Replace Inline Reference of Deleted Entities with Plain Text

Ideas & Features
1

Along the line of discussions regarding replacing all references to an entity , conversion & deletion of entities, and search & replace, I was also wondering if it would be possible to replace in-line references to a deleted entity in rich text areas with the actual entity name prior to removing it completely.

For example, if you have an inline reference to a particular project in notes:

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If that entity is deleted, you are left with very little information about what it was:

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It might be helpful if one of the last steps in the deletion process is to go through and replace all references to the entity with the plain text version of the name:

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This is helpful in cases when something is deleted (often by accident) but you only discover it later through a reference. I think it requires the search and replace functionality to be implemented but it is yet another example of how it can be helpful.

2

I was wondering if the fibery team has thought about this request any further and have any feedback.

I have also noticed that when spaces are published publicly (such as the roadmap), any references to entities from other spaces appear as blank but are still clickable (e.g. features in the roadmap list):

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I am wondering if it would be better to replace these with just the name of the entities (so that the context still makes sense) without them being rendered as clickable entity links. I totally understand that in some cases you may want to redact even the full name, in which case I think that should be an option for admins.

1 Like
3

This is not urgent, but I think it would help keep contexts intact in our connected spaces, as we remove entity references over time.

Problem

If I have a reference linked in Entity description (e.g. an Idea) and I later delete it, the linked entity that previously had a name that was part of the narrative description, is fully removed and replaced with an “Entityname not found”, and this behavior might lead to important context loss.

Best illustrated by an example. After an entity was referenced in a entity description and later deleted, the entity description now reads:

Idea not found doesn’t need to be implemented right away, since this action is initiated in a limited context, and it would require a new requirement from external team to be delivered

Maybe we had an ideas clean-up activity which removed the referenced idea. However now even the name of the reference is removed, and now it both looks a bit ugly/makes it harder to read, and we might have wanted to re-add that idea later, or discuss it, but now the name itself is lost, so maybe only the original author now knows what it referenced.

To complete the example, the original entity description contained this text:

Use QR code during agent-initiated X-ID during chat doesn’t need to be implemented right away, since this action is initiated in a limited context, and it would require a new requirement from external team to be delivered

Feature idea

I’d like if on entity deletion, the entity being deleted gets it’s latest name added into the description’s reference, instead of a “Entityname not found”, so we keep some context, and preserve readability.

What I think is good today when an referenced entity is removed, is that it’s clear to me that this at one point was a reference by the formatting of the link and the Entityname not found, so I would like to keep that.

I’m fairly new to Fibery, and there might be situations where it’s important to purge the name though, but I see us registering and linking new ideas and other entities in description, then later coming back in other contexts to clean up stale ideas and other entities.

And this over time would create lots of “Entityname not found” in our references, that are kind of ugly to read and reason about.

1 Like
4

Is this the same as here?

If so, I will merge this topic into that one.

5

It’s exactly the same, thanks for catching it.

6

I just had this issue come up in my DB as well. I think the way Obsidian handles it is quite nice (links to non existent files get a bit greyed out, but keep their name)

especially in a DB that is shared, and in the future with fine grained permissions, links to entities should keep their name even when the access to those entities is not granted. but at least the context is still readable.

that is a problem, that obsidian and its text based system cant handle for example: when people dont have access to a file, then the link is greyed out. when they click it the file gets created. when they then sync to a vault where this file does exist, the old file gets written over. one of the main problems in shared vaults in obsidian. and not in any way fixable.

but here this is something that may be fixable. i guess its not easy, but something on my wishlist for sure

3 Likes
7

We use a zettelkasten in fibery and Notes are often deleted by users. Because they are connected through rich text inline mentions, parts of sentences are not readable because the notes don’t exist. Voting for them to become plain text. Same for Tasks.

We thought about trying to learn people to archive entities (select field), not delete them but thats nearly impossible to train people. Also, the in-line link would still be present and would need to be made unclickable when status is Archived.

Un-link in-text created entities
This relates also to another important need: to be able to easily unlink in-text created entities. That is currently not possible. The most consistent behavior would be similar to the right-click menu in entities in list views.

Automatic unlinking by status field
I think there is interesting potential to have the unlinking happen automatically when the status is changed. For example, when a task is done, then it could be possible to unlink it in any rich text, so that it does not attract unnecessary attention any more.

I think this topic causes engough confusion to be upgraded to Issue.