UOMF: Linking Headings With org-super-links (Poor-Man's Zettelkasten)

This is an article from a series of blog postings. Please do read my "Using Org Mode Features" (UOMF) series page for explanations on articles of this series.

• Updates
  • 2021-09-11: Link to org-zettelkasten
  • 2021-10-04: Link to My Zettelkustom
  • 2022-12-04: EmacsConf22 talk video
  • 2024-01-12: Please note that meanwhile, the org-super-links prefix changed from sl- to org-super-links-. So I changed them here as well.

Reading this article you will learn why the Zettelkasten method is not for everybody. Furthermore, I show you a nice Org mode extension to link headings with back-links.

This article was also part of the basis of my EmacsConf 22 9 minutes demo which can be also be found on various locations:

• tube.graz.social (PeerTube)
• toobnix.org (PeerTube)
• YouTube

Recently, I wrote an article where I mentioned all the concerns I do have with using the now-hypes Zettelkasten method. Please read that article in case you want to learn what Zettelkasten method means and why I don't think that it can replace my Org mode based knowledge-base within notes.org as described here.

From the comments of the related reddit thread I learned, that the Zettelkasten method is something different from a standard knowledge-base with interlinked headings. It's far more than that. There are only a few use-cases where a Zettelkasten method is really required. The most obvious use-case is for people writing scientific papers and books, generating new ideas by combining and linking known concepts in a new way.

Currently, I don't have this use-case and therefore it is not a surprise that my concerns seem valid points against using Zettelkasten implementations.

In this article, I wrote about how to link headings with standard Org features and how I am using it for my own workflows.

While this is still a good method, you only get uni-directional links: from the current point to a different heading: A → B.

In some cases, you might want to have a back-link as well. A back-link is a link from the target heading of your link back to the point where you were at when creating the link: A → B and A ← B. This turns an uni-directional link in a bi-directional link.

Of course, you can follow the created link and create a back-link by hand. But this can be automated.

I came across org-super-links which provides a neat method to create links and back-links. It offers nice features but the two features I use the most are org-super-links-links and org-super-links-quick-insert-inline-link.

Here is an example where the second and the third heading were linked to the first heading using those two methods:

 *** Linking concepts
 :PROPERTIES:
 :ID:       Linking-concepts-ignoreme
 :END:
 :BACKLINKS:
 [2020-07-22 Wed 20:12] <- [[id:insert-link-ignoreme][org-super-links: insert link]]
 [2020-07-22 Wed 20:11] <- [[id:org-super-links-link-ignoreme][org-super-links]]
 :END:

 *** org-super-links: org-super-links-link
 :PROPERTIES:
 :ID:       org-super-links-link-ignoreme
 :END:
 :RELATED:
 [2020-07-22 Wed 20:11] -> [[id:Linking-concepts-ignoreme][Linking concepts]]
 :END:

 - =org-super-links-link= via =C-c s s=

 *** org-super-links: insert link
 :PROPERTIES:
 :ID:       insert-link-ignoreme
 :END:

 - =org-super-links-quick-insert-inline-link= via =C-c s i=: [[id:Linking-concepts-ignoreme][Linking concepts]]	  

In my setup I am using my-id-get-or-generate() to generate the :ID:-links in order to get human-readable IDs. For technical reasons, I had to modify the IDs in these examples.

You should also think of using (setq org-export-with-broken-links t) to avoid export problems with links to headings that are not part of the exported data.

In my opinion, this is a very good method for linking headings for many use-cases. At least for a broader set of use-cases compared to Zettelkasten links. Don't over do it.

I'd love to see this method going main-stream and extending our way to work with Org.

Here, I try to collect some (not all!) low-profile alternatives to the larger Zettelkasten implementations.

• org-zettelkasten: simple Zettelkasten implementation without dependencies: creating and linking notes + find parent note
• 2021-10-04: here's a similar approach by Garjola Dindi from the article My Zettelkustom