Small but big QoL: When linking a pre-existing word or phrase, display the note suggestion menu

After thinking about it some more, I think your request, as written here, would require two related tweaks to the behavior of the link suggestion popup menu — in order to work smoothly in the general case. Consider expanding your feature request to include these ideas if they seem helpful. Though the first could stand on its own as a separate request.

#1. Tweak the current fuzzy search algorithm for link suggestions. To illustrate, if your feature were implemented today, your “usability” example would work one way but not the other:

  • Word to phrase: Highlight the word usability with intent to link a note on usability you wrote but can’t remember the title phrase. Type [[ and link suggestion appears for Usability is made up of three things. Select it and the word is replaced by the linked phrase.
  • Phrase to word: Highlight the phrase Usability is made up of three things with the intent to link to a note usability. Type [[ and the link suggestion popup is empty.

The problem is, current fuzzy search requires matching all the search terms. It would be better if it falls back to matching fewer terms. Then it would suggest notes that had shorter titles than the phrase being linked. Ideally it would have even fuzzier fallbacks and offer at least some related suggestions (synonyms, etc.) if the results would otherwise be empty.

This seems like it’s worth making a standalone feature request - and linking back here as related.

#2. One way to get the pipe-linking behavior you describe — where choosing a link suggestion results in [[name of the chosen note|originally selected text]]: change the behavior of typing | with the link suggestion popup open if there is already highlighted text being linked.

  • Currently: typing a pipe character | with link suggestion open replaces the existing link text with the chosen link title, adds a pipe character | and is ready for you to type the link’s display text.
  • To get your requested behavior: highlight the desired link display text, type [[ to get the link suggestion popup, arrow or mouse to the desired note, type | to get the result [[desired note|link display text]]