Use case or problem
I want to use Canvas to collect and associate related Jira tickets, which are most conveniently represented as ticket titles with links. It’s useful to be able to rapidly collect and connect hyperlinked resources for later analysis; often, the contents of the links are not immediately relevant and the links themselves are not always content-focused (they might be index pages for a topic, where I don’t want to include the entire index, for example).
The most effective way to collect links in this way is the same way you’d do them during document authoring - drag the links from the browser into the note. Obsidian creates Markdown hyperlinks and does nothing else.
However, Canvas always tries to open the links and acquire content. This is neither possible nor desirable in many cases. It’s not possible for sites that have authorization and required logins (like Jira). It’s not desirable if you don’t actually need the linked content from a particular resource (e.g. a page that is a table of contents for a site you want to review later).
Proposed solution
Several possible solutions could work:
- Provide config to disable/enable link-following behavior Canvas wide.
- Change the link-following behavior if you have a modifier key held down while dragging. E.g. hold Alt and drag a link from Chrome to Obsidian canvas to create a card with a single hyperlink; drag normally to create a link with the follow behavior.
- Provide config for option 2, where you can specify what the “normal” behavior is - follow links or don’t follow - and the modifier key does the opposite.
- Further refine the link dragging behavior to include authorization caching, and provide conditional fallback if that auth fails. E.g. if the site requires a login and the login fails, just create a card with the link.
Current workaround (optional)
Current workaround is to manually create the cards and link them, which means that for each link:
- Right-click the link in Chrome and copy it.
- Create a Canvas card.
- Paste the link into the card.
- Possibly edit the title.
Other workarounds might be possible with Alfred automation (Mac) or Autohotkey (PC)