Anyone else have any interesting non-standard wiki-link and tagging conventions?

One of the things I really appreciate about syntax definitions is the way I can establish workflows that feel deeply embedded in the way Drafts works.

A few alternative wiki-link/tagging conventions I’m currently making use of:

  • [[q:text here]] triggers a block level filter (aka contextualised query)
  • [[@:person’s name here]] runs an action that allows me to choose whether I search for instances of that person’s name in my notes or open their contact details in CardHop
  • @(text here) represents a logged constant— something I’ll want to view in a list of “last done” items. I have an action that shows a list of the last done instances of all these items, with how long it’s been since each one was logged. This one doesn’t even depend on a syntax definition, just some autocompletion and the aforementioned action.

I realise the fragility of non-standard conventions like this; they won’t have the same meaning or utility in another app. That said, the day-to-day value outweighs any concerns I might have along these lines.

Anyone else doing anything interesting with wiki-link/tagging/keyword conventions?

3 Likes

I haven’t been, but downloading and playing with your syntax definition has made me seriously consider it, :relaxed:. I just have to decide how likely I am to switch away from Drafts to some other PKM system and how annoying it would be to deal with if I did. Admittedly, as a blind Voiceover user, the total lack of any consideration for accessibility by any so called tools for thought software developers is making it feel increasingly unlikely :grimacing: .

What I’m currently experimenting with is your tappable hash-tag as block search system. After all, that’s not really going to mess up much else in another app. Where I’m finding it really helpful is in my Bullet Journal system. I need to write up the workflow properly somewhere, but I keep a file for every week, with a header for each day, and I do, basically what’s considered rapid logging in the Bullet Journal system, quick stuff, what I’m doing, random ideas, that kind of thing. Being able to throw a hash-tag at the end of the line and then tapping that to see what else I’ve said about it quickly looks really interesting. Or at least it is for the couple of weeks I’ve been trying it.

Admittedly, I’ve had to yet again hack your Block Filter action and create a version that only searches my Bullet Journal tagged Drafts, since I’m adding hash-tags to a lot of my other stuff as well as the Drafts tags in case I need to use the notes anywhere else, so I was getting massive amounts of noise.

2 Likes

One of the things I’ve been pondering is scripting a way to translate my custom syntaxes into markdown URLs in preview mode. I know it’s straightforward for 1-time conversion, but for live preview, I haven’t figured out a solution.

1 Like

That actually reminds me of my other problem with these links. I often use my keyboard to follow them, but unfortunately there’s no canonical way of doing this which means all the actions I’ve seen that try create their own link definitions and code for following them. yuck!

So if I really want to do this, I’ll probably have to update whatever action I’m using every time I create one.

1 Like