DTP 3.7 Transclusion question

erikvli · April 22, 2021, 2:52pm

Well, that’s incorrect if my experience earlier on is anything to go on. That was a PDF document and it transcluded; after a while, that is. Besides, 2 out of 3 of my attempts are in your list (HTML and MD).

BLUEFROG · April 22, 2021, 2:52pm

This is covered in the Help > Documentation > Documents > Markdown Documents…

pg. 41 of the PDF manual.

erikvli · April 22, 2021, 3:29pm

Yes, well, that’s what I’m trying to do and it does not work…

erikvli · April 22, 2021, 3:34pm

To make it perfectly clear for you guys: this is a plain text file… It doesn’t work.

cgrunenberg · April 22, 2021, 3:36pm

Full filesystem paths need an extension, only relative/absolute links inside the database don’t need them.

erikvli · April 22, 2021, 3:39pm

erikvli · April 22, 2021, 3:41pm

Is it possible that Hook sits in the way of this new feature?

Blanc · April 22, 2021, 7:11pm

I’ve just played with this; for me it works with x-devonthink-item links, and using the name (w/ or w/o the extension) of a file in the same location (in my test the root of a database) as the md file. It also worked when I provided a path to a file within the database. In my tests I used plain text files. It does not work for me with links to external files.

I can’t see any way hook would sit in the way of this feature; I do have hook installed though.

Chazzo · April 22, 2021, 10:22pm

After a brief panic before I realised that this is a new feature in 3.7, I get exactly the same results as @Blanc. This is a great feature.

cgrunenberg · April 23, 2021, 6:38am

I’ll check this.

cgrunenberg · April 23, 2021, 6:59am

File system paths (e.g. /folder/file or ~/folder/file) are only supported if the path is indexed. This ensures that DEVONthink To Go is also able to find & use the files (as there’s no comparable file system on iOS/iPadOS).

Blanc · April 23, 2021, 9:03am

Thanks for clearing that up @BLUEFROG I might have missed that limitation in the handbook (and certainly I didn’t read anything which would suggest that no such limitation exists), but if it isn’t mentioned, I think it would be a worthwhile addition

PaulAmosKreiner · April 23, 2021, 2:01pm

Just making sure: It is not supposed to work with WikiLinks (yet), right? At least for me it doesn’t and this also matches the wording of the documentation. A little weird that the WikiLink-autocompletion shows and enables me to hand it names of files from other folders which then do not work with the transclusion.

BTW, you might want to remove the old documentation hint that “DEVONthink supports many features of MultiMarkdown 6, but not all of them (e.g., no file transclusion).” – or update it with a reference to something from MM6 that is not (yet) implemented in DT…

cgrunenberg · April 23, 2021, 2:20pm

It works but due to a bug neither autocompletion should happen after ![[ nor should the transclusion be displayed like a WikiLink. Easiest workaround is to use the MultiMarkdown syntax {{...}}

PaulAmosKreiner · April 23, 2021, 3:01pm

So it will after a bugfix work like this ![[? Then I will already use it that way for now and switch to Obsidian for the one group in which I use transclusion at all.

cgrunenberg · April 23, 2021, 3:04pm

It’s only a glitch of the editor, the rendering should be already fine as long as the transclusion is correct and valid (e.g. doesn’t use an unsupported file type).

PaulAmosKreiner · April 23, 2021, 3:48pm

I am not sure if we have a misunderstanding here. At least on my part the status quo is as follows

If I reference a file from within the same group by its name (= looking like a wikilink but also a valid relative path) then transclusion does its job in the preview
If I reference a file from another group/folder (within the same database) (= true wikilink, not a valid relative path) then transclusion does not work and instead I get a question mark symbol in preview. (see below)

It is the same file in both cases (I moved it in DT and manually made sure it updated in the finder) and it is a markdown file.

for further reference: in obsidian (all the relevant files are part of an indexed folder which i access with both obsidian and DT), both work.

dipsik · April 23, 2021, 9:18pm

Suggestion to transclusion
to support
> {{x-devonthink-item://example}}
To be quoted each paragraph inside, not only first paragraph as now.

BLUEFROG · April 23, 2021, 9:39pm

Welcome @dipsik

Can you clarify the use case for this?

dipsik · April 23, 2021, 9:50pm

It s make opportunity to mix parts of informations in different ways. So mix quoting and transclusion is logical way to clearer and detach visibility of such parts (if needed) and so to use principe of non duplicate of information.
Use case: do notes as atoms and reference to each other with use of quoting.
And I think its add power to Zettelkasten with Devonthink