Use case or problem
In Obsidian, the Backlinks pane displays references to the current note, but the context provided is often limited. For instance, when a backlink appears within a nested list or under a specific heading, the pane may only show the immediate line containing the link, omitting the hierarchical structure that gives full context. This lack of comprehensive context can make it challenging to understand the relevance of the backlink without navigating to the source note.
Proposed solution
Enhance the Backlinks pane to display hierarchical context for each backlink reference. The delineation rules would be:
- References within a heading: Display the entire section under that heading, up to the next heading of the same or higher level.
- References within bullet points: Show the bullet point containing the reference along with its nested sub-items.
- References in other contexts: Present the entire line of text where the reference occurs, including any soft line breaks.
Implementing these rules would provide users with sufficient context directly within the Backlinks pane, reducing the need to open each referring note.
Current workaround (optional)
Currently, users can click on each backlink to view its context in the source note. Alternatively, enabling the “Show more context” option in the Backlinks pane provides additional surrounding text, but it doesn’t fully convey the hierarchical structure, especially for nested lists or sections.
Related feature requests (optional)
[[Fully transclude backlinks]]
[[Show hierarchical context (parent block/header) for each backlink (mention) [breadcrumbs in backlinks]]
[[Backlinks and Search - Display Information based on hierarchical document structure (bullet list level or enclosing header breadcrumbs)]]