Links to files starting with dot break

[NomarCub]

Apparently Obsidian doesn’t support dotfiles / dot files / hidden files / files starting with a period ..

Relative links don't work when subfolder name starts with "." (dot)

everything that starts with . is considered hidden in Obsidian (this is the convention in many OS). We are not going to change this.

But it still tries to, and doesn’t inform the user that it can’t. Please fix the error message and behaviour, because these are surely not intended:

• if I have an absolute link [absolute link](.markdownlint.jsonc) and click on it, it creates a file called .markdownlint.jsonc.md, which is still unreachable by Obsidian
• if I have a relative link [relative link](./.markdownlint.jsonc) and click on it, it says File names cannot end with a dot or a space. which is a wrong diagnosis here
• both links look like regular unresolved links, and say .markdownlint.jsonc" is not created yet. Click to create., which should be unsupported

[sh2ka]

Actually I see many users that wait for the features that will allow to attach such files, i.e. Obsidian shouldn’t create a new page if there is an attachment with the specified name, or should be a workaround to make it possible because dot files are still the files and users appear in a situation when they have to reinvent the wheel.
The same relates to folders - why the god we shouldn’t start their names from dot?

Here is the feature request for this Enable use of hidden files and folders starting with a dot /dotfiles/.dotfolders within Obsidian

[sh2ka]

Yet another problem relates to Obsidian: you can’t link attached file an without extension. Still, developers, I can’t understand why this is impossible until now!

[Tangent]

Steps to reproduce

1. Write [link](.gitignore)
2. Click the link.
3. Instead of opening the file on my system, it creates .gitignore.md, but doesn’t show it, says “file already exists”, and doesn’t have any indication of anything happening at all.

Alternately, if you try [link](./.gitignore), it pops up an error “File names cannot end with a dot or a space.” which is nonsense.

If I use percent encoding [link](%2Egitignore), it also says the file already exists and refuses to open it. Wiki-style links also do not work, because Obsidian assumes that I have to be linking to a Markdown file when it doesn’t recognize the file extension in use.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? Y

Expected result

Open the file.

Actual result

Inconsistent errors, creation of inaccessible files (i.e. .gitignore.md which then Obsidian refuses to acknowledge its existence…)

Environment

No. This isn’t relevant.

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Additional information

Why is “Detect all file extensions” ignoring all of my files that don’t have a name before the extension? Why does Obsidian create such files if you make a link to them, but never lets you open them?

[Tangent]

My temporary workaround is to create a shell script that opens the default editor for .gitignore and link to that.

Linking is a core concept of how Obsidian works… it shouldn’t be inconsistent like this.

[WhiteNoise]

We do not support/ignore complitely hidden files.
See feature request here:

Enable use of hidden files and folders starting with a dot /dotfiles/.dotfolders within Obsidian

Use case or problem Simply put, I think obsidian could benefit from being able to: Show/Hide hidden files. Allow you to use hidden files as part of vault settings/configuration. A use case for the first point is to show/hide “meta” files e.g. .templates. A use case for the second point setting is settings attachments folder as .attachments. This in particular case would also be helpful for compatibility with azure wikis which uses .attachments and unfortunately can’t be changed. Obsidian is…

[Tangent]

That is part of the problem, yes.

Even if you don’t fix that, isn’t it still an issue that Obsidian is creating dotfiles? If it’s supposed to ignore them entirely, why is it making them?

[Tangent]

Is the fact that Obsidian is creating dotfiles despite supposed to be ignoring them going to be addressed at all? Or is it going to be ignored it just like the rest of this problem?

[rigmarole]

@Tangent

going to be addressed at all?

The dev team doesn’t provide individual feedback for every bug. And this is ~ your 6th or 7th post on the matter. Please see the code of conduct regarding sea-lioning.

The bug is known and filed. For now, you’ll just have to use your workaround or avoid this workflow.