Links and backlinks, part I

News
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Hello friends,

We’ve just released the first part of links/backlinks work, hope it will be useful for you.

What’s in the update:

  • link text rendering from list URL or list item URL
  • new Backlinks section in the notes panel
  • List details window with list backlinks and some list statistics
  • has:link and has:backlink filters

All details: https://blog.checkvist.com/post/641852489152544768/links-and-backlinks-part-i

In the next updates, we’d like to

  • offer to complete the linked task when the task with a link is completed/re-opened
  • simplify adding links via [[ smart syntax with search

Would you find it useful? Have you noticed glitches/issues after this update? Please, tell.

All the best,
KIR

2 Likes
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Great feature, I’ve been hoping for something like this. Couple wish list items:

  1. The ability to hide backlinks by default. It takes up several lines of text and I find myself closing it every time which has become tedious. I could see wanting them to always be open, it just depends on your workflow I think. So probably would be useful to allow that preference to be configurable in the settings.
  2. The ability to select and copy multiple links with “lc” command. They could just enter the clipboard as newline separated links. This isn’t exactly related to backlinks other than I’m going to be using links much more often now so copying multiple at a time would be useful!

Thanks for the great software, long time user and I can’t really live without checkvist at this point lol

1 Like
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Hello Aaron,

Thanks a lot for the comments! Quite reasonable, and thought about those exact points as well.
Plan to make these corrections (and some more fixes) soon.

All the best and thanks for using Checkvist :slight_smile:
KIR

1 Like
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Great minds think alike, I suppose :wink:

I’ve noticed while getting into the flow of links (and backlinks) that context would be really helpful in some cases. The way you can enable context for the “Due” view would be really useful for links as well. My primary use for the checkvist link feature has been to create a daily agenda which points to a bunch of checkvist items that I want to work on that day. The link text is sometimes a bit vague so a context option would be perfect for that use case.

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We plan to add a kind of “preview” for the linked items, but not yet sure how would it work.

As for your previous two comments - please check how it now works on the production site, it should be fixed.

Also, we’ve added a feature to close linked task when you close the item in the “daily agenda” list - I hope it will be useful in your scenario, too.

Best,

1 Like
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Sorry for hijacking, but all of a sudden I am receiving email updates on multiple threads that I have not subscribed to. Today I got emails for each reply on this thread, “Moving items, using filter…”, and “Hiding the breadcrumb”. So, looks like everything in the last 24 hours, except Bugs.

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Hi @rubaboo,

Sorry for the problem, my fault. Posted the explanation here: Forum notifications issue.

Kind regards,
KIR

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Hello Aaron_Robinson and maxkir,
I recently found myself in a situation where I was missing context.

I have a main list that contains tasks and there are other lists that link to those tasks. It often happens that I link the same task more than once in a list. This makes sense there because the context is different.

The problem:
The backlinks then lead to the list link 2 times identically and you cannot distinguish to which list elements they belong - the context is missing (see example below).

A possible solution:
I was thinking of possibly displaying the breadcrumbs in a “mouse over popup” (is that what it’s called?). Or is there a better way to show context?

Here is a concrete example: person X and person Y are both involved in task A

[TASK LIST]

  • Task A

[PERSON LIST]

  • Person X
    • Task A
  • Person Y
    • Task A

The backlink information at “Task A” in the “TASK LIST” now looks like this:
BACKLINKS
[PERSON LIST]
- Task A
- Task A

As you can see, this is not very helpful. Only when you follow the link can you see in which context Task A was linked.

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Another thing I noticed: permalinks to lists are not automatically translated into the list name. This could be added when the opportunity arises.

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I also found myself closing them. Much better now.

Indeed. I often find myself starring at duplicates:

image

@chrisCV also mentions this. Knowing the ancestors (or at least the parent) would help.

Most of my tasks that I link to from an agenda are more like projects that contain subtasks. I never wanted to close what I link to from inside an item. This new closing behavior is very distracting for me. Closing used to be a very elementary action, and I wouldn’t want a behavior depending on the content (i. e., whether there is a link inside) with a popup + navigation + confirmation for an elementary action.

And it’s confusing what ESC does. And closing/opening behaves differently if the target is a list (actually, that’s the behavior that I want).

It also conflicts with my mental model. A link is not the target. Whatever I do with an item should not harm the target of a link that happens to be inside the description of an item. It breaks a boundary. Closing/opening changed to a context-sensitive, boundary-breaking action.

For me, more useful would be the ability to close an item from the backlinks when cleaning up. But it’s a very minor thing; and the action would be made on a backlink, not on an item.

The visual distinction between a “closed item with a link to a closed item” and an “open item with a link to a closed item” could be more distinctive. (The meaning of the latter may appear strange. But happens: E. g., a leftover from the last agenda that was not discussed; and in the meantime, someone completed the task. It still was not discussed.)

Originall, I wanted to add some issues of my own in this post, but commenting on the above took more than expected.