Aliases, Inflection and Auto-Updating

Use case or problem

Languages commonly contain some sort of inflection that express word formations (gramatical cases) depending on the context, i.e. (example provided in czech, in english singular = link, plural = links):

Substantivum singular plural
nominativ link linky
genitiv linku linků
dativ linku linkům
akuzativ link linky
vokativ linku linky
lokal linku lincích / linkách
instrumental linkem linky

Commonly when refferencing I have to create alias to each node to capture inflection. The process itself is not extremely user-friendly (considering that Obsidian actually containts vocabulary containing the different inflections).

I have encountered these problems in several situations, specificaly:

Building pkm folder on Czech patent code (adding aliases)

I have attempted to build a folder dedicated to czech patent regulation. Due to inflection I have to often-times come back and add aliases to separate nodes. The resulting workflow is highly innefecient.

Modular document folder (Auto-Update aliases)

I aim to create a legal document generation modular folder in Obsidian, where each node would be rename-able (let’s say in contract generating - node that would be named “Contract” but would be possible to change to “Agreement” with auto-update across the entire folder). Unfortunately changing the Contract to Agreement currently updates only the basic word form. Rewriting the Aliases manualy unfortunalely does not auto-update the internal links scattered across the folder.

The resulting system subsequently contains numerous inflexible internal links and the work-flow to generate the modular document becomes burdensome.

Proposed solution

Adding aliases

Feaure should be added to easily add aliases to nodes either from different node (when generating link i would be able to add aliases, i.e. writing [[contract|contractual]]) or in the existing node by simple interface (i.e. in the side pannel).

Auto-updating aliases

Updating aliases in the node should auto-update internal links across the vault.

Current workaround (optional)

Abovementioned - adding aliases in the YAML, auto-updating manually.

Related feature requests (optional)

5 Likes

+1 Upvotes

The ever-elusive Inline disambiguation-anator.

So bigly needed.

So fully absent.

:dotted_line_face:

1 Like

+1 This would be great and eliminate so much friction. I have abandoned looking at “unlinked mentions” altogether because creating inflection-aliases for them to be even remotely reliable creates such a balloon of nonsense-work.

Maybe this very clunky workaround might save just a little time:
With the plugin GitHub - mrjackphil/obsidian-text-expand: A simple text expand plugin for Obsidian.md by @mrjackphil you can “print” the results of the default search into a note using (as an example, there are different options for creating lists):

```expander
SEARCH QUERY
$link $searchresult
.

So you can enter the word stem as the search term, “print” the results with all the inflections, and then copy/paste the different inflections as aliases into the YAML section of your target note.

I have also suggested a plugin for quickly adding aliases without leaving the current note: Create alias from selected text in target note frontmatter - #3 by sonsche

2 Likes

+1 here! This would save so much trouble and would make everything much easier. Thanks! :slight_smile:

1 Like