Render text in backlinks and search results instead of showing raw markdown (reading mode rendering)

@moderators I guess, title of this request should change from Display search results and backlinks in preview mode e.g. to:
Display search results and backlinks in "Reading view" mode
To keep it consistent with updated naming convention from https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-release-v0-13-8-insider-build/28329 :

  • “Preview mode” has been renamed to “Reading view” to avoid confusion.
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+1

This is the feature I’ve been waiting for the most since the day Obsidian appeared!

It would improve so many features at once: side pane backlinks, in-file backlinks, file search, embedded queries.

Right now it looks, well, suboptimal, especially in bullet lists, since the indentation gets lost once the line gets wrapped:
image

And there are a lot of folks who use Obsidian as an outliner: the outliner plugin has more than a hundred thousand downloads right now!

4 Likes

The latest version of the Query Control plugin can now render search results in the sidebar search and in embedded queries.

The plugin adds an extra button to the nav bar which allows you to render your results. See the release notes here for more details: Release 0.3.0 · nothingislost/obsidian-query-control · GitHub

The plugin is still in early development but can be installed using the BRAT community plugin by adding the beta repository “nothingislost/obsidian-query-control”

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Looks like the plugin development is somewhat haphazard. I also see the author resorting to monkeypatching to achieve this. This might be brittle, and besides, I just don’t see the point of having your search results not rendered.

Trying out the plugin makes it even clearer, that rendering search results is a much cleaner & user-friendly way of displaying them.

3 Likes

+1 to this.

I liked the plugin so much that I made it a template for all my daily notes to replace the backlink. It just looks so much better with the search results rendered.

If this can be incorporated to the core backlinks plugin that woukd be amazing!

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I’d actually like to see Markdown-rendered backlinks in any mode (live preview), not just reader mode.

Furthermore, it would be easier for me to find backlinks at the bottom of the main page view rather than hidden in a side panel (as an optional setting). My ideal would be to treat each backlink as a collapsable transcluded link to the heading section / block section they are in, and make it possible to edit the transcluded sections (which itself is another FR: Edit transcluded (embedded) notes (blocks) in place (likely requires WYSWYG first)).

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@ryanwwest

I understood the purpose of this feature request is to display content of a backlink as rendered html instead of raw markdown. In my previous post I aimed to keep integrity of currently used Obsidian terminology.
Not that someone would want to restrict behavior of backlinks based on currently active mode in some pane.
So If I understand you correctly, our preferences are the same, aside of editable transclusion which is separate request.

Obsidian → Settings → Plugin Options → Backlinks → toggle “Backlinks in document”

Does it solve the quoted issue?

2 Likes

Yeah, thanks for the setting link. That is close enough to what I’m looking for for the time being.

As this feature request seems to be about preview/reading mode, does it also cover live preview? Or should I open a new thread?

(The mentioned examples of logseq and the query-control plugin suggest it is also about live preview, but the terminology seems more about reading view)

The search results should use the same markdown rendering as the live preview/reading view.

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Sounds sensible. Should it be renamed to ‘Use selected mode for search results and backlinks’ or something?

+1 on this, would make backlinks a lot friendlier

For anyone who is interested in the topic of “rendering the search result”, you may have a look at and have a try of the beta plugin introduced here.

The author of this plugin had finished the part of rendering the query command resul and search panel result. The only think that is left is the rendering of the backlink result. And a feature request had been proposed to the author of the plugin for 3 months, but no further reply on if from the author.

I’m not the author of the plugin and not familiar with the TS/JS, so if any one who is familiar with the TS/JS may have a look at the code on github, and see if you can work it out.

Also, the developer of Obsidian may have a look at of the code as well. I think this feature could be a core plugin.

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I just realized that the author of the plugin(@NothingIsLost ) is also here. :)

query-control plugin 0.4.0 works fine with Obsidian 0.15.2.

thank you! @NothingIsLost

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Thanks @GLight for the reference.

And thanks @NothingIsLost for the plugin

just want to update this thread that NIL already updated the plugin to 0.5.0 with markdown render support for backlinks. truly awesome.

2 Likes

That’s great news.
Currently, I use a rendered query command to replace the built-in backlink display in the note.

currently linked mentions is pure unaltered text, if the note is aliased it shows the full name, followed by the alias, which makes it a bit hard to read if it’s a super long title. example:

image

it would be useful to only display the alias.

PS. it would also be useful to render linked mentions in reading view, thus rendering mathjax correctly, along with the aliases, but that may be more difficult than required.

1 Like

+1

This Feature Request is from May 2020! Now that we’ve reached the beauty of Obsidian v1.0, raw markdown in backlinks is a glaringly unpolished part of the UI.

Rendering the markdown in search results & queries should follow close behind.

From a related FR:

6 Likes