#9

Sorry, I was answering your previous message.

I like the ‘folder prefix’ idea, but I don’t like that the prefix will be visually added to links: instead of just names list

[[Mark Twain]]
[[Charles Dickens]]
[[Jerome David Salinger]]

I’ll get something like this:

[[./Mark Twain]]
[[./Charles Dickens]]
[[./Jerome David Salinger]]

But you recent automatic notes sorting idea is very powerful, close to ideal solution! Highly support this!

Looks like vault/folder relationship is an interesting and difficult issue. For example, in Scrapbox there is no ‘folder’ concept at all. All notes are in the root of a project. And project is something like Obsidian’s vault. But there is a list of available projects, so you can quickly switch between them.

There is a vault and folder entity in Obsidian, but I still do not understand how the devs are planning to handle it…

Is there a way to ask the devs to chime here and bring the lite to the issue?

#10

I actually really like @goodsignal’s line of thought with specifying file paths in the links to achieve the desired result. I’m doing that anyway because I’m hoping to use vimwiki and Obsidian concurrently, and vimwiki’s not quite as clever about finding things if you don’t specify folder paths. (I just experimented: it does work in Obsidian, though not if I start using relative paths, which will be an issue for me eventually.) Increased support for that would be a great plugin that I would definitely use! One could perhaps offer a setting or markup to conceal the extra information, if one was worried about visual clutter.

#11

Is there a way to ask the devs to chime here and bring the lite to the issue?

Yeah, they are pretty active on the Obsidian Discord. And they seem to chime in on the forum here as they get to each issue. You’ll probably get a reply here eventually.

I like the ‘folder prefix’ idea, but I don’t like that the prefix will be visually added to links

I completely agree. I would hope that the prefix combination would automatically disappear as soon as the file was generated in the right place, leaving just the intended title.

Looks like vault/folder relationship is an interesting and difficult issue. For example, in Scrapbox there is no ‘folder’ concept at all. All notes are in the root of a project.

I really like having some control over folder organization. My OCD side has a really hard time being okay with throwing everything in one place. I understand that there are other ways to manage and find what we need and I kind of wish that I could embrace that mindset. But whenever I try, I find that my work doesn’t go very far. I end up not doing work simply because I feel like every new file I create is creating a bigger mess.

#12

Asked them on Discord to answer here or on Discord. Let’s see…

#13

I asked earlier for a feature to be set in preferences where new pages land, existing folder for the currently focused page, vault root folder, or a defined folder defined by the user (like incoming). There could then be possible key bindings to override this behavior.

#14

@Licat, @Silver: please, find several minutes to tell us your developers vision of this vault/folder relation issue. Thank you!

#15

We will add an option for “Root”, “Same folder”, or “Specified folder ____”.

7 Likes
#16

Few notes.

The vaults are there because some users have expressed the desire to have separate silos for disjoint/separate/independent set of notes. You don’t have to use them, if they don’t fit your workflow.

The folders are a convenience within a vault. They can be used for keeping all the daily notes together or to define a namespace.
Again, you don’t have to use folders if they don’t fit your workflow or you feel axious about putting files in them.
Personally, I don’t think it is a good idea to use folders to express (and enforce) a hierarchical organization (especially a deep hierarchy).

An alternative way for expressing structure in your notes is creating index notes (or structure note in the zettelkasten approach). That is, a note that contains a structured list of links to other notes.

@goodsignal you may want to try to completely disable the file explor view, if it helps your focus.

1 Like
#17

If there’s any better ideas please discuss! I don’t think I can cover all cases so there’s definitely some good ideas I miss.

#18

@Licat Choosing to create a Note to the current directory on a per instance basis sounds pretty useful for those of us who do directory organization. It means there’s less to drag’n’drop later. @Valery_Kondakoff made a really good point against my earlier suggestion to add some prefix to the filename. That it would cause naming issues, which is probably true. But what if something like
[-[New Note]]
was recognized by Obsidain to save in the current directory instead of the default directory. Seems like key combinations like that are pretty easy to program, as there are already quite a few of those. Also, I’m pretty okay with how Notes are currently saved. It would just be a nice bonus to have an easy per-instance option.

@WhiteNoise Whew! That would be interesting to experiment with, specifically because it’s out of my comfort zone. But I really don’t see how it’s a benefit. It seems to me that the overhead of having to do extra backlinking and creating additional index notes or table-of-content notes is more work than dragging notes into a basic file structure. And it seems so easy for too many Notes to get lost in the rubble without any attention given to keeping a simple, clean file structure. But I remain curious. @WhiteNoise, do you have any links to literature that elaborates on the philosophy of ignoring order on that level? I like to at least try being open to different paradigms.

#19

You can use the “Root” option if you don’t want to use any folders!

#20

While all the files in the same folder and using labels is one way to do knowledge management, you could easily get file clashes, and to avoid this you need to name the files with a prefix or some other name space which makes the names not directly usable as links without using a second display name for the links.

#21

I really like @goodsignal idea to have some extended syntax for internal links.

What about this:

  • we have three options in the Preferences: “Root”, “Same folder”, or “Specified folder ____".
  • we can use default syntax [[internal link]] for the option currently set in Preferences.
  • each of these three options has it’s own syntax: say, [[/internal link]] for Root, [[.internal link]] for Same folder and [[~internal link]] for Specified folder.
  • and, of course, we can specify the exact note location by specifying path: [[./subfolder/internal link]]

Usage examples:

If the Preferences are set to Root, use [[internal link]] to save note in root, [[.internal link]] to save note in the same folder and [[~internal link]] to save note in the specified folder.

If the Preferences are set to Same folder, use [[/internal link]] to save note in root, [[internal link]] to save note in the same folder and [[~internal link]] to save note in the specified folder.

If the Preferences are set to Specified folder, use [[/internal link]] to save note in root, [[.internal link]] to save note in the same folder and [[internal link]] to save note in the specified folder.

What do you think? If this sounds too complicated, I’m pretty happy with just a hotkey to quick toggle between the three available options in the preferences. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#22

Just to be clear, I’m proposing that Obsidian handles the autotext and saving location. But not creating a new markdown syntax. Entering [-[ in Obsidian would result in the normal [[]] auto-text showing in the Edit body. But Obsidian would create the new note in the current directory for this link. The same process would work for creating links from highlighted text.

  1. Highlight New Note
  2. Type [-[ macro
  3. Get a New Note saved in current directory
  4. See [[New Note]] in Edit body

If options for “Root”, “Same folder”, or “Specified folder ____” are implemented, the macro behavior should do the opposit of the default setting to maximize utility. i.e.

  • Root or Specified folder is set as Default, then [-[ saves in current folder.
  • Current folder is set as Default, then [-[ saves in Root folder

I’m sure the devs are capable of anything :wink: but I’m suggesting the idea that the alternate indicator is between the two left brackets. It just seems easier to parse than any variations in the Note Title area. If Valery’s notation were used, I’d just shift the variation out of the Title and into the bracket macro

  • [[ -> root folder
  • [/[ -> same folder
  • [~[ -> special folder
    (I only picked [-[ because the dash is the closest key for speed)

Or maybe user selected key combinations will be added as a settings feature in addition to keyboard shortcuts :slight_smile: And these would be in the list of customizable macros. I’m sure this feature would also help Obsidian users who are avid MediaWiki contributors. They could set === to auto-generate ### and not worry about retraining their muscle memory.

#23

Another option that’s likely simple to implement and may satisfy Valery, would be to just make the Link Suggestion box a little smarter. Maybe this is what Valery was suggesting and I didn’t understand. But

  • [[./ would automatically put Path/To/Current/Working/Directory/ at the top of the list
  • [[~ would automatically put Special/Directory/Location at the top of the list
  • [[p/t/s/d would automatically put Path/To/Specific/Directory at the top of the list as the closest intelligent match to an existing directory tree :laughing:

And Obsidian would simplify the [[Note Title]] after the link is created as it currently does, unless there’s a duplicate and a parent directory is required for singularity.

It seems problems would arise when creating links from highlighted text that the macros above would handle gracefully. But maybe this easily attainable half-solution would be enough.

2 Likes
#24

I like that as it’s an easy way to extend the location via command keys. For final presentation of the link those special characters are then omitted.

1 Like
#25

The program can pop up a window to disambiguate if the text matches more than one file.

#26

Good to see this feature in v0.6.3. Thanks!

1 Like
#27

If it’s working as expected I’ll archive this. Thanks!

#28

It is. At least as I expected! Thanks!

1 Like