Feature Request: Document aliases

[athyfr]

Aliases (familiar to past users of Logseq) help with grammatically relevant link names when using WikiLink-style links, and can improve (re)discoverability of notes when dealing with large/long-term PKM databases.

Aliases would be able to be used with links, as well as when searching.

There would be two sides to tackle when implementing this:

Syntax

We need syntax for defining aliases that fits well into Markdown.

It may be one of the following, but I think it would be good to support multiple styles.

Suggested option 1: YAML Metadata Tag (compatible with Pandoc & Obsidian)

YAML metadata in Markdown is not unfamiliar to users of Pandoc, nor advanced users of Obsidian.

It is put at the start of the file, delimited by lines consisting of only three dashes (---). An example (Pandoc) document that uses YAML metadata might look something like this:

---
title: A Markdown Document
subtitle: This is a document.
author: John Doe
date: Jan 1st, 2017
---

## Chapter 1. The first chapter

...

Undefined YAML tags are either ignored (Pandoc) or simply displayed (Obsidian, certain preview software), so there should be no issue including them.

The aliases could simply be a YAML array/sequence. The syntax for that would be either:

aliases:
  - Alias 1
  - Alias 2
  - Alias 3

or:

aliases: ['Alias 1', 'Alias 2', 'Alias 3']

Which would be in line with Obsidian's alias syntax.

Suggested option 2: Slashes separating aliased titles

The syntax for aliases could be like so (inline with the title):

# Title / Alias 1 / Alias 2

This would be most intuitive to users not familiar with YAML frontmatter.

Implementation

Suggested option 1: Index file (best option)

IWE could use an index file to track whatfilenamees are assigned to what note-files. This would allow for aliases, and would also make lookups more optimized.

It would fall out-of-date when files are edited without IWE, but that can easily be rectified by rebuilding the database itermittently.

Suggested option 2: Symlinks (platform dependent)

IWE, when parsing the note file, could automatically create symlinks with the alias names in the notes folder when aliases are found. This would ensure that the aliases are treated fully as regular notes, but may have downsides:

• Garbage collection: We'd have to figure out a way to remove the symlinks when aliases are removed.
• Incorrect symlinks: If an alias is transferred from one note to another, the symlink needs to be handed over as well.
• OS-dependency: Windows partition formats don't support UNIX symlinks.

In addition, automatically deleting and recreating the symlinks from scratch wouldn't be a good idea, because some of the symlinks may be user-created, referring to files outside the notes database. An index file, on the other hand, would handle rebuilding just fine.

Suggested option 3: Brute-force (slow)

In addition to looking up filenames of notes (when searching and following links), IWE could peek in the files to see what aliases they've defined.

This would have a significant performance impact, especially with large note databases.

[athyfr]

An existing solution would be to (for each alias) create a new note containing not much besides a link to the original.

Another option would be manually symlinking the notes, or defining custom shortcuts (if the code editor supports it) for creating the symlinks. (for example, with Zed's tasks)

Another solution would be to simply use Markdown links ([link text](link destination)) as opposed to wikilinks ([[link]]); IWE may not need aliases as much as Logseq or Obsidian, as it encourages use of Markdown links by default. (This doesn't solve the easier searches part, though)

[gimalay]

For markdown links, IWE automatically updates the link text with the linked document title. It default behavior which helps to keep the file organized and the links up-to-date. The only way to avoid auto-update is to use piped wiki links syntax.

[gimalay]

What if we will use piped wiki links for aliases.

[[FileNameHere|AliasHere]]

IWE can find all the links like this and add AliasHere to auto complete list when you are writing and search results as an alternative name for FileNameHere. It doesn't matter in which note the link is, it can be a link to itself in FileNameHere note or in any other note.

Will this work for you? Is there any place other than auto-complete and search where you would like to see the aliases?

[athyfr]

That would work for the searching part excellently!

Regular Markdown links would be applicable here as well, I think, though. (for those who prefer that)