Add counters/markers for headings and blocks that are referenced somewhere else

[muggle]

nice job!

[RoyRogers]

The video is not available. I don’t see how to access the “button” that the release notes say is added to Obsidian.

[Dor]

@ashish

the problem is that separate notes cannot be linked as an indented structure like in an outliner. For those familiar with blocks and indenting capabilities, Obsidian becomes a huge tradeoff.

If I look at outliners - Logseq, Roam, Workflowy/Dynalist, for example - I perceive the later as being most effective as outliners with the others having extra features but some trade off.
But, Obsidian is not an outliner at all.

However, it would be possible for a plugin to create a fully indented outline structure from blocks, headings or files quite easily. It would need three components:

1. Gathering everything into a single markdown file using headings, (possibly outlines under headings if more than five levels are required);
2. A markdown/OPML exporter/importer;
3. An editor/viewer that presented the OPML as an indented outline, with all the outliner features that are wanted. Could even be pure CSS if limited functionality is needed.

An alternative to the last stage is opening the OPML in another outliner such as Workflowy/Dynalist.
What this wouldn’t do is make everything in a Vault part of an outline. If that’s needed, it’s probably best to open the folder in Logseq.

@ashish

splitting into atomic notes is a possibility, and it can be automated

This is true, and many do it, and it’s a type of faux block, but I don’t see any advantage to it myself. The idea derives I presume from the zettelkasten community and Ahrens etc. But even a short phrase can contain many ideas (see analyses of any ancient text) and a single idea may take a lot of defining.

@ashish

heavy Obsidian users do not use blocks at all

That’s certainly true for me.
What I want from any note will vary and blocks are too restrictive. I may need just a word, or a phrase, a fact or even an explanation covering several paragraphs. And I also want the context, if there is one. I find the easiest solution is much longer notes or documents with highlights defining what I want with the ability to use those highlights.

[ashish]

What I want from any note will vary and blocks are too restrictive. I may need just a word, or a phrase, a fact or even an explanation covering several paragraphs. And I also want the context, if there is one. I find the easiest solution is much longer notes or documents with highlights defining what I want with the ability to use those highlights.

How do you link parts form a long note without a block reference?

[Dor]

Go to header, look at the highlights in context. Highlights already extracted.

[ashish]

Would you be able to explain a bit more? I am keen to learn further. TIA

[Dor]

@ashish

Would you be able to explain a bit more?

I’m not sure what you want explaining.
There are many ways of working using highlights, and a number of plugins designed to suit different approaches. The Extract Highlights plugin does most of this (links to note rather than header, so header has to be added yourself).

But it’s a different way of working.
Students in ancient days had books and some had highlighters. One tribe of that ilk drew a line down the margin, while the larger tribe highlighted specific words, phrases and paragraphs. I think this is the same difference in approach.

Extract Highlights Plugin

Hi there! This tiny plugin extracts all highlights from a current note in Obsidian into your clipboard for further use (Atomic note-creation etc.) [demo] It’s based on @icebear’s plugin idea and @santi’s awesome feedback over the last days. Today I’d love to share it “officially” with you and invite you to take it for a spin. Super simple, here’s how it works: Set up: Settings -> Third-Party Plugins -> Community Plugins -> "Extract Highlights" -> Install Test-drive: Paste a long text i…

[shabegom]

you need to install the plugin via Community Plugins. The counter buttons are currently only viewable in Preview mode.

[LinuxHG]

@Badjer

One of the key things I would love is if I could see the content of the block ref vs *title & block UID number.

You can if you put an Exclamation mark in front ![[. However, it adds a really big “block” to the document. I’d like to be able to see this more streamlined as it it’s part of the local document, or at least have that choice.

[ryanjamurphy]

This depends on your theme. There are themes and snippets that make the embeds appear more inline — I can’t direct you to any specific ones, but you can find them!

[dant1]

Huge +1 here. This would be extremely valuable to me.

And to be clear, as per this feature request, I think it would be amazing to show the inline links (effectively inline backlinks) to block references. But I think it would also be great to show them for tags and for links to pages as well. Obviously this information is readily available, but having it inline is super useful. (I can confirm that it is useful because of the plugin I mention below ).

To be clear though, the value of inline backlinks is especially high for block references because those links are not actually accessible elsewhere (whereas, while it would be very nice to see inline backlinks for each page link, you can already see that info by going to the page and looking at its backlinks). But hopefully bringing in this feature for page links would make it more valuable for the many Obsidian users who do not super actively use block references.

But even though many people do not use block references, I still think this feature would be great (for those who do use them) and I also think that it absolutely fits the Obsidian “ethos.”

First of all, the use case is obviously very valid - the Bible verse example given above illustrates it quite well. And while yes you can make everything into individual notes, that is often far from ideal. Which is probably why obsidian does have block references implemented! So this seems like a very logical and valuable feature.

For those pointing out that Obsidian is not an outliner:

1. Obsidian absolutely can be used as an outliner, so I don’t see any reason to not add features that add value to those use cases
2. More importantly, this feature absolutely is useful even if you never do outlining. Block references can be made to headers and paragraphs just as well as they can be made to list items. In fact most of my block references are to headers. So even if we don’t want outliner features, this is still perfectly valid and useful outside of that context.

To me, it absolutely fits in with Obsidian’s broader value proposition, which is to enable and surface connections between notes. Seeing inline backlinks to page and block references, as well as to tags, is a great way to see more connections immediately, and in-context. And yes you can get this info by clicking on the link and going to the backlinks section, but how often do we do that? Having it right there adds huge value. And it surfaces connections that otherwise would not be noticed.

As for implementation, I used to use the block reference counter plugin, until I noticed that the readme for that plugin indicated that development had either slowed or ceased, and recommended another plugin, which seems to have succeeded it. The new plugin is called Strange New Worlds by TfTHacker. It is absolutely incredible, and for those who like the idea of this feature, but perhaps don’t fully understand its value, take a look at this plugin.

It uses Obsidian’s index, which means it is actually quite fast. By the way, that also demonstrates that Obsidian’s design and implementation do not preclude this feature at all.

Of course, the fact that there is a plugin may imply less urgency for this being implemented as a native feature, but unless the plugin is exclusively using documented API functionality (I don’t think it is, but not sure), it’s quite possible it could be broken later. Not to mention that providing this info as part of the API seems like it would be really useful for not just this feature, but probably for lots of other plugins like Dataview.

Anyway, this plugin is in beta, and therefore has to be installed outside of the community plugin interface. You can do it using BRAT (a plugin that makes it super easy to install other plugins from a Github repo if they aren’t available through the community market).

Hope this is useful, and again, strong +1 for this being implemented natively .

[bolsonaro2022]

very valuable +1

[ginjexcaflud]

This feature would help out a tonne!

[Klaas]

If I am not mistaken this is now covered by the Strange New Worlds plug-in. If true, this FR can be closed @WhiteNoise .

[ryanwwest]

I like SNW, but I feel like this functionality is critical enough that it would be best added to Obsidian core, not a plugin, in the long-term. This, seamless editable transclusions, a few others. Is the point of this thread (and others) getting the functionality added in Obsidian core (with plugin discussion in the middle being extremely useful), or getting it added any way?

[ryanjamurphy]

@ryanwwest

Is the point of this thread (and others) getting the functionality added in Obsidian core (with plugin discussion in the middle being extremely useful), or getting it added any way?

It’s fuzzy. We tend not to close FRs until they are implemented in core, but many FRs are the inspiration for plugins, and the existence of plugins can make FRs less needful.

[monospace]

Just moved over from Roam to Obsidian and block reference count is the only major missing feature at the moment (at least to my use case). The caret internal reference is already powerful, so the reference count (and optional sorting which is missing in Roam) would perfect that.

[ogil109]

As this is related to the (inline) automatic update of backlinks (Automatic/inline update of links to headers and blocks when they are modified (no extra dialog window) - #62 by ces), this could solve 2 problems at once:

• Auto update heading internal links without user interaction via modal window.
• Counters/markers for heading/block references (as in LogSeq or Roam), like @monospace and others mentioned.

So, I just got told that this needs to be alive in order to be solved. Once again, devs are pointing to the half-baked solution (the modal window) as a “solution” (workaround, I’d say). Here’s the original conversation in Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1do0u5c/dynamic_links_plugin/

Let’s make Obsidian linking system more robust! It’s about time.

P.S. We could reach a wider audience if we upvote this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1dqd73n/feature_request_obsidian_heading_internal_links/

[peeragetalkers]

+1 from me too. Having inline backlinks would be incredibly valuable, especially for block references where this information isn’t easily available elsewhere. While the Strange New Worlds plugin is a great interim solution, having this as a native feature would be more reliable and align perfectly with Obsidian’s core strength of surfacing connections. The immediate visibility of how content is referenced elsewhere would help reveal unexpected connections and enrich the knowledge graph, whether you’re using Obsidian for outlining or traditional note-taking.

[TheBestPessimist]

I’m also in this camp: a references view like Intellij IDEA’s is very very useful (Ctrl B view as of 2024-12)