I am currently migrating from AnyType after being too annoyed with their data handling and backups in general and overall I am very happy with my new approach. One thing I miss a bit is that items/nodes had types attached in AnyType, so what I am currently following is, that I have a folder per type.
Now when I write a new text I love that I can just write a Wiki link and care about other new pages/nodes later. One thing that I would like to be able to, though, is to specify the “type” of such a link.
An Example. When I am writing something like
We consider the approach by [[NewPersonName]] that is close to [[NewProjectIdea]], see the sketch at [[NewNote]]
The I “know” from my current structure that the first will be a People/NewPersonName and the second a Projeccts/NewProjectIdea]] and [[NewNotw]] just a note so it is the “default” and should go into Notes.
The reason why this is of interest to me is, that when I generate these pages manually, they would get different templates. I could create them upfront (before writing that sentence), but I maybe only get to that idea while writing some text, so I would prefer finishing what I write. I also would prefer to not write [[Person/NewPersonName]] since that would mean I have to revisit the link and edit it later to remove the prefix?
Is there some way or plugin to have these “structured/typed unknown links”? For best of cases something where clicking the link later creates the right file in the right subfolder (hence the right template) and then updates the link to the default (known) link. Maybe something like [[NewPersonName~Person]] or so? (just using some symbol in between that is unlikely in a title)
Any plugin that handles “types” of nodes in general is of course also welcome as an idea. Thanks!
The Templater plugin has “File regex templates”. Downside is that you’d need to still type in some anchor in the wikilinks by which you’d have the file regex trigger the proper template (which then would trim the unwanted parts with some simple Templater Js or actually should be renamed, so the original typed in wikilink would also be automatically updated).
E.g. Then I contacted [[PER_John]] who…˙
This could be streamlined with the Typing Transformer plugin, for example so that minimal anchors need typed in, which would then expand, and which would then be more easily targeted with file regex.
Otherwise you’d have to write a user script (also possible to be called, e.g. in a master template) that would have some sort of dictionary by which you’d call the proper template, which process could then be overseen or even directed by AI.
Thanks for the ideas and hint. I do use Templater already, but I will have to look into the Typing Transformer; but the idea to write [[PER_John Doe]] sounds nice.
These were just ideas. I have no inkling how people migrating from the tool you used work now with Obsidian, whether there are plugins, etc.
My experience is that over time in Obsidian, you create the tools you need. First workarounds then full-blown solutions via plugins like Codescript Toolkit, for instance.
Oh it is indeed not so much about the old tool I used, more like finding a good workflow in Obsidian for exactly this “mentioning a person or project or paper I mean to create afterwards”. And for that your ideas are helpful already, just that I have to first read up on the details
In case it is helpful, I have templates for ‘types’ which are associated with specific folders through Templater, so when writing a new note, creating it in that folder automatically attaches the template, When creating links while writing for new notes yet to be made, they go to the Inbox folder and I periodically go through those to attach templates. I find it useful since I need to fill in the properties anyway and possibly add some other stuff. Once done, I use NoteMover Shortcut plugin to move them to their appropriate folders
That would also be a possibility; though my templates are not yet so super well working, e.g. my person template adds the date somewhere, which works on creating a page (in the person folder, so to new pages of that “type”) but not when applying that to an existing page.
But still very valuable, I am not saying my mental model of how it should work is the “Obsidian way” of thinking here. I am just learning after very few days of working with Obsidian. In general I am much more happy with this than my 2 years of fighting Anytype.