink
1

I was thinking that DTP permitted me to create a link to a specific location within a md file stored in a DTP database. This link would be accessible to other apps such as Bookends or Obsidian.

Now that I look more closely, it seems that the links I had created are links to “items” stored in a DTP database, not a deep link to a specific location within an item. In other words, I can activate that link from another app to tell DTP to open the item, but apparently not to go to a specific location within the item (the item being a markdown file).

Have I forgotten something? I read through pertinent parts of the docs and didn’t see what I was looking for. Thank you!

2

Afaik, that’s only possible with PDF and HTML. Perhaps, because “position” is not a concept in MD – you can inadvertently change something small like adding or removing whitespace and every position after that point changes.

PDF is a more static format and HTML knows about anchors and fragments.

1 Like
3

OK, thank you, chrillek. That clarifies the issue. I believe I had tricked myself into thinking I had been doing this sort of deep-linking into a md file when actually I had been linking into PDFs.

4

It’s also supported in case of EPUB and Markdown.

5

If you can find unique text you can sort of cheat to achieve that in Chrome

image
image1676×816 146 KB

6

ePub is obvious, as that’s just HTML. For MD, are you referring to the search parameter of an item link? If not, what do you mean?

7

image

Documents > Markdown Documents > Item Linking…

Screenshot 2024-09-03 at 9.04.43 AM
Screenshot 2024-09-03 at 9.04.43 AM1594×1756 282 KB

And each of the native document types has an Item Linking subsection describing any available options.

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8

I see. So, you can basically link to a header, and the header’s text must be unique to make that work. Better than nothing (and not very different from the search parameter, imo).

9

This JXA function (not a full script) lets you choose a heading in a markdown document, and returns information (heading level, id and text) about that heading.

function ChooseHeading (record) {

	/* This function lets you choose a heading in a markdown document, and returns information about the heading. Returns null if fallback. */

	const app = Application('DEVONthink 3');
	app.includeStandardAdditions = true;
	
	if (record.type() !== 'markdown') {
		return null;
	}
	
	// Gets an array of arrays: [[heading level, heading text, heading id]...]
	const headings = [...record.source().matchAll(/<[hH]([1-6]) +id="(.*?)">(.*?)<\/[hH][1-6]>/g)].map(item => {
		return {'level': item[1], 'id': item[2], 'text': item[3]}
	});
	
	if (headings.length > 0) {
	
		// Let the user choose one heading
		const defaultOption = 'Not specified';
		const list = headings.map(item => `${item.level}# ${item.text}`);
		list.push(defaultOption);
		const choice = app.chooseFromList(list, {withTitle: 'Notes', withPrompt: 'Choose a heading to append to item link', defaultItems: [defaultOption], emptySelectionAllowed: false, multipleSelectionsAllowed: false});
	
		// Retrieve heading name and id
		if (choice) {
			if (choice[0] !== defaultOption) {
				const heading = headings.find(item => `${item.level}# ${item.text}` === choice[0]);
				if (heading) return heading;
				
				/* Example of returned object:
				   {'level': 3, 'id': 'thisisaheading', 'text': 'This is a heading'} */
			}
		}
	}
	
	// Returns null if no heading is present in the document, or if user desires not to get a heading;
	return null;
}

I wrote this so I can create a link to the heading without actually opening the document. This may or may not be useful, depending on your workflow.

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