backlinks

Backlinks Script

This script enables bidirectional linking by generating a list of backlinks to the current note from all other notes in the collection. The backlinks script requires the use of wiki-style link syntax and should be installed alongside the wiki-links script.

By default, this list is generated only on first opening a given note, rather than every time the preview is rendered, since incoming links (i.e., in other notes) are not likely to change while the note is open. This improves efficiency considerably.

However, this default behaviour can be switched off in the script options, which will generate (or regenerate) the backlinks list on every preview render. This is less efficient, but can be helpful in certain circumstances. For example, it is necessary to turn this on when using the Export notes as website script to generate HTML if you want the rendered HTML to include Backlinks as well.

Documentation

Documentation for the development version of this script can be found here.

Limitations

The following are some known limitations with using backlinks in QOwnNotes:

• The backlinks script currently only looks for internal links in "wiki link" format, for example:
  • [[link]]: a plain link to a note in the current folder with the filename link.md
  • [[groupname/link]]: a link to a note in a different folder (called groupname, one level up in the file system hierarchy), with the filename link.md
  • [[groupname/link|link text]]: any of the above two link styles, plus optional link text following the | character
• There is currently no support for "regular" markdown-style links (e.g.:

  [My Link](/some/path/link.md)