That would be cool. Or even {32} could work.
But like I say to those that really want links, using the standard Markdown link, instead of the WikiMedia syntax, is the way to go.
Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, as I generally prefer to work with markdown’s canon for portability to other markdown apps. However, Obsidian has powerful advantages for novelists using the wiki-type linking option:
- When typing a wiki link, it offers auto-complete suggestions–a huge benefit in a novel rich with characters (and their aliases), locations, objects, spells, story beats, and so on. Sometimes I forget the name of something, but I can remember part of it. This quickly gets me to the link so that I’m back to writing.
- The links automatically update when the note name they link to changes, yet they will preserve any alias added to the link.
- The links enable backlinking (extremely important for novelists) as well as the graph view.
- If I create, say, a character on the fly, I merely have to create the link and it will create the new .md file for it. (I believe Scrivener does something similar, if I recall correctly.)
To the best of my knowledge, none of these important functions works in Obsidian when using the markdown link option.
I would still call that the “display text” part of a URL, not an “alias”, but semantics aside, maybe what I’m missing is that this only makes sense to those that use the editor mode that hides your markup aggressively? Otherwise I don’t see why you would want to bulk up the link markup with more text.
Sure, I like “display text” better, too, but Obsidian calls it alias, so that’s what I’m calling it in the context of this discussion. When in Rome…
You guessed correctly that I write in editor rather than source mode. After making the link and clicking away, it displays it (or its alias, if present) underlined and without the code. It’s very graceful in that way. When writing my novel and using an alias in the link, it will display, for example, “Pooh Bear” rather than “Winnie the Pooh” even though it’s linking to an .md file named “Winnie the Pooh.”
What I love about Obsidian is that there is almost no friction when inventing a story element. It’s what drove me to figure out how to use Obsidian and only Obsidian to write a fantasy novel. Here’s a video I created for another writing discussion community: Writing my novel in Obsidian
When I made this video, I had not yet gone back to Scrivener as my narrative-writing tool, Aeon Timeline as my story discovery, outlining, and tracking tool, and Obsidian for my story bible. But it’s still a very powerful tool for novelists.