Relink finally showed up to the v5.3.x party, and it brought its friend: Relink-variables

Plugins
#2

@Flibbles once again thanks for this iconic solution on which many of us now depend on to turbocharge what can be done with tiddlywiki.

  • I am working through these new features and this release and will reply with any important observations.

but a question please?

I see that to achieve this greatness, you have made use of tiddlywiki’s approach and defines 114 tiddlers with a module-type, summarised with this;

<$list filter="[all[shadows+tiddlers]prefix[$:/plugins/flibbles]each[module-type]get[module-type]]">

</$list>

Or more comprehencivly;

<$list filter="[all[shadows+tiddlers]prefix[$:/plugins/flibbles]each[module-type]get[module-type]sort[]]" variable=module-type><<module-type>>, </$list>.

<$list filter="[all[shadows+tiddlers]prefix[$:/plugins/flibbles]each[module-type]get[module-type]sort[]]" variable=module-type>
   <h3>''<<module-type>>''</h3>
   <$list filter="[all[shadows+tiddlers]prefix[$:/plugins/flibbles]module-type<module-type>sort[]]">
 
   </$list>
   <hr>
</$list>

I can see that looking into this code there is a lot to be learned and reused by any enthusiastic tiddlywiki designer. I would hazard to guess that there are many opportunities to make use of your code outside of their original intentions.

  • Do you have a view on this?
  • Could you nominate some of the modules you think may have real additional value given your familiarity with the code?
  • You need not take on this task yourself, let us call it a Relink “after market”, or “off script” use of your code, you can leave it to us enthusiasts, But your 5,000 foot view of it may help use mine this for gems more easily.
#3

@TW_Tones, I’m happy to reply. I absolutely built Relink with the intention that it could be extended. The module approach was clutch for allowing all my supplemental plugins to be interchangeably installable, but I’m careful to keep my API backward-compatible, so anyone is free to include relink-related plugins in their own plugins so they can integrate. I’m kinda hoping more people do some day.

I’ve got some documentation on the demo page that outlines relinktitlesrule which I figured might be likely choice and how you’d create your own. But there are others. I know @pmario has a relinkwikitextrule for his alias link plugin. If anyone ever wanted to support other types beside wikitext, like json or a data tiddler, relinktext would be a good one to override.

But Relink also provides a pretty good framework for renaming anything, not just tiddler titles. Relink-variables was a proof-of-concept. Under the hood, it works by pretending for every macro that there is a tiddler named $:/temp/flibbles/relink-variables/$(containingTiddler)$ $(macroName)$, and it’s able to perform the rename on that. The rules associated with variable names look for that prefix.

And it works, so Relink provides a pretty good framework for delving recursively into the fine-grain parts of the text. All it needs are the rules for what to do.

2 Likes
#4

Interesting fibbles, but I am also thinking about the tools you made for yourself within the plugins that may have use outside the plugins such as filter operators, javascript functions etc…

  • I am exploring now for examples
#5

Thanks a lot! I played with Relink-variables a little bit and it looks very handy so far.

1 Like
#6

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

This is by far my most important plugin, installed on all but my most trivial wikis. I look forward to checking out the new variables section.

4 Likes
#7

Oh sure! The filter operators were requested enough that I documented some of the useful ones. I did the same with wikimethods, though I suspect they’re not as often used.

I’m happy to hear of anyone using these, and if people have ideas of other filters or abilities Relink might provide to be more utility outside what I intended, I’m happy to hear about it.

#8

Thanks @Flibbles I appreciate your generosity to the community.

  • One filter that comes to mind is something like ... softlinks[] so we can retrieve more than hardlinks as documented Hard and Soft Links because this is what relink already does.
  • Another use case that may be just an application of existing relink features would be a way to use ./ and ..// or a folder name referencing external files or server folder names so we can easily change throughout the wiki whist retaining the prefix.

for example https://domain.com/images/myimage.jpg to

  • https://newdomain.com/images/myimage.jpg
  • or https://domain.com/files/myimage.jpg
1 Like
#9

Filters are accommodated in Relink but over here Using tiddlywiki documentation when contained in a plugin - #4 by TW_Tones I have an issue where a large set of filters begin with or without the [all[] eg [tag[TableOfContents] which implies [all[tiddlers], there may even be filters that read [all[tiddlers]], but I need to change a large set of these cases in multiple tiddlers to [all[shadows+tiddlers]

  • I expect there will be filters that are Selection Constructors where [all[shadows+tiddlers] need not be applied, but if done may not interfere.
  • I may one day need to limit which tiddlers this filter update/rename would apply, but in my current situation it would be fine changing all filters in all tiddlers.

Is there a way I can use relink to solve this problem?

  • Relink may already contain the search and manipulation tools to achieve this?
#10

Nice! Congrats on the release.

1 Like
#11

It’s curious that you managed to pick one thing that seems like it should be under Relink’s purview, but is in fact entirely outside its scope. Relink works only with the source text of your tiddlers. It never renders to html, but a [hardlinks[]] filter would have no choice to do that in order to determine what links show up. So in making it, you actually wouldn’t reuse a single line of Relink code.

Fortunately, such a filter would only be about 10-15 lines of code. Unfortunately, it would be very expensive to use (It has to fully render every tiddler passed through it), which is why I suspect no one has ever incorporated it into the core.

This is something Relink could easily be good for. All you’d need to do is override one wikitextrule, and then make a tiddler with the buttons and fields to set up the rename.

Yeah, actually this one would be pretty easy too, though you would need to write one Relink module (a relinkfilter module), and then a tiddler with the buttons and such to control it. It could both correct such cases in your wiki, and report everywhere that you’re using non-shadow tag reporting. If this is something you need, the module wouldn’t be more than about 20 lines of code, and most of that is just performing checks to make sure it’s looking at the right type of filter. Open a Relink github issue if you’d like to pursue this, and I’ll help out.

1 Like
Typing frozen for 45 seconds when changing title, huge number of Relink orphans
#12

@Flibbles I’ve been playing around with the relink-titles subplugin, which works pretty well. I did notice, though, that the tiddlers which are renamed by this sub-plugin (those further down in the hierarchy) are relinked in [[ ]] links, but seemingly not in lists, e.g. the $:/StoryList list field. After renaming, the story contains the old, no longer existing titles. The originally renamed tiddler is correctly relinked in this list, though, just not the others.
Did I do something wrong?

#13

Yep. I’m seeing it too. It’s a subtle bug that reveals itself most obviously through the StoryList. I’ll look into it tonight.

#14

FYI: I was recently observing a bug just like this in another situation, unrelated to to relink. using tm-rename-tiddler or tm-relink-tiddler, there may be an issue in the core.

  • Just thought I would mention it so you don’t go crazy looking only in your own code.
#15

Thanks @TW_Tones. You may be right that there is such a problem with those messages, but there was definitely an issue with relink here. If a relink were to cause two titles to update (which usually only happens because of Relink-titles), and a tiddler referenced both of those title (like $:StoryList would if both of those tiddlers were open), then the relinking of one would clobber the other.

No more. @Yaisog, as of v2.4.1 released just now, this issue is fixed. Thank you for pointing it out.

1 Like
#16

Dear Relink

I know you use variables
I know you use variables

#Cameron Fischer
#Cameron Fischer

Great
Great

No need explain …

It works
It works

1 Like
#17

@Flibbles I just created a solution that uses tiddler titles as a key to a data tiddler. I believe this is not yet a feature supported by relink. Perhaps you could look into it if you can find some time?

However, I did not expect you to solve this with relink, and I did my own research into the rename mechanism, however I see relink overwrites a core tiddler to achieve this. As may my own solution to address my current case. This then becomes an issue, two solutions changing the same core tiddler.

I think there is an argument here to modify the core to allow relink, and my own solution, to be integrated without modifying a core tiddler, To me giving a designer of a wiki a way to make use of the rename event is a missing feature. Especially important in a bigger picture solution I am developing hinted at in No touch tags - or flags on tiddlers without editing or changing the tiddler - #102 by TW_Tones this solution will make use of your wonderful relink but stands to demand even more from tiddlywiki and relink than currently supported.

Perhaps you could look at your modifications in $:/core/ui/EditTemplate/title and together we can submit a suggestion to add hackability to the rename mechanism permitting relink, without modifying any core tiddler, and as a result provide a hook for other solutions that want to maintain “referential integrity”.

  • The rename event can happen by a number of means and the relink message sits behind a number of tiddler messages.

@pmario I mention you here as you pointed out pending changes in the core that are related to relinking perhaps you can help with this small endeavour to add hackability on rename?

  • A simple example may be on rename retrieving actions from tiddlers with a new system tag $:/tags/actions-on-rename this may include relinks hook as well thus raising with @Flibbles
  • I am yet to conceptualise how relink would transition to a no core tiddler overwrite solution, while maintaining backwards compatibility.
Discussing - Notes on Tiddlers stored in a Data Tiddler
#18

When you say using tiddler titles as keys in data tiddler, you mean something like this?:

MyTiddler: 45,23
OtherTiddler: 0,-5

Then TW5-Graph already has this, and it relinks those sorts of tiddlers as well. Any data tiddlers with the tag $:/tags/flibbles/graph/TiddlerData get their keys relinked appropriately.

But for this to work, you need both Relink and TW5-Graph installed. I take it you’d want a solution that doesn’t require an entire graphing framework to come with it?

As for not overriding core tiddlers. Relink would have to drop support for older versions of TiddlyWiki. It might be worth making a Relink 3.x version for this purpose, but is it worth it?

1 Like
#19

thanks @Flibbles

I wanted the rename against the data tiddlers created when using the index parameter on action set field and not dictionary tiddlers

pasting the example code at the top of this post Tips and commentary - Notes on tiddlers stored in a data tiddler will allow you to record a note and see an example. the keys to such data tiddlers can be anything but given the nature of tiddlywiki they may often be tiddler titles.

  • needing to nominate such data tiddlers in a relink config would be acceptable if nessasary.

I was also working on tiddler relationships and compound titles like tiddler1:married:date:tiddler2 and wanted to use the rename facility myself. this is when I discovered more about your relink plugin and the need to overwrite the core tiddler.

  • on reflection I wonder if a hack and relink could be introduced via the newish cascades?

I have just packed up my desktop to move from a house sit so only on my phone.

for this second case, the compound titles, I could introduce a rename inhibit for tiddlers named in such titles forcing users to use my provided rename tool. but again this may need mods of a core tiddler :disappointed:

#20

Got caught up with other stuff, and only getting to this now.

I looked at the wikitext in your links, and I’m not seeing cases where index attributes would need renaming. But in the case of something like <$action-setfield $index="MyRelinkableTiddlerTitle" />, you could put $action-setfield - $index into the whitelist, though that does mean ALL of those attributes will be relinked, even if the target dataTiddler doesn’t use tiddler titles for indices. And it sounds like your relinking needs are situational.

Relink does overwrite core shadow tiddlers, but it also introduces a slew of modules itself, so as long as you’re okay with your solution requiring the presence of Relink, you could definitely write a relink-module that does the work you need.

relinkhtmlattributes in particular might suit your needs. It’ll let you specify code to run on a widget’s attributes without your needing to find those widgets yourself (whether in text bodies, fields, or macro definitions).

Hopefully that works?

1 Like
#21

Thanks @Flibbles that gives me a lot to work with, but I will just illustrate the simple example to be addressed using relink, or some other rename handler.

If you use the currentTiddler title as the index to a JSON Data tiddler as I did in Tips and commentary - Notes on tiddlers stored in a data tiddler it will look like this;

{
    "No-touch notes": "Original Idea",
    "view/edit-notes": "New example as given"
}
  • type = application/json

So in the above example and many other possible cases the title of a tiddler is the key

The above two tiddlers exist in my wiki “No-touch notes” and “view/edit-notes” (without the quotes).

  • It is true nothing defines the key as matching a title, and thus could be an appropriate subject of renames / relinks.
  • however I imagine we could nominate it’s tiddler $:/note-database as being a data tiddler whose primary key is a title and thus should be renamed.

I think this is an example of a common pattern that may be used more and more often given the primacy of the tiddler title, which is of course a very powerful feature in relink already.

Going forward

  • I am hoping to achieve something related with a tiddler that has the compound title
    tiddler1 & relationshipname & tiddler2 that will be renamed if tiddler1 or tiddler2 is renamed.
    • In this case these titles may only be “backlinks”, or named in a fieldname value.

Absolutely no expectations/pressure from me, I am just raising it with you as you are the expert :nerd_face: