Overriding links with captions

1

I followed a thread a while ago Exploring default tiddler links hackability in V5.3.0 and was hoping to see it get down to a minimal sample that I could use for other purposes. A simple example would be to have a standard [[Long tiddler title]] entered but it’s caption (if it has it) used as the text for the link. This would be helpful to me for storing things in a proper unique format, but having a simple or abbreviated piece of text while reading.

I’m finding that really nailing this will help me (and maybe others) understand some of the newer stuff too (\widget, $parameters, $genesis, $slot…)

Dragging Big Long Title.json (1.7 KB) into TiddlyWiki should show you something like this:

image
image740×666 34.5 KB

In my examples below, a next step of understanding is understanding why the examples 3, 4, and 5 don’t show BLT like example 1. I’m glad #2 and #6 let you override things and wouldn’t want to change that.

2 Likes
2

The original thread was in aid of dealing only with [[links and with spaces]] or camelcase including missing links. Personaly I wanted to use it to add smart prefixes or suffixes to these links.

I will review in detail tomorrow as I have learned a lot since I raised it.

In your problem cases why not use a full link widget, procedure or different custom widget because you are writting the code unlike the aforementioned standard links?

Try

\function caption.or.title() [{!!caption}else{!!title}]

<$link><<caption.or.title>></$link>
3

My more long-term need is something similar to your “smart prefix” concept. I prefix my tiddlers with characters denoting whether it’s a person, project, goal, etc. I want to use this type of customization to display additional informational characters based on some logic.

For the above though, I kind of journal and write things dozens of times per day like "I talked with [[@ Firstname Lastname]] about [[# Long name of project that I’d prefer abbreviated]] and [[Other firstname lastname]] will follow up with me by [[% 2023-12-20]]. I use autocomplete to help write that, but as it’s displayed in an outliner, I’d prefer to have it only show me the captioned form of each of those tiddlers.

4

Consider marios alias plugin called uni-link.

However I will explore a function or procedure to assist.

  • how do you obtain the tiddler titles in the first place?

Also I am happy to join you on a small collaboration to find a shared solution and I have done 95% of it with a tag driven prefix/suffix already.

  • given your use case we can include a way to enable the same logic on other links not just the default wiki links.
5

I appreciate you trying to help, but my original post is what I’m trying to solve and is intended as a minimal use case. As I stated, having such a “real world” example will help for my future understanding of many of the new features I outlined, and so a change of my question or solving an entirely different way is not helpful to me in this case. We can circle back once I figure this out if you’d like though.

6

Ok, I have what looks like a solution;

  • I hope this goes someway to helping your understanding, it gets a lot easier.
  • Of course built with the help of others as it was my first custom widget.

See this line gets the caption if available, and not given if in the calling of $link widget.

<$slot $name=ts-raw><$text text={{{ [<to>get[caption]else<to>] }}}/></$slot>

The custom widget that redefines the default,

\widget $link()
\whitespace trim
<$parameters to=<<currentTiddler>> $params="@params">
<$list filter="[tag[$:/tags/before-links]]" variable=tiddlername>
<$transclude tiddler=<<tiddlername>>/>
</$list>
<$genesis
  $type="$link"
  $remappable="no"
  $names="[<@params>jsonindexes[]]"
  $values="[<@params>jsonindexes[]] :map[<@params>jsonget<currentTiddler>]">
<$slot $name=ts-raw><$text text={{{ [<to>get[caption]else<to>] }}}/></$slot>
</$genesis>
<$list filter="[tag[$:/tags/after-links]]" variable=tiddlername>
<$transclude tiddler=<<tiddlername>>/>
</$list>
</$parameters>
\end $link
  • Tagged $:/tags/Global/View/Body (to restrict it to in tiddlers in the story.)

So I tested

* [[tiddler]]
* [[alt|tiddler]]
* [[Link to big long tiddler]]
* <$link/>
* <$link to="Link to big long tiddler"/>
* <$link to="Link to big long tiddler">something else</$link>

* [[tiddler with object-type]]
* [[tiddler without object-type]]

Giving this

Snag_106aaad
Snag_106aaad1184×682 38.8 KB

  • The more icon is because I have a tiddler tagged $:/tags/after-links that provides a drop down to select the object-type field from a list
    • The tiddler with an object type does not have the dropdown
    • The missing tiddler also does not have an object-type because it does not exist
    • However in the image I am selecting it.
      • As soon as a tiddler has an object-type its gets its own cascade templates. Thus as soon as I see a link to a tiddler listed I can create and assign the object-type.
  • You could of course create missing tiddlers from a selected tiddler template if desired.

[Note]

  • I needed to find a way to reduce the links in which this appears.
  • Tag with $:/tags/Global/View/Body (to restrict it to in tiddlers in the story.)
7

This simpler version, with a custom name only uses caption if needed;

* <$link.caption/>
* <$link.caption to="Link to big long tiddler"/>
* <$link.caption to="Link to big long tiddler">something else</$link. Caption>

The custom widget

\widget $link.caption()
\whitespace trim
<$parameters to=<<currentTiddler>> $params="@params">
<$genesis
  $type="$link"
  $remappable="no"
  $names="[<@params>jsonindexes[]]"
  $values="[<@params>jsonindexes[]] :map[<@params>jsonget<currentTiddler>]">
<$slot $name=ts-raw><$text text={{{ [<to>get[caption]else<to>] }}}/></$slot>
</$genesis>
</$parameters>
\end $link.caption
  • I do not know what remappable is about so removed it. warning It just bricked my wiki. $remappable="no" is needed but not in the documentation.
8

Thanks! The modified emptyMessage code captured the rest of the cases. Now to try repeatedly breaking it to try and understand it… :slight_smile: