Support [[ double brackets for linking (in addition to "at" symbol)

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

While I’m aware of and use the @ symbol to link to pages/objects, it is more often a convention used for “mentioning” people. Some apps, like Notion or ClickUp, do use @ for all kinds of linking, but more broadly it is definitely associated with “people”. And an increasing number of tools are making heavy use of [[ double bracket linking, both in the actual writing process (invoke search-to-link inline), as well as in export/import (a variant of Markdown). Many people are getting used to using [[ and it is probably fair to call it an emerging “de facto standard” at this point.

Describe the solution you’d like

I would like Anytype to fully support double bracket linking, both for inline search-to-link (currently possible with @ already, so this would just be an alternate keyboard shortcut), as well as for import of markdown (I’m not positive it doesn’t already support that actually…).

Describe alternatives you’ve considered

This could partly be addressed as one of many use cases for customizable keyboard shortcuts, which I’m requesting separately. It should still be supported for markdown import though.

Additional context

This is somewhat related to https://community.anytype.io/t/-/1703 however that is more about a desire to be able to use the existing Link Selected Text function to also link to pages/objects and not just external URLs. And that would not be invoked with [[.

13 Likes

Related to but not the same as: https://community.anytype.io/t/-/1591

That is the actual, official Markdown link spec, and is best used for external links. My request here is solely about internal links.

1 Like

This would be a nice way to link arbitrary text to objects, e.g. “he went to [[his hometown]](Tallinn).” I don’t think there’s a way to do in the @Mention style that feels as natural.

2 Likes

@triangles That’s more like actual markdown links though, with the () part for the title, rather than just the title of the object being linked to. That’s being worked on as a separate request, I believe.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I do like the fact that we can link objects and view the links in graph view like in obsidian, i used to use obsidian, but linking objects there was very easy and inviting, on anytype, not very much, it takes more of a notion approach here, so i dont find myself linking objects as much as i did on obsidian

Describe the solution you’d like
Takw more of an obsidian approach here, linking objects just by [[]] would be easier, give us the most recently used object type option to choose from when creating the linked object name and if the word matches an existing object, just display that existing object name which yall already do, remove the “create new object” button after we write the object name we want to link, or else this would be more of a two step process than just one like in obsidian, this is a small change, but makes the ui way more inviting to use, the attention to detail is imp here, ik it wont change a lot of things, just my removing a simple create new object button, but trust me, it has affected me alot in the way i link objects on anytype now, give it the apple approach😉

Describe alternatives you’ve considered
None

6 Likes

It’s called Wikilink I guess neat feature

1 Like

I’d love to even extend this feature request to consider including “anchors” inside objects, just as in URLs like https://my.domain.url/my-object#my-block-inside resp. in markup:

[my Block in my Object](https://my.domain.url/my-object#my-block-inside)

or for an internal link inside Anytype:

[my Block in my Object](my-object#my-block-inside)

both to be rendered as my Block in my Object.

I’ve added a bit more depth and context in this comment to a related feature request.

1 Like