I would like to share a new plugin with you called "Bidirectional Links." This plugin is all about making it easier to create cross-referencing links between notes.
Just need to type "|||" anywhere within your note and select the desired note from the dropdown menu. This will insert a link to the selected note at the current cursor position, and also add a link to the current note within the target note, creating a bidirectional link.
This project was forked from the popular Quick Links plugin.
All credit should go to the original author.
Installation:
From Joplin desktop open Options - Plugins, search for "bidirectional links" and install.
Project Site:
p.s Right now, the trigger word for the plugin is "|||", but that might change down the line according to the user feedback.
Did not check it out yet, but bidirectional links are exactly what I am practising, and what’s driving me a little bit crazy till now. I will definitely try this plugin as soon as I am back at my laptop.
I think the main issue with supporting WYSIWYG is that you can't insert anything at the cursor position. Everything else is doable.
And also triggering a popup when a certain symbol is typed is an issue but at least here you can add a keyboard shortcut instead.
I just want to ask a question from the user perspective: is it maybe possible to merge the project with quick links plugin?
I am not up to date, so the good reasons why there should be separate plugin for this feature might be not obvious for me.
@roman_r_m sir, is there a plan to sunset quick links? or was it a burden to maintain?
I just thought that it would be much less confusing for novice user if there would be just one plugin with such functionality. Also, there would be much less risk to run into the conflict of operations from either of plugins when both of them are installed (for some reason).
I noticed similar pattern with a few table related plugins: they tend to duplicate a lot of features. So installing more than one of those plugins randomly overlaps shortcuts and make Joplin confused about the operation it supposed to be performing.
Tangent on table plugins
For example, Plugin A assigns insert new row to Ctrl+Enter, Plugin B assigns insert new table to Ctrl+Enter as well. Due to this overlap, there's no way for Plugin A to insert new row via shortcut (which the main interface for user). It means that Plugin B made Plugin A defacto broken from the perspective of user. Of course, unless one knows that the overlap happened and knows how to reassign this exact faulty shortcut, it might be causing a lot of frustration.
Nonetheless, both Plugin A and Plugin B could potentially have useful unique features which user wants to have but simply unable to perform
Anyways, I appreciate the work you guys are doing and in no way want to put you into some kind of conflict -- I just thought it worth to have it discussed somewhere at least once.
It was not much of a burden but with this plugin available I am not sure if I need to maintain the original plugin anymore.
Still undecided on this one.
There is no reason to merge -- this plugin is a copy of quick links with extra features added on top, everything quick links does, this plugin can also do (but please correct me if I'm wrong @benlau )
I'm sorry, I didn't communicate with the @roman_r_m before publishing, which led to a misunderstanding. It's all my fault.
When I was conceptualizing this feature, I originally intended to make it a PR for Quick Links. But how can I support bidirectional links while keeping the original functionality? Is adding "|||" and coexisting with "@@" a good approach? Because of this doubt, I created a separate package to test user feedback. If Quick Links supports bidirectional links in the future, I will sunset this package as planned. I apologize for not explaining this properly.
@roman_r_m , would you be interested in adding bidirectional links support to Quick Links? I can help in any way I can.
Thank you for developing Quick Links, it saved me a lot of time.
But why? Your plugin already does it. I don't mind you forking it and building a new plugin rather than submitting a PR.
In fact, I thought (prompted by a conversation in this topic earlier today) of looking into supporting WYSIWYG. If can find time and manage to get it working (which I believe is possible!) I'd submit a PR into your plugin.
But why? Your plugin already does it. I don't mind you forking it and building a new plugin rather than submitting a PR.
Because user don't need to install two plugins. And I don't plan to add any more new features except to change the trigger shortcut ("|||")
In fact, I thought (prompted by a conversation in this topic earlier today) of looking into supporting WYSIWYG. If can find time and manage to get it working (which I believe is possible!) I'd submit a PR into your plugin.
It is funny that when I heard the request to support WYSIWYG editor from user. I also thought about to submit a PR to your plugin if it works.
Thank you for creating this useful plugin @benlau!
I was wondering if it could be possible to add the option to change the position at which the link is inserted in the target note?
I usually have links at the top of notes and inserting the link at the cursor position might not fit cases with longer notes and diverse edits.
I think there is a way to run it in WYSIWYG. For example, the "Convert Text to New Note" plugin works in WYSIWYG mode -> search for joplin-plugin-create-note-from-text in github.
Now I checked and used it on a large scale. This plugin is a big plus to Joplin for me - as expected!
Thank you again @benlau and of course also @roman_r_m.
