DT3b3 Automatic wikilinks ignores file extension

DEVONthink
1

As I’ve been playing with links in Markdown docs I have a question about wikilinks.

I’m using beta3 and I have enabled Automatic WikiLinks > Names & Aliases in preferences.

In a group I have multiple files with the same name but different extensions. testdoc.md, testdoc.rtf, testdoc.pdf for example.

I create another doc Wikitest.md let’s say and in that doc I type testdoc.pdf. As soon as I type testdoc, it highlights the word testdoc as a link and then as I type .pdf, the .pdf part is not shown as part of the link. clicking the link opens testdoc.md, not testdoc.pdf.

If I change the name of the file testdoc.md to something else, then the wikilink I created points to the testdoc.rtf file, still not the testdoc.pdf that I wanted it to reference.

Shouldn’t Automatic matching to Names and Aliases look at the whole filename including the extension?

2

Bearing in mind this is not how WikiLinks were originally intended to be used, and the experiment is skewed since someone would be less likely to have multiple files with the same name like this… Development would have to weigh in on this.

1 Like
3

Perhaps less likely, but not so unlikely as to be highly skewed–in my experience. Naming related files such that they differ only in their extension is a common practice for establishing a relationship among them–particularly when other means of doing so are scarce. For example, I might name an article “Epictetus Role Ethics.pdf”, my notes about it “Epictetus Role Ethics.md”, and the rendered version of my notes “Epictetus Role Ethics.rtf”.

See also sidecar files.

2 Likes
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Including sidecar files in DEVONthink is definitely an unusal condition.