But IF you’ve got a link created in Obsidian then moved to your mobile device and wanted to work on that file you’d have to remember and get the exact right name or look it up in your list of files (which of course could be many thousands or more).
Having the file already created would help with that use case.
I see, that is indeed different. Or if the mobile app you’re using only auto-completes filenames, not existing link names.
Thanks for the clarification, @curtismchale!
So are we talking about being able to search links that don’t have files behind them? Will these links still show up on the graph?
They exist both in link auto-complete and graph view from my testing.
Quick switcher indeed does not show links, and that’s quite inconsistent. Good feature request candidate!
Under that topic there’s a backlink to here, haha. Just like GitHub. Sorry I just found it funny since it’s a little meta 
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Bidirectional linking FTW!
Preference setting. Kind of makes sense.
Ah, my bad for not checking the behavior carefully enough! That does indeed do pretty much all I want (though curtismchale makes a good point that I hadn’t even considered). I didn’t realize links without files behind them showed up in autocomplete (I thought I had checked that, perhaps I did with a previous version where it wasn’t implemented yet. I haven’t been using very regularly, precisely because I didn’t realize this was implemented!)
Hey all, I found this thread when searching for an answer about basic backlinking functionality that works great in Roam but not so much in Obsidian: when I enter a new page [[foo]] in a note, I expect that page to be automatically created.
The new (empty) page is created only when you actually click on an [[internal link]]. This is why it does not shows in Quick Switch: it just does not exists.
Yep, I understand that’s the current behavior in Obsidian. My suggestion is that is should work like Roam: where the page is automatically created as soon as the first reference is created.
Use case: you’re free-flowing, typing your notes out in a meeting and highlighting [[topics]] as you go. I wouldn’t expect that I have to go back thru my notes and CMD+click every item to create the page.
Let’s say I reference [[a_topic]] 10 times but never CMD+clicked it. It would be odd to go into my vault, hit CMD+O and not be able to find it, no?
Maybe this option should go to settings - in my workflow, I often create [[link]] for later when in write about topics, I don’t need them to be created right away
TiddlyWiki doesn’t create the file until the link is clicked. This could work for this situation. TW also displays links to non-existent files in italics.
I agree that just removing the need to click or open a link would be great, typically I just write the links in as I’m going and then have to go back through and click each of them to generate a new note (which I later fill in) but I would prefer if just typing them created them and then I could fill them in later. As it is if I happen to miss a link I’ve created when I look back over my note then that linked note doesn’t get created (until I inevitably link to it from elsewhere, which may not be immediate).
I really like this idea of special styling for links that don’t have files. Perhaps this should be its own feature request.
this is exactly what I would like to see too, I often find myself in exactly the situation you’re describing.
I prefer the existing functionality for a variety of reasons and think automatic file creation on linking should be optional. I don’t want those files around until I’m ready to create them.
Re: Italizicing non-existent links:
I have many links that are titled after books and other sources which are already italicized.
I think an “exists” class in the CSS might be preferable, so it could be italicized, highlighted, differently colored, or just left alone in whatever way an individual prefers.
