While it’s easy to insert the backlink of an item to other items in DT, it is not as easy to trace which documents have the backlink of a particular item.
In the process of coding other stuff, I have written this utility script to “forward-trace” the item-link of a selected document/item.
(1) Select an item that you want to trace its item link
(2) the script will ask for a group where you search for all documents that may contain the backlink. I strongly suggest not to choose a “database”, it will take a long time to find “a backlink” in every item of the entire database! (It takes about 1.5 min to trace through a group fo 300 text files looking for a backlink)
(3) the script will ask for, or create, a group for the results; all documents that contain the backlink of (1) will be replicated in that group.
PS: (1) perhaps someone can consider modifying the script to become a smart rule triggered script. This arrangement may allow a user to drag and drop an item onto the smart rule for getting the result.
(2) I haven’t vigorously debugged the script, but it works well in my database.
(3) If you are using wikilinks as backlink, or you always use the full name of the source document as the name of the backlink, it’s much faster and more straight-forward to conduct a normal search in DT (by searching the name of backlink in content only).
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
-- ngan 2019.08.11
-- script to retrive all documents that contain the backlink of an item and replicate the results to a destinated group
tell application id "DNtp"
if selection is {} then
display dialog ("Select a document first") buttons {"Ok"}
return
else if (count of selection) ≥ 1 then
set theDoc to first item of (selection as list)
set theDocURL to reference URL of theDoc
end if
set theSearchFrom to display group selector "Search for back link in:" for current database
set theSelection to my getAllChildren(theSearchFrom) as list
set theResults to {}
repeat with theRecord in (theSelection)
set theSource to source of theRecord
if theSource contains theDocURL then
set the end of theResults to theRecord
end if
end repeat
set saveTo to display group selector "Save the results to:" for current database
repeat with theRecord in theResults
replicate record theRecord to saveTo
end repeat
end tell
on getAllChildren(theParent)
local theList
set theList to {}
tell application id "DNtp"
repeat with theChild in children of theParent
if type of theChild is not group then
set theList to theList & {theChild}
else
set theList to theList & my getAllChildren(theChild)
end if
end repeat
end tell
return theList
end getAllChildren
