How to implement “Unlinked References” in TiddlyWiki?

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1

Hi everyone,
I’ve noticed that community editions like TiddlyStudy provide both Linked References and Unlinked References features, which allow you to see not only explicit links (e.g., [[Tiddler]]) but also mentions of a tiddler that appear in text without being linked.

However, it seems that TiddlyStudy has not been updated for quite a long time. So I’d like to ask:

  1. In vanilla TiddlyWiki, is there any way to achieve an “unlinked references” feature, perhaps using filters, the Relink plugin, or some other method?
  2. If yes, could you share some example filters or configurations?
  3. Or is this functionality only realistically available in community editions like TiddlyStudy?

Thanks a lot for your help!

2

You can easily update TiddlyStudy to the latest TW version.

  • Download empty.html from tiddlywiki.com

  • Save TiddlyStudy from My TiddlyWiki — a non-linear personal web notebook with the save-button in the top toolbar image

  • Open empty.html in your browser

  • Open the file explorer of your OS and drag & drop the tiddlystudy html file onto the browser with empty.html

  • There will be an Import tiddler

  • Import everything and you have TW v5.3.8 and TiddlyStudy.

Hope that helps

3

Hi @pmario, thank you for your reply:)

I’m aware that TiddlyStudy can provide this feature, but it looks like the author has not been maintaining it anymore (the last update was about four years ago).

Besides, I don’t really need its other features apart from the linked/unlinked references. That’s why I’d like to know whether there is a plugin that implements this functionality, or if it can be achieved manually.

4

There also is a core plugin, which is called “freelinks”, that can be imported into eg: empty.html.

  • Download empty.html with a new name from tiddlywiki.com
  • Open your newly created wiki in the browser
  • Open the $:/ControlPanel with the cog-icon in the right sidebar
  • Select the Plugins tab
  • Click the “Get more plugins” button
  • Click the “Open plugin library” button
  • Search for: freelinks
  • Install the freelinks plugin
  • Save the wiki and reload in the browser, so the plugin is active
  • Read the readme from the plugin

That should be it.

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5

I am not really sure, what you mean be “linked / unlinked” references. I could only guess you mean the freelinks plugin. But TiddlyStudy does not use it. So I am not really sure.

Using the relink-plugin is always recommended, if you intend to change your tiddler titles after you used them in links, fields and so on.

1 Like
6

This is already in tiddlywiki for some time but the term is “Missing tiddler”, or pehaps “;link to missing tiddler” and they appear as italic. If you search for this you will find what you are after. I expect in this “study wiki” unlinked references was possibly just text the author decided to use.

See;

  • Side bar > More > Missing
  • Advanced search > Filter > Dropdown / Missing Tiddlers uses [all[missing]sort[title]]
  • see is operator is[missing] eg in a view template [all[current]is[missing]]

If a tiddler contained;

[[A tiddler title]]

even if the tiddler does not exist

in another tiddler;

{{{ [[A tiddler title]backlinks[]] }}}

will return the first title in which “A tiddler title” is linked

  • use the filter on a list widget to list all if mentioned elsewhere.

That should get you started but of course return and ask more as needed.

1 Like
7

My ideal version of “unlinked reference” comes from the feature provided by Logseq. For example, if I write some notes in a tiddler named 20250822, and in another tiddler I only mention 20250822 without linking to it, there could be an optional collapsible section at the bottom reminding me that the current tiddler is related to 20250822, and it would list its content. At the same time, the 20250822 tiddler could also link back to this note in a bidirectional way.

It seems that relink/freelink plugin may not achieve this perfectly, but together with Stroll it already works quite well. Thanks for your suggestion!

8

By mention, you mean type or paste the title 20250822 without turning it into a link with the AB button or manually to [[20250822]].

If the tiddler 20250822 exists and you have FreeLinks installed it will auto detect that 20250822 is a tiddler in your text and turn it into a link on screen.

  • Once it is actually a link, not just a virtual one generated by FreeLinks it can become the subject of a relink. If you think about this there are good reasons to differentiate between text entered and links.
  • As soon as they are links, then can be found with the backlinks operator, or using search.
  • We have available search operators which can be used to find exact text with or without being defined as a link.

The truth is when dealing with dates there may be other approaches that are more meaningful. Especially when it is “today”. There are also other tools like the alias plugin of @pmario that introduces even more choices.