Wiki Links & Tags

Ready to stitch this document, that document, and all your scattered thoughts into one? This is where a simple "notepad" transforms into a vast "universe of your own knowledge"! 🚀

← Home: ObsiKO 101

The magic bridge that connects note to note: `[[ ]]` 🌉

Just write [[Note Name]] — two brackets on each side — and it links perfectly to another note.
Try typing just [[! Note names from your vault pop up one after another as autocomplete, so you can pick one with ease. Pretty smart, ObsiKO, huh?
Even if you haven't created the note yet, go ahead and link to it first. Click that link later and a new note is created on the spot, right then and there.

Fly along a link ✈️

Desktop (PC): just click a link and off you go! (If it's the link your cursor is currently inside, force the jump with ⌘(Ctrl)+click.)
Mobile or iPad: give it a light tap.
By the way, click the very link your cursor is sitting inside and it only moves your cursor, carefully, so you don't make a typo. Click any other link — even on the same line — and the document actually opens! A nice thoughtful touch, right? 😉

Peek before you click — link previews 👀

Rest your mouse on a link for half a second and the target note pops up in a small card. No more clicking back and forth just to check "wait, what was in that note?"
[[Note#Heading]] previews just that section, and [[Note#^block]] shows exactly that paragraph.
Images and hand drawings inside the note show up right in the card, and a link to an image file ([[photo.png]]) shows a thumbnail. A link to a note that doesn't exist yet shows a friendly "click to create it" hint.
On mobile and tablets it works too — when you hover with a mouse or trackpad. Finger taps never trigger it, so navigation stays snappy.
Prefer it quieter? Settings ▸ Convenience ▸ Link preview lets you turn it off or show it only while holding ⌘.

Pointing at one single paragraph — block IDs `^` 🎯

Sometimes you don't want the whole note — you want that one paragraph, right there. That's what block IDs are for. (Same convention as Obsidian, so it survives a round trip!)

Put your cursor inside the paragraph, list, quote, table, or code block you want to point at, then right-click (long-press) → 'Copy link to block'. (You'll also find it in the Command Palette ⌘P, and you can assign your own shortcut.)
A tiny marker like ^a1b2c3 is quietly appended to the end of that block, and [[Note#^a1b2c3]] lands on your clipboard. Paste it wherever you like!
That marker is invisible in normal use — it only peeks out when your cursor is on that line. It's stripped automatically when you export to PDF or HTML too.

Try it like this

Jump to the exact spot: [[Meeting notes#^a1b2c3]] — click it and you land on that very block, which flashes briefly to say "here I am." No more hunting around!
Pull in the exact spot: ![[Meeting notes#^a1b2c3]] — add one exclamation mark and that block appears inside your note (an embed). Edit the original and this updates too, so you never write the same thing twice.
Autocomplete has your back: type just [[Meeting notes#^ and the blocks in that note pop up as a list. (Type only # and you get its headings!)
No syntax to memorize — just pick it: right-click ▸ ＋ Insert ▸ Embed a note (or /embed in the body; it's in the command palette too). Choose the note, then choose which part (whole note, a heading, or a block) and the ![[…]] is written for you. Handy when the same blurb belongs in several notes.

💡 If a heading is granular enough, [[Note#Heading]] jumps and embeds just the same. Block IDs shine when you need a chunk that doesn't even have a heading — a single quote, one table, one to-do line.

Tags that group similar friends together: `#` 🏷️

While writing, drop in something like #idea or #todo anywhere. Boom, that's a proper tag!
Open the Categories panel (# icon) on the right and you'll see, at a glance, every tag gathered across your entire vault and how many times each was used. Click a tag and everywhere it's used unfolds right there too!
The panel now has three tabs (Tags · Properties · Kinds & links) — Properties lists every frontmatter property in your vault just like tags (search box + note counts + click to see where), and Kinds & links does the same for note kinds (type:) and link properties (values holding [[…]]) — see below.
The Colors panel (the palette icon in the right-hand icon rail) gives you a hue ring + saturation/lightness square picker: insert the picked code into the editor or set it as the current note's color (the copy and eyedropper icons sit at the right end of the code field — the eyedropper grabs a color straight off your screen — on phones and tablets, where that is not possible, it becomes pick a color from an image: choose one of the images on screen (or from your vault), drag over it with a loupe following your finger, and let go to take that color) — on a base (.base) file it becomes the title header color instead (buttons gray out when there's nowhere to apply). the Triangle button (top-left) swaps the inner square for a triangle whose tip rides the hue you picked, Same lightness (top-right) swaps the wheel for a disc where every color shares one brightness and adds a lightness bar below it (pick the brightness on the bar, the color on the disc — the bar takes on your hue too, shades that can't exist at that brightness are shown hatched, and clicking one snaps to the nearest color that can), the Random color die (bottom-right) picks a fresh good-looking color on every press, the bottom-left corner keeps the colour you were just using — tap it to go back (and to flip between the two); the panel also drives the pen colour of an inline drawing — while the Colors panel is open the drawing pad stays put instead of closing, and the pen follows the wheel as you drag, auto palettes (lightness ramp · analogous · warm–cool · triadic · tetradic+accent) are built from your pick — press ＋ under a card to save it as a small horizontal strip. The triadic and tetradic cards get random saturation and brightness — per swatch, and each axis on its own, so the palette never drifts as one block: a fresh mix every time you pick a new color (tapping the same spot keeps it), held steady while you drag so only the hue turns. The randomness never erases a card's character — the pastel cell stays pastel, the deep accent stays deep, and the color you picked is left untouched — and every color used in your vault is listed with its count below — click one to see exactly where it was used.
Every tag and property row has a ＋ right after its name. Tag ＋ drops #tag at your cursor (and adds a space when text follows, so the tag doesn't swallow the next word); property ＋ adds that property to the note you're looking at, putting the caret on the value (if it's already there, nothing is created — it just takes you to that line). One undo (⌘Z) reverses either.
When no note is on screen — dashboard, graph view, encyclopedia — every insert action locks (the ＋ and the color Insert both dim). That's on purpose: a document you can't see should never be edited behind your back. Open a note and everything switches back on.
Color picking across the app funnels into this panel — the palette button at the right end of a document's title, the palette icon in a mind-map card's colour popover and in a note property (colour) popover, the drawing toolbar's custom colour, and a base header colour all open it. The title-row button re-syncs the panel to the note you're looking at every time you press it (if the note has no colour, the panel keeps its current one). None of the three popovers (card colour, note property colour, base header colour) opens the panel just by appearing — so that browsing presets leaves the right-hand side alone, only the palette icon in the last slot (the same icon in all three) opens it (and the card colour button itself stays a quick preset picker). If the panel is already open, picking a preset syncs it straight away. Pick a color and press Insert to drop the code at your cursor (or onto selected cards in a mind map) — the button grays out when no caret is active; the note's color property is what Set as note color is for. And the drawing pen color follows the wheel live (changing it on the toolbar syncs the panel back). On phones the palette icon opens the Colors panel just the same — you asked for the panel, so you get the panel, not the device picker (it covers the narrow screen while it's up; close it with ✕).

Kinds & links tab — building your dictionary 📗

As notes pile up you naturally start writing kinds (type: book, type: person) and links (author: "[[Jane]]"). The Kinds & links tab in the Categories panel gathers all of that in one place — the same idiom as the other tabs: name + how often you used it + click to expand where.

What you registered and what you haven't sit in one list. Entries with a definition note come first; the rest drop into a Not in the dictionary yet group below. Even if you have never built a dictionary you get your own list of kinds instead of an empty screen.
Press Add and a definition note appears. It goes into whatever folder already holds your definition notes, or a new Ontology/ folder. Adding several asks for confirmation with a count first, and no existing note is touched.
Registered rows get a ＋. For a kind it writes type: into the note you are looking at (plus the empty fields: properties that kind declares); for a link it asks which note to point at and writes the relation into the frontmatter.
Link rows show the color, reverse name and target kind you wrote in the definition note. If you have not set a reverse name yet it says a dimmed no reverse name.
Detailed editing always happens in the definition note. Right-click a row and choose Open definition note — rather than cramming a form into a narrow panel, you edit the name, reverse name, color and targets with the usual property editor.
The search box filters by kind and link name, and the sort toggle (by count ↔ by name) is shared with the other tabs.

What the kind & link dictionary is, and how definition notes work, is covered in 17 Structuring Knowledge.

What's the payoff of linking things up like this? 🤩

You'll know who's been quietly calling out to you! → Backlinks & Outline
You'll get to see how your knowledge connects, like a gorgeous constellation in the cosmos! → Graph View
You can zip back and forth between documents at lightning speed! → Search & Navigation

← Previous: Search & Navigation · Home · Next: Backlinks & Outline →

Merge, extract, and split notes ✂️

As notes grow, their structure needs surgery. Everything lives under right-click ▸ Note composer (or the command palette):

Merge into another note — right-click a note in the file list to append it to another. By default the original keeps a pointer — "merged into target" — plus a list of the headings that moved, so no link ever breaks.
Choose trash instead, and the links that pointed at the original get rewritten to the target (aliases, #headings, #^blocks included). You're told how many beforehand.
Extract selection into a new note — the selected text becomes a new note, and a [[link]] stays in its place.
Split by headings — take out just the heading under your cursor, or every same-level heading into its own note. The original keeps only headings and links — a table of contents. Links like [[note#heading]] still land in the right spot.

💡 All three are recorded in the change history panel, so you can revert file by file.

The same Note composer group also holds Tidy formatting…, which cleans up little things like trailing spaces and ##heading spacing in one go → 03 Markdown Basics.