I came to this thread wanting @ mentions, but I just sat down to write out how I would want them to work, and one of the big issues I see is that with the existing [[...]] syntax, the scope is clear, so one can have spaces in names. With @... syntax, you have to split on whitespace – so while I can currently reference [[Barry van Oudtshoorn]], or alias [[New South Wales Government|NSW Gov]], I don’t know how I could do that with @-mentions.
Perhaps @-mentions could work a bit like embeds? So a syntax more like this:
The big difference would be allowing one-word references to omit the square brackets – although I would be equally happy if it were simply possible to do a scoped page search when entering @, and have Obsidian auto-expand that to @[[...]]. (Edit: which is what I see @AlanG gets 90% of the way towards earlier in this thread…)
Thanks for the shout-out. I thought I would edit the post with a small update and with my current script which uses Dataview to make a nice improvement by sorting your people from most-mentioned to least.
I have also changed to using the character rather than the @, so now instead of a @John note, I have a 👤John note. Everything still works the same - this isn’t an icon or a special font, it’s an emoji character and you can just copy and paste it, and it also works perfectly well in filenames.
In a note it looks like this:
And here it is in Windows Explorer - no issues putting it in a file name:
I personally think the best way to implement this would be a plugin which gives an autocomplete field when typing @ (from notes with some specific metadata), then transforming the result of the @ syntax (@_) to wikilink syntax ([[]]) on enter.
As @AlanG has said, his script handles that. There’s also the Various Complements and the People Link plugins in the community plugins that do something similar. Personally I’ve ended up settling on the People Link plugin to handle the @ lookup (it pops a lookup on a specific folder that has all my contacts/people in it), and also the Supercharged Links plugin to mark any links to files in that folder with an emoji:
Just my preference to not have the extra character directly in the filename.
Hi I’ve only just found this thread, so I wrote this plugin ignorant of all of the asks, but I think it deals with most of the requests made here.
I’ve a PR open to add it to the community plugins, but if you’d like to pull it down and start using it / testing it now you can download/clone the directory to your vault’s .obsidian/plugins
Very open to feedback.
The only known bug I’ve been unable to solve is disabling the suggestion when in a code block, e.g. when typing ``` @name ``` or `@name`
My plugin is published now and supports a few additional features like creating a new note from a template if it’s not found, keyboard shortcuts in the autocomplete popup, and supports folder/file autocomplete in the settings.
You can find it under “@ Symbol Linking” in the Community plugins tab.
I don’t know why @saibotsivad felt the need to copy my implementation, it was waiting in PR to be merged to the community plugins, just as they submitted their’s to do the same.
I didn’t “copy” your plugin in any sense of the word, and I’m not sure why you would say that, except to pick a fight?
Try reading my post, you’ll see I mentioned I hadn’t seen this discussion prior to starting mine.
Try looking at my code, we clearly have different implementation and code design styles.
So no need to be rude about it: we both took initiative to make something we wanted. You just happened to be smarter and look at the forums first, whereas I fell into the developer trap of thinking “this will be easy”
Besides, yours clearly has more features and considers user context more (e.g. you’ve already looked into code fences and I didn’t even think of that yet) so I just updated mine to point people to yours.
Congrats on creating a really cool plugin! I’ll probably see you over on your Github repo, as I’ll be using this plugin pretty extensively.
I just came here to say how impressed I am by the awesome communication by both @saibotsivad and @ebonsignori. I’m now a User of the @ Symbolic Link plugin, and I am so jazzed about how well it’s already fitting into my workflow and style! So cheers first to the idea and implementations!
But, I am more excited to see how nicely you two behaved as the adults you are! The Internet needs more of the two of you! Cheers mates!
Just wanted to hop in and say thanks to @ebonsignori! Your plugin does exactly what I wanted, and I discovered it through this thread. I love that you thought of limiting the search surface to just one specific folder which is where I keep all my contacts. Nicely done!
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