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Is it possible for markdown export to link to other files?

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I exported a notebook to markdown (which is great), but I found that the files don't have links to other files like they were in Siyuan.

So, is there anyway to make markdown exports have links to other files?

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    Guide: Publishing SiYuan notes with Hugo • sagar
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    Is it possible for markdown export to link to other files?

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    • Siysuy •

      The anchor hash feature currently creates a span object <span id="20231110120736-ze6m41f"></span>. Some kind of program should be able to understand and find this block inside the note as reference. Can anyone help me understand how this can be useful after export, where do I use this, which program understands this syntax?

      The export mode Anchor hash for notebook Markdown exporting has some limitations.

      In the case i want to publish a particular note (with links to other notes) my approach is:

      1. From main notebook export the notebook you want to publish to .sy.zip file
      2. Create new (temporary) notebook
      3. import .sy.zip file to new temp notebook
      4. Export temp notebook export it to any selectable format (only markdown is currently selectable)

      Other limitation of Anchor has export and the only way I got it to work (performed testing by exporting to Obsidian):

      • currently only works for notebook and does not allow nested notes. In the process of exporting all notes must be unnested inside notebook for .md export to function.
      • Currently does not support block reference. Can only link to main note. Tested by importing to obsidian (not a siyuan issue, but a markdown syntax limitation i presume)

      Depending on the responses here I might add a feature request soon that involves the concept of user selectable export syntax. In which before execution of export using anchor hash a user can type in the conversion syntax to apply. User is presented with input fields much like the settings > Export > Anchor text wrapping symbol fields.

      Conversion syntax for siyuan > obsidian would be: [[test3.md/Note 2#^d8bf62|Note 2]] and conversion input fields could somehow be [[ .. / .. #^ .. | .. ]]

      1 Reply
    • MiscReply
    • 88250 •
      MOD

      The reason why this function is placed at the notebook level is because some users no longer want to use SiYuan and need complete batch export, so support for this function is not considered at the document level.

      I'm not sure if the span tag still exists after pandoc converts the HTML, but I'm sure anchor jumps can be used and you can write HTML tests in the browser.

      1 Reply
    • sagar • • 2 • 1 Up
      VIP Warrior

      @88250 I think this is an important missing feature when it comes to publishing the notes. Let me explain:

      Many users, including me, like to make a lot of links between notes. We also like to publish some set of notes on our websites/blogs/digital gardens. With most other note-taking software, you can export the notes to markdown, which includes links to other markdown documents (or even specific paragraphs in the markdown documents). Then, static site generators like Hugo can ingest the markdown files and produce HTML pages for the web. These HTML pages have all the correct links to other notes' HTML pages. With SiYuan, since the exported markdown does not contain links to other notes, publishing notes with links to other notes is not possible at all. I think this is a problem for many potential users. Do you have any other suggestions for how to publish notes in SiYuan with all links-between-notes working properly?

      I think this is important for another reason: With other tools like Obsidian, the notes are stored as normal markdown files. This means that the notes are not "trapped" inside the note-taking software. SiYuan does not store content as markdown files. Even if the format is still open, it still feels like the notes are "trapped" or "locked inside" SiYuan. If SiYuan has an excellent ability to export the notes to markdown (e.g. with all the links preserved) it would feel less like the notes are locked away inside SiYuan. I think this will increase trust in SiYuan, since users will not worry that if SiYuan unfortunately disappears, then their notes will disappear with it.

      I understand that because SiYuan offers a lot more complex formatting options, exporting to Markdown with everything properly preserved is not possible. This comes from the limitations of Markdown. However, there should ideally be a way to publish the notes (perhaps to HTML) so that all the formatting and links are preserved. I think maybe this is currently possible for each entry in the Doc Tree, but ideally, it should be possible for an entire hierarchy in the Doc Tree i.e. a given note and all notes below it should be exported. Please let me know if this is already possible.

      1 Reply
      1 Operate
      sagar updated this reply at 2023-11-29 02:41:05
    • sagar • • 2
      VIP Warrior

      I think there is a fairly simple solution to this, which I will describe below. I think it can be implemented as a simple Python script that does some post-processing of the exported markdown files. I will try to create a proof-of-concept script, but it will take me a few days because I am not a programmer and will need to learn some Python programming first.

      Solution description

      1. In Settings > Export configure 'Ref' to 'Anchor text with block URL'. After doing this, a link to another block in a SiYuan note appears in the exported Markdown file as [Anchor text](siyuan://blocks/block-id).

      2. Write a Python script that opens each exported markdown file and uses regex matching to identify all instances of [Anchor text](siyuan://blocks/block-id). For each instance,

      3. Use the /api/query/sql API endpoint to get details of the block-id by making a query like:

        { "stmt": "SELECT * FROM blocks WHERE id='block-id'" }

      4. In the query result, you can find the hpath key whose value is a human readable path.

        1. If the block-id is for a block of type document (which would be the case for a link to another document), then the Python script just needs to replace siyuan://blocks/block-id with hpath_value.md which would be the relative path to the exported markdown file that the link points to.
        2. If the block-id is for a block inside a document (e.g. to some arbitrary paragraph block in the document), all you need to do is to open the exported markdown document containing that paragraph (from the value of hpath for that block-id), find the start of the paragraph and add an <a name="block-id"></a> anchor at the start of the paragraph. Then, the siyuan://blocks/block-id in the exported markdown file can be replaced by hpath_value.md#block-id

      This would basically solve the problem of having correct links in the exported markdown files and additionally the exported notes can easily be converted to HTML and published e.g. with a static site generator like Hugo.

      @88250 Do you see any problems with this approach? I don't understand why SiYuan does not do this already when exporting to markdown.. but in any case, a Python script that does the above can post-process the exported markdown files from SiYuan and fix all the links. What do you think?

      1 Reply
      1 Operate
      sagar updated this reply at 2023-12-01 08:25:07
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