New to Obsidian. Using it so far on iPhone and iPad Just got over the hump of getting started from a post on Reddit about setting up a clean Bear-like installation. I’m working with a set of markdown files originally created on Vim. Lots that still mystifies me.
E.g., I name files with an alphanumeric ID followed by a short meaningful text string. When I open a file by clicking on a link in an open file, the contents of the file do not display. Nor does the text portion of the filename. Only the alphanumeric ID.
Perhaps I should add that these files and links were created using Vim with markdown typestyle. Also, that the method I’ve used in attempting to follow a link is tapping on it. Perhaps there’s and Obsidian command I should be using?
Yes. So you’re using Markdown links instead of internal links. I think that means you have to URL encode the URL (the part in the parentheses). In this case that means putting %20 instead of the space. You can get the encoded link of a note by opening its menu and selecting Get Obsidian URL (tho besides encoding this will also give a longer link).
Thanks. I’ll have to check it out. As you’ve undoubtedly notice, I’m a newly with LOTS of questions. That said, this strikes me as not “pure markdown,” which is what I thought Obsidian was.
So, I checked out “Obsidian URL.” Also tried out the “Insert Markdown Link” command. Likely I don’t understand yet, but what I see at this point concerns me: markdown links don’t function as I understand they should: with the cursor on a link typing Enter takes you to the linked note.
The Obsidian URL has information that is useless to me: I wan’t the link/file name to be related to the content of the note. The Obsidian URL provides information related to the way the app functions. I want the app to function. I don’t want irrelevant-to-me code, that doesn’t tell me anything about the content of the file, muddying up file names.
On the desktop there’s a hotkey that makes the markdown link work: Option-Enter. Can’t do that in the iOS/iPadOS apps.
I hope the problem is just that I don’t understand.
URLs in general require spaces and some other characters to be encoded. That’s not specific to Obsidian — you can see the same thing anywhere online when a file with spaces in the name is linked to. I suggested using the Obsidian URL feature because it encodes automatically. You can just manually type %20 instead of space and it will work (but if you use other symbols that need to be encoded, you’ll need to translate those too).
Obsidian uses extensions to Markdown, as do many (most?) Markdown editors (for better or worse).
Thanks. With Vim with markdown links are as I showed them earlier, in this thread I believe. I’m gonna have to check in with people who use Obsidian for zettlekasten, especially those who use Luhmann-syle note numbering, e.g., 4.21a1b.
This is a bit tedious, but: You could look thru Settings > Hotkeys to find the command that Option-Enter triggers, then assign that command to a toolbar button in Settings > Mobile. There is a chance, tho, that it’s just a thing Obsidian does and isn’t in the Hotkeys list.
The command is Follow Link Under Cursor. I’ve added it to the Toolbar. It seems I was wrong about it opening files that don’t have the Obsidian URL. I would swear that displayed the linked file on a link without the Obsidian URL when I tried it yesterday. But on my tries today on both mobile and desktop apps it is doing the same thing that tapping/clicking on the link does—opening a new empty file with an altered name.
The workflow on Obsidian is turning out to be cumbersome for my tastes. Hoping I just need more experience. Super attractive on the surface, but when I get into it not quite what I expected.
You might search the forum for markdown links to see if anything helpful turns up. I know I’ve seen related discussions but I don’t recall the details of any. I’m not up on the finer points of how Obsidian deals with Markdown links because I use the wiki-style links ones (the syntax isn’t as widely-recognized as Markdown but it’s spreading, and since it just means "a file in the vault named this, I can use them to find the linked note with little trouble even without Obsidian).
Oh, I just remembered — if you turn off Settings > Files & Links > Use Wikilinks it will make it so when you type the wiki syntax it will turn into a correct Markdown link. Sorry I didn’t think of that earlier.
