Backlinks just got an upgrade – You can now create a new bullet and a backlink to it in one go 🎉
With this addition, you can now quickly create backlinks to items that don’t yet exist, all without having to leave your current location.
Note
The feature is currently available in beta. To turn on beta, you can follow these instructions.
Why would I want to do that?
Imagine you’re in the middle of writing something and realize you want to dive deeper into a specific idea.
There used to be two options:
- You could continue with what you’re writing and try to remember to go back and create that item (high risk of forgetting)
- You could stop what you’re doing, zoom out of the bullet you’re currently on, navigate to another section, create a new bullet, and finally write down the topic so you can go back to it later (high risk of breaking your flow)
Now, there’s a third and much better option✨
You can invoke the ‘new create a bullet’ feature, select the location for the new item and continue with what you were writing. No more forgetting. No more breaking your flow.
How does it work?
- Start typing double brackets ‘[[‘ to create a backlink
- Use the arrow keys or mouse to select ‘New “X” in…’
- Search for the location of the new item
- Select it and done
You should now have a backlink to the new bullet you just created. The next time you create a new backlink, the last used location will be presented as a quick location. Also recently used locations will be shown first during the location search.
TIP – While not the intended purpose of the feature, you can use it to create an item in a remote location and simply delete the backlink. So for example – if you remember something important you want to write down but don’t need to link it, like a todo or a quick note, just delete the backlink afterwards.
Is it possible to create a new item as a child of the current item?
What I try to achieve: in the note section I write a memo of what needs to be done. With backlink I would like to create a child item as a task. Later when I have finished the task I will still have the link to the finished item.
If I have an item that has in it multiple subitems, seperated by commas, I’d like to edit the ones done with a strikeout typeface. vs create a bunch of multiple bullets. Perhaps that control can be added to the RC pop-up?
Thanks! nice addition
A different yet important subject:
Many people consider workflowy as a task management tool as well, but there is a big drawback that you cannot set reminders on bullets.
Please add this feature.
Is this available in windows desktop app, as I can’t see it there? I’m on 1.3.7-2479
the new item in setting isn’t in my version of the desktop, but when I enabled it in the web version it works in desktop. Is it meant to create these extra child nodes like this:
Hey Alasdair, please try reopening the app, that usually fixes the issue of missing toggles.
Yes, by default it creates an extra child node, if you have a preference please let us know at our feature request forum so we can keep track of the request.
Hey Rodolfo,
when i open the [[ then shows me only “Type to Link” not Create.
Hey Brinkmann, please make sure you have both beta toggles on, there is one for creating backlinks [[ and another for creating nodes with [[.
thanks
It works perfectly in the macOS desktop app.
Glorious! I love these tucked in features.
It has a very ‘markdown’ feel that I love, and want more of it.
[…] been meaning to gush about Workflowy, my most recent software crush. Two days ago, the company announced improved backlinks a la VoodooPad (sorta), DEVONthink, Obsidian, and […]
This is superb!!! Next suggestion: Option for unreferenced links, when Workflowy detects that there are links to a page/node that haven’t been connected to each other (Roam and Obsidian have this feature)
This worked for me one time, was great. And then stopped working. The “New” options just don’t appear anymore. Odd.
YES! Thank yoy. Next I desperately want be able to shift click the item to open a sidebar to the right – to quickly braindump whatever is on my mind related to that item (without needing to leave my orginal working environment). And while at it, I sooooo much desire multiple sidebars (like in Obsidian). It brings so much better flow being able to work in different bullets side by side. Sometimes I need to see what’s inside a bullet to be able to work in another one. For example, research in one pane, writing a story based on that research in another, and new questions to investigate in a third.
Hi Kristian!
I feel your pain. I use this workaround: on a windows machine there’s this shortcut: [windows key] + [Left/right arrow key].
This shortcut can place two windows next to one another in half the horizontal side. So I open two Workflowy tabs in two separate browser windows, use said shortcut and can see both windows simultaneously. Only thing that bugs me is you can’t drag and drop between them.
Hope this helps. Does this work for your purposes?
Cheers,
David
PS: when you use [windows key] + [up/down keys] your window gets either maximized or minimized. Super useful.
PPS: I’m sure there’s a similar shortcut combination for mac users.
Hey Kristian, while we don’t currently have that feature, there is a chrome extensions that allows multi-panes for the web version. Maybe that would help you achieve what you’re trying to do.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workflowy-multiflow/khjdmjcmpolknpccmaaipmidphjokhdf/related
But neither of those allows us to drag and drop items to move them from one pain to another, or to option-drag them to copy or to shift-drag them to make a new mirror to them. We are anxiously waiting for a WorkFlowy native panel feature like Roam, Legend, Obsidian, and many other note-taking apps have. Thanks!
Nice one! (I already used the previous beta lots) Thanks for adding another killer feature to a gem of an app. 🙂
Great, I love it!!! Thanks
The new features in general that have been added have been really nice, well thought out, and useful. This is one that I didn’t even know I needed until I saw it. Thanks!
ATTENTION : “VERY ADDICTIVE APP”
NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY : “Workflowy might be the best app on the market; most simple/minimalist, versatile… you’ve ever seen…”
MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE : “The intelligent notebook (workflowy) helped artists, craftsman, scientists, and every day people around the world for more than 100 years to create their best art, businesses, tech, lives…”
EARTH YEAR 2222 : All research done in workflowy (centralized) helped humanity connect to the AETHER again… free energy and workflowy for everyone…
TBC.
I have trouble following the GIF:s here. They are too fast.
Hey Johan, this has been slowed down by 50% hope this is a little clearer.
Same with this one.
I can see this could be a useful feature, but what I can’t understand is why you call these square-bracketed things “backlinks”. They’re very obviously just regular forward links.
Hi Christopher, they’re called backlinks because where they link to, they also leave a backlink at the bottom of the page in a reference node… so you know from where the destination list was being mentioned.
This will actually soothe my desire for having multiple tabs. If I can grab a thought and place a stub elsewhere without having to navigate there via multi-click sidebar or search, it will prevent that interruption of flow that so often has me saying “what was it that I wanted to say again?”.
Absolutely! We need to have a multiple panel feature as Roam, Legend, Obsidian, Logseq, and all the new-gen note-taking apps have. Thanks!
My ADHD brain is loving it!
As you are becoming a more normal To Do app, could – you please email stuff like this instead of disturbing us with this notice inside of the app?
Hey Matt, we generally opt for showing beta users the in app message and regular Workflowy users an email. The idea being that if a user is using beta then they’re more likely to want to know what the latest features are, and from our side – we want beta user to be aware and try out new things to provide feedback.
We are considering a more discrete way to alert users but haven’t decided anything just yet.
“Showing beta users the in app message and regular Workflowy users an email” looks good. Maybe this time you mistakenly pushed the message to regular users. I’m not in beta but I got this in app message. I think that’s the reason Matt complained.
Hey Betty, do you have the experimental features toggle turned on by chance?
On the contrary, I will blame WorkFlowy for being too shy and not always letting us know when they launch a new feature! Sometimes I have to come to the blog to see what’s new because new add-ons are not always communicated in the app. I wish they always did, even the smaller improvements so we can start using them instantly!
Ooh, please.. Stop spoiling us.. I’ve been waiting for this feature for quite a while now, no more adding the links as comments.
It was definitely worth sticking with you workflowy all through these years…
Great resource if using WF for Zettelkasten. A word counter would now make the product perfect for me!
WFx has a word count mechanic that might fill in the gap until the mechanic goes native in WorkFlowy
This is an awesome feature. Much more important than markdown or code formatting for me. In fact I fear markdown/code formatting/colors may break what I like most about Workflowy. I use it to hold information, add info on the go, not to beautify content and present it externally. So markdown would probably break super important existing functionality such as [[]] and (())
Markdown is not just for external content. It would be extremely beneficial for formatting notes, making them more readable and useful. The double bracket or double parenthesis syntax would not conflict with Markdown, as neither of these is valid Markdown syntax.
Markdown syntax is a horrible nightmare. Let’s hope WorkFlowy never goes that way. WYSIWYG is the way!
Markdown is horrible,! Take into account that the vast majority of the people (non-tech nerds) hate Markdown and loves WYSIWYG. If WF ever goes the MD route it will be a huge mistake favoring a small niche of geeks instead of the overall population of normal people who likes to wee what they write as it is.
Thanks so much for this new feature… Tried Notion these last 2 months but definitely prefer workflowy 👌👍
workflowy … why would you add this instead of markdown support ? Why would you add this instead of code formatting? … I don’t want this, and I really would doubt anyone would … I hope you researched well into how many people really need this feature, I really don’t think it would make me more productive in any way this backlinks… Please add also the things that are actually useful
Hey Petre, choosing which feature to work on next is always a balancing act. There will always be many more things we could do vs what we actually have time to do. We try our best to listen to what the community requests and also what makes sense for the application as a whole.
Markdown support and code formatting are definitely on our list but for one reason or another have not made the cut so far. We aim to increase our speed of feature development in 2022 and I think we’re getting there. So hopefully we’ll be able to implement more of these types of features soon.
I just want to express that there are people who don’t want Markdown. WF is already WYSIWYG. Why is there a need for Markdown? Maybe an “Export as Markdown” feature is enough. The most important thing to me is for WF to keep what it is now. My worst fear is new features making WF slow.
I understand the comment if this is not a feature you have a use for, but many people have been asking for this exact feature for quite a long time, so the team is actually being pretty responsive to user requests.
Please don’t hear this! Markdown is the worst thing that could happen to WorkFlowy! Normal people love WYSIWYG. MD on the other hand is so f* annoying! Markdown apps are all trying to achieve WYSIWYG! WorkFlowy has always been like that, so don’t go the backward step into MD!
This is great, thank you!
I write daily notes, using the date autocomplete feature. It’s good bein bacle to backlink to these. My biggest use-case for this would be to put notes in that have a future date on them and have the same autocomplete functionality but it doesn’t seem to work with date autocomplete – is this planned?
Hey Rob, that’s an interesting use case! Currently, supporting dates within backlinks is not planned but feel free to add it to our request forum to see if it’s something others would also find useful.
Let me suggest a solution to this problem. It’s not very neat, but it works.
I create “daily notes” ahead of time, each one named with a date stamp. As a result, I have a note for each day.
When I need to link to that note, I type [[ and start typing the date I want. In this way, I create a link to the corresponding note in the “daily notes”.
Links to Daily notes
Looks cool, but I can’t get it to work. I’ve got Labs turned on, but i’m not seeing the New option in the backlink menu
Hey Chris, did you refresh after toggling the feature on?
Yes, I did. Is it just the Labs toggle that I need turned on?
Here’s a screenshot
Sorry, found the Backlinks Lab toggle.
But it’s still not working 🙁
I just get No matching locations found. No New option.
What am I missing?
Same for me: Labs is on, Backlinks are on but I just see “No matching locations found”
Hey Dan, there are two toggles for backlinks, one turn them on the other turns on the create a node feature. Once in production we’ll probably turn it into a single toggle.
Ah that was it for me too; didn’t see the second toggle at the bottom. Thanks!
Please make sure this other toggle is on as well.
That was it. Working now.
Faaaaaaaan Tastic.
First!