Principled way to find and replace links in live preview mode

iafisher · June 7, 2025, 7:05pm

I develop a plugin which lets you write, e.g., [[w:JavaScript]] and have it rendered as an external link to Wikipedia.

The way the plugin detects links (both wikilinks and external links) in live preview mode is by fuzzy-matching on hard-coded lists of node names:

github.com/iafisher/obsidian-quick-links

src/live-preview.ts

0.2.6


      
          const WIKI_LINK_PATTERNS: LinkPattern[] = [
            // e.g., "[[w:New York City]]"
            {
              debugName: "plain_wikilink",
              nodes: [
                "formatting-link_formatting-link-start",
                "hmd-internal-link",
                "formatting-link_formatting-link-end",
              ],
              textIndex: null,
              targetIndex: 1,
              checkForEm: true,
              isExternalLink: false,
            },
            // e.g., "[[w:Los Angeles|L.A.]]"
            {
              debugName: "piped_wikilink",
              nodes: [
                "formatting-link_formatting-link-start",
                "hmd-internal-link_link-has-alias",

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I keep having to add more patterns to this list. Is there a better way?