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

[GLight]

query-control plugin 0.4.0 works fine with Obsidian 0.15.2.

thank you! @NothingIsLost

[robertsmith]

Thanks @GLight for the reference.

And thanks @NothingIsLost for the plugin

[efemkay]

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

[GLight]

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

[memetic_contagion]

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:

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.

[dsteinbock]

+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:

@syncretizm

The current display of backlinks (linked/unlinked mentions) in Live Preview makes it unaesthetic, displeasing to use and frictional. Case in point: https://twitter.com/houshuang/status/1481316063346405381

[d3go]

+1

hope this can get prioritized

[mike555]

+1
I submitted a similar request here a few months back:

Provide ability to render md (e.g. images and links) in the Mentions area

Looks like this feature request is also the same: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/display-search-results-and-backlinks-in-reading-mode/195

[Targofendi]

Ah, this, so much this! One of my big use cases of Obsidian is tracking documents on key projects, and of course, these always have external hyperlinks.

So my backlinks look like

• Some [doc](http://example.com/SuperDuperCrazyInsaneLongDocsURLThatTakesUpAllTheSpace

…and it makes it incredibly challenging to scan my backlinks, making them much less useful

[collective]

+1 this would be an amazing UX improvement that would encourage more usage of the backlinks feature

[jblanc]

+1
Having unrendered markdown show up in query results and backlinks (or in any context) when everything else is a live preview is … jarring.

I’ve got external links to documents with long URLs that make the search result less useful due to the clutter.

A query for task-todo that returns unrendered checkboxes is … jarring.

[ryadaj]

Use case or problem

For people like me who are mildly dyslexic and struggle to remedy this with a combination of eye-friendly colour schemes, the search results are quite difficult to read due to the markdown formatting (source code?).

Proposed solution

Offer a WYSIWYG search results visualization. I am not a technical person, so I appreciate that this would likely be very challenging.

Current workaround (optional)

I am using @TfTHacker's new plugin [Strange New Worlds](https://github.com/TfTHacker/obsidian42-strange-new-worlds) which renders results in a reading view format. In the attached image, you can see that the plugin returns, in the right sidebar, a list of notes which include a link to the note called `Living Well` and the results are rendered in reading view, so that even where an alias has been used to link to this note, it renders as desired.

EDIT: Replaced screenshot with one that shows the core search results on the left and the plugin results on the right.

Related feature requests (optional)

Make nested lists/sub-lists in search results less difficult to read

Use case or problem When using the native search feature, sub-lists lists can create a feeling of visual clutter when clicking `Show More Context` but additional context is often required for sense-making. This is compounded by additional formatting characters, such as `*` and `[[ ]]`, and made even more challenging for those with dyslexia. When the nested list contains more text and levels than I've included in this example from a clean vault, it makes for quite a messy search result Propose…

WYSIWYG editor quirks: improve search result highlighting

Problem After following a backlink or search result a page is open and the match is highlighted in it. So far so good. But the highlighted area is rendered as markdown source code, which doesn’t look nice and is somewhat distracting. Steps to reproduce: Open a page with backlinks Follow a backlink Look how the match turns to source code [[..]] Proposed solution The rendering of the match shouldn’t be changed except for the highlighting.

[obsequious]

Check out the Query Control plugin. You may need to use BRAT to install the beta

[sanhuesoft]

+1 to this

[JayKim]

+1

It is very useful to tag certain equations but in the search results they are hard to identify because mathjax is not rendered.

[johw]

I have the query control plugin installed and I like it a lot but the backlinks are often from the previous page when navigating your vault. Both in live preview as is source view.

Just clicking on the linked references header (closing and opening it again) solves it but it is an issue as I sometimes forget to do that and the wrong references are shown.

[vincer]

Just bumping the feature request. Ive given Obsidian a try 1-2 years ago and there were 3 main things that pushed me away(+no whiteboards, now with canvas i came back) - and despite appearing to be a ‘less relevant nitpick’ turns out to be bigger then the others because it gets in the way all the time- on backlinks, on search, making it a pain to even use the features.

I barely used backlinks and search then, also now on my second try- and i only realized how much this one thing is the culprit in my time with Logseq. After obsidian i was using Logseq - and all of a suddenly i was tapping on backlinks (and searching) like never before

Just returned to Obsidian and once again im avoiding the backlinks

I would also add, besides rendering, there should be a option/toggle/setting to making backlinks show the entire block of a mention by default.

This is most relevant to trully atomic notes (some barely beyond its title), where the main purpose is looking at the conections(backlinks). A presentable, readable render of those is a must for me, and from this topic many others

Im seriously considering filling my notes with redundant code, the query plugin, just to get this one thing… and it pains me to do so, since it screams ‘core’, the way it should be- and i hope will be someday… id rather not have to manually add said plugin code on every note already existing, and later removing when this is finally fixed.

Sorry if i sound blunt, but this barely feels like a feature request- it detracts so much from the rest of the ui and experience it feels more like a bug, a never fixed bug in 2 of the main areas of the ux (search and backlinks)

Sorry for the tone, just trying to convey my pain (and i was surprised it wasnt fixed after all the time ive been away), hope you devs get the feedback to the heart… im constantly thinking back on Logseq while im using obsidian on this alone

[hu4d]

Just bumping

[efemkay]

after all this while, i feel this should already be implemented. so i’m posting here reasons why it should get priority as a way to solicit the dev team.

there’s no technical limitation to implement

• as proven by NIL’s query control plugin, it can be done and it could work without significant change or even impact to performance.
• in fact, the way i see it, implementation can quite unintrusive since it can be an opt-in (as opposed to new redesign implementation in v0.16.0 / v1.0.0 when it impacted many)

there’s no conflict in philosophy

• having backlinks in rendered markdown is very much aligned to obsidian’s claim that “In Obsidian, making and following connections is frictionless” (as per homepage).
• on priority, there has been a number of features that aren’t exactly key to obsidian philosophy but got implemented in past year or so such as (a) Callout (even though i love it so much), (b) improvement to Outline plugin (it’s more for long form writing), and (c) popout windows (i don’t know about others, but so far i barely use it).
  • i’m not saying those features should not be there, just to revisit the priority a bit. the way i see it, rendering backlinks (and search) should get higher priority

there are interests from users

• apart from this post, there are countless forum posts asking for it and related FR such as request for Outline plugin to show as rendered markdown

hope this get their attention

p/s: also, i’m afraid NIL aren’t going to upkeep the query control plugin (noting that it hasn’t been updated for almost a year…)

[mike555]

+10000 I feel like this request may not be getting the attention it deserves because there are so many duplicate feature requests on this topic; perhaps no single one gets enough traction to get the visibility and priority it deserves.
For me, this feature is a deal-breaker. Other competing products have this capability and have it enabled by default. I appreciate the NIL plugin, but I find that it doesn’t work as expected all the time and I wonder about its long term support. This functionality really needs to be baked into the core product or as at least as a core plugin.
Thanks!