As a neurodivergent user that manages a knowledge base/second brain/coping mechanism in Obsidian
I want the ability to link headings within a topic as aliased content
So that I don’t have to write out the alias every time and can find new connections and generalisations between topics I may have missed
Proposed solution
It should be possible to assign an alias to a heading
Given a heading already exists in a note, when a user enters a new alias, then an option to add an existing heading should appear
Given an alias has been attached to a heading, when there are missing outgoing or backlinks to this head, then suggestions should provided in the existing pane as with current functionality
Given an alias has been attached to a heading, when the user types [] and an associated alias, then it should offer an autocomplete to the heading as per the existing functionality
Solution ideas:
Add a selection to the properties tool when typing an existing heading into the alias field
Add a pane that allows mapping of aliases to headings
Current workaround (optional)
Every time a topic is being readdressed/mentioned, I currently have to type out [[Note#Heading|Alias]] which is laborious
I would love to have something like this.
As a workaround, I use a custom callout block called “alias” under my headings, where I can list several aliases:
But I am unable to use the “outline” plugin search function to look up for those aliases. There are only searchable as global file search. Of course, when linking to a note’s heading, those are not suggested. For now, they mostly help me visually.
Seconding this—I sometimes want (or need) to refer to specific terms that are very closely related to another term, so it often doesn’t make sense to split them across multiple files.
To give a little example where I would need this (simplified / reduced excerpt of a note in my vault):
# Definition
- The **degree** or **valency** of a [[Vertex|vertex]] is the number of [[Edge|edges]] that are [[Incident|incident]] to it.
- [[Loop|Loops]] are counted twice.
- A vertex of degree $k$ is ...
- [[Adjacent|adjacent]] to $k$ vertices
- [[Incident|incident]] to $k$ edges
<!-- [way more stuff here ...] -->
# Isolated Vertex
- An **isolated vertex** is a [[Vertex|vertex]] of **degree $0$**, meaning that no edges connect to it.
All of this text is in a file called Degree.md.
If I wanted an alias to point to the (contents of) the Isolated Vertex heading, I would have to split that heading off into a separate file. But since it’s just a little extra piece of information, it doesn’t really warrant its own file, at least not in the mental model I have in my brain.
So, what I’d ideally like to have is some kind of way to map an alias to a heading in a file. For example, let’s assume I gave the Isolated Vertex heading the alias isolated. If I then were to start typing [[isol…, I would like Obsidian to suggest linking to that heading, which then autocompletes as [[Degree#Isolated Vertex|isolated]].
Not being able to alias headings isn’t a big issue for me, but it would be a huge QoL improvement if I could.
