Evernote backlinks

[AlbertR 531]

On 1/19/2023 at 11:44 AM, PinkElephant said:

As I understand it, the local search index of v10 is a virtual twin of the server search index. The index is created and maintained on the server. The clients receive an update.

Client copies are not complete - at least on mobile clients search does not cover attachments content, AFAIK.
If the index gets corrupted, it seems to be the only solution to replace the entire local database.

Isn't this a contadiction? If the index is calculated on server site and replicated to clients, it should cover the same data - or does the server hold two index tables (one complete and one for the mobiles)?

If the index gets corrupted - does it make sense to replace the entire local database? If a client replicates the server index, there should be internal mechanisms available to grant completeness on client site. And if any lacks are seen, a reload should be done in the background.

But @Scott T. explained that V10 runs a local index service (makes sense for performance reasons if net connectivity is poor and local computing power is high). It this case the index databases might hold different content (like in Legacy). Maybe we'll get back local notebooks and CTRL-Help in V10? 😉

PS (somewhat later): We already have CTRL-Help and a submenue "Problemlösung" ("Solve problems" in English UI?) 💥. Here you can find possibilities to start/stop activity traces, reload notes and log cpu and network load...

[Scott T. 662]

Again, I caveat this with not being an expert on search...

But basically, your local v10 client runs a lighter version of the server-based indexing service. It won't do any resource-intensive indexing like attachment processing (i.e. OCR), but it does do its own indexing and not just getting a copy from the server (though I believe this happens as well).

So as I noted, something like backlinks indexing can be implemented locally.

[idoc 400]

OK.  This has turned into a highly technical discussion which is probably beyond the paygrade for most of us.  In practical terms, I'll describe in a little more detail my "Itinerary" usage of this feature.  

I make itineraries of all of my trips.  I can turn each item of the itinerary into a hyperlink eg: "Car rental" now becomes a link to the car rental agency voucher.  In the past, I would often lose myself in the various links and then need to navigate back to that main "Itinerary" note or a related item on that list.  Now if I'm done examining the car rental voucher but want to go to the Hotel note I click the backlink and it takes me back to the itinerary.  I then hit the linked Hotel text which takes me to the note dealing with my hotel.  On that hotel note I linked to another note which has a special deal close to the hotel.  I can go to that deal through the link, then back to the original hotel note with backlinks, and then back to the itinerary through another backlink.  In essence, I now have a pathway around the various elements of my trip including a way to always come back to the "Home" page of that trip without being tripped up by the rest of my 8000 notes.  It's like finding a tiny room at the National Public Library where only your favorite books exist.

[DougLietz 4]

What would be great enhancement to this new Backlinks feature is to have another drop-down list at the top each note (just like the Backlinks drop-down list), but this one would list all out going links from the note you are on... both internal links as well as links pointing to external sources. Evernote already shows the clip link up at the top, if the evernote was clipped from the web. That clip link could be part of this new "Outlinks" drop-down tab that I am suggesting.

Hopefully I described that in a way that makes sense.

And since I am already in "Wishlist" mode ... the next development I would love to see is to have some sort of visual or graphical representation page/interface that gives you a 30 thousand foot view of all the notes in your database and how they connect to each other. Obsidian does this really well with their dynamic representation of a neurally connected network... like having a digital 3rd brain where all the nodes are clickable (true bi-directional linking).

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

1 hour ago, DougLietz said:

What would be great enhancement to this new Backlinks feature is to have another drop-down list at the top each note (just like the Backlinks drop-down list), but this one would list all out going links from the note you are on... both internal links as well as links pointing to external sources. Evernote already shows the clip link up at the top, if the evernote was clipped from the web. That clip link could be part of this new "Outlinks" drop-down tab that I am suggesting.

Hopefully I described that in a way that makes sense.

And since I am already in "Wishlist" mode ... the next development I would love to see is to have some sort of visual or graphical representation page/interface that gives you a 30 thousand foot view of all the notes in your database and how they connect to each other. Obsidian does this really well with their dynamic representation of a neurally connected network... like having a digital 3rd brain where all the nodes are clickable (true bi-directional linking).

Nice ideas, especially the first one, especially for a longer note. I guarantee you if I had the second one I would never get anything done beyond clicking around among all those note links. 

[Paul A. 621]

3 hours ago, DougLietz said:

What would be great enhancement to this new Backlinks feature is to have another drop-down list at the top each note (just like the Backlinks drop-down list), but this one would list all out going links from the note you are on

I like this idea.

 

3 hours ago, DougLietz said:

the next development I would love to see is to have some sort of visual or graphical representation page/interface that gives you a 30 thousand foot view of all the notes in your database and how they connect to each other. Obsidian does this really well

Is this actually useful or does it just make a pretty picture? I've seen these visual representations many times, and people gush about how cool they are (and they do look cool), but I've never seen someone actually demonstrate how they used it to accomplish something they couldn't do just as easily another way. I've also used software in the past which created similar graphs (network software, for example) and didn't find it very useful then, either.

[DougLietz 4]

1 hour ago, Paul A. said:

I like this idea.

 

Is this actually useful or does it just make a pretty picture? I've seen these visual representations many times, and people gush about how cool they are (and they do look cool), but I've never seen someone actually demonstrate how they used it to accomplish something they couldn't do just as easily another way. I've also used software in the past which created similar graphs (network software, for example) and didn't find it very useful then, either.

That is a very "flat" image example of the neural network I showed. A tool like that provides a ton of useful functionality (imo). For example...

• The size of the dots and linked clusters identify emphasis on topical areas that you may be researching... kind of like how word cluster infographics show what concepts or keywords are most important or most used. You can also use color coding of the notes to help you visually hone in on where you have the most amount of connections between notes. Then you can zoom in on the tool, and/or use filters, to upscale your node clusters. With zoomed in views, you can choose to have your note title text displayed below each dot, or maybe you just want to use the hover title display feature. When you find the note that you may be looking for, you can click to open it... or click to have a popup excerpt show... all the time being able to seamlessly back out to the neural network again, so you can continue on with your quest. Basically, this takes relational databases to a whole new level of functionality that goes way past just having a traditional keyword search tool. Not saying that this would replace keyword search, especially the Evernote search which is second to none.
• Also, those mostly-single, un-linked dots around the outer perimeter of the the neural network, represent nodes that are for the most part orphaned ideas. As you revisit these notes over time, it can become apparent that certain ones should be linked into specific cluster that you are working on elsewhere in your database. You can simply drag then onto another node to form the link connection which would then automatically populate into those Backlink and Outlink dropdown box I suggested in my first wishlist entry.

I'm sure other members here could add some more use cases... would love to hear them!

[PinkElephant 8,112]

Mohio-Map did it …

Bubble Browser did it …

Maybe others did it, before. If you search for Mohiomap you find this in the EN Appcenter:

and this if you try to contact the developer:

Bubble Browser is similar, you can’t reach the dev, it didn’t get any new release in years, and trying crashed my MacBook Pro. Not the app, the whole Mac was brought down.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

So at least 2 developers tried to build a visual search, and both of them failed (at least economically).

There are possible conclusions, one is that it is now the time has come … the other is it is fascinating initially, but then users find out it does not really add enough value to buy.

I tend to the second explanation.

Why should EN themselves add a feature similar to others that already went belly up, at least twice ?

[DougLietz 4]

9 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

So at least 2 developers tried to build a visual search, and both of them failed (at least economically).

There are possible conclusions, one is that it is now the time has come … the other is it is fascinating initially, but then users find out it does not really add enough value to buy.

I tend to the second explanation.

Why should EN themselves add a feature similar to others that already went belly up, at least twice ?

Besides Roam and Obsidian doing well with their neural network functionality, another tool is TheBrain, which has been around since 2009.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

I think the math is pretty simple:

From all users, most are on Free. They are not able or willing to pay at all, so why should they pay for anything in addition ?

This leaves the much smaller group of paying users. Since EN is highly flexible in the supported use cases, this is a pretty mixed target group. You need a solid enough added value to make them open their purse.

And then - if it is an external service - you must be willing to grant full access to your personal cloud data, all of it. Otherwise the service will not work.

Personally I am pretty visual as well, and I loved these tools when they were still alive. Bubble Browser got killed by a MacOS update, Mohiomap simply folded and went offline. I think I have to accept they failed for a reason.

[ThomasWeaver 5]

I would like to know more about this evernote backlinks. How does it work? Please explain if possible. 

[idoc 400]

Take a look at the post I made on Feb 2.  It's very basic and gives real world examples of how you can use backlinks.  In the past you could create links such that if you clicked on the link it took you to another page.  For example, you could have a page on various hotels and make each hotel into a hyperlink such that if you click on that link it takes you to another page which has the booking information for that hotel.  However, at that point you would simply be at the hotel booking page and perhaps forgot how you got there or how to get back to the original list of hotels.  In other words, there was no "backlink" to orient you back to the place that got you here in the first place.  So with backlinks you can wind up at the hotel booking page but also have an instant way to go back to the original page which linked you to this one.  Simple.

[agsteele 2,949]

@ThomasWeaverThere are some helpful videos from various Evernote Experts. Here's one from @vladcampos

 

You cann search for others.

[ThomasWeaver 5]

Nice video so far. I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot for sharing. 

[Momofthrees 20]

For some reason I can only backlink to two notes. If a note has more than two backlinks, then I only see the first 2. If a  note has many links, then I don't see back links to that note at all. Is this a bug, or is there a limitation to the number of back linked notes. I have almost 20000 notes and use links extensively.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

Can’t reproduce that at all. I tried on the iOS client on iPad (you don’t say anything about the client you used). The number of backlinks is counting up as links are added. I tried until 4, but I doubt there is a limit in a range where this would be of a concern.

When I click on the backlink symbol top right, a submenu opens at the bottom showing all 4 backlinks.

It should be noted that it takes a short little wait until the backlink counter is upped when a link is added. It needs to make the connection in the background. I tried on our iPad Air 2 from 2014, the oldest iPad able to run the current EN version for iOS. Even on this venerable hardware it performed with acceptable performance. On our Pro or M1 Air the client is flying …

If you can’t make it, post more details about your setup here, or contact support.

[Boot17 1,450]

Similar to PinkElephant, I don't have any issues seeing Backlinks. In one of my notes I can see 9 Backlinks to it.

4 hours ago, Momofthrees said:

If a  note has many links, then I don't see back links to that note at all.

In this example with your note (let's call it "Note A") with many links, where are you expecting to see the back links for it? At the top of Note A itself? Or are you expecting the other notes to each have a back link to "Note A"?

(I've seen cases where some think that Backlinks is just a collection of all the links to other notes in a unified place in the same note and just wanted to rule that out.)

[Momofthrees 20]

15 hours ago, Boot17 said:

Similar to PinkElephant, I don't have any issues seeing Backlinks. In one of my notes I can see 9 Backlinks to it.

In this example with your note (let's call it "Note A") with many links, where are you expecting to see the back links for it? At the top of Note A itself? Or are you expecting the other notes to each have a back link to "Note A"?

(I've seen cases where some think that Backlinks is just a collection of all the links to other notes in a unified place in the same note and just wanted to rule that out.)

So here's my set up.  Notes A-M is a research template for a set of ancestors. it is a collection of all my research for that ancestral pair, with notes hyperlinked to the original documents which would be Notes N-Z.  Then I have notes for the rolls of microfilm I am researching Notes 1-10
Note A, has probably over 40 links and NO BACKLINKS.

Notes N-Z should have a back link to A and also a back link to a note 1-10.  Sometimes they can backlink to two ancestors, so they might have a back link to A, D & 3.  Whether this is working or not is hard to tell. It is taking hours for the backlinks to update.
Now notes A-M SHOULD have back links to N-Z but for some reason none of A-M have back links.  

My thinking is either there is a limit on the number of back links so A-M have too many links, OR back links only work on newly created notes and will show up soon. I created several new links to A & B yesterday, but neither of them have back links this morning, but the new notes N-Z all have newly created backlinks to A & B.

I hope this is clearer than mud. Since I have linked to other notes in A, why would it not have backlinks attached to it?  I am looking at the top of the page on A, since it runs several pages.

Thanks for your replies by the way!

 

[Momofthrees 20]

Also I have multiple links to the same note in Note A. Could that be the issue?

[agsteele 2,949]

I think that either you have a malfunction of backlinks on your account OR you have misunderstood how backlinks works and are expecting backlinks where none would be provided. I can't tell from your description to be sure. Backlinks are not instant either.

I'll try and create a graphical representation to illustrate what should happen.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

@Momofthrees Thanks for elaborating - we need to remember that backlinks were only added recently. The pool of experience is limited, and we haven’t seen bug reports about it yet. So anything is possible, including a malfunction.

Whether there is a not communicated limit for backlinks is a question currently only support can answer. Access to support is a subscriber feature. If you are on a subscription (it sincerely looks like, with 20k notes 😇), you can contact them yourself.

In general a backlink is created in the note to which a regular link is pointing. Say you create a link pointing to note A, by creating the link in note information of note A.

Then you go to note B and insert the link there. The backlink is NOT in B - in B you have the link you created in A and inserted in B, pointing to A.

The backlink is added in A, and it is pointing to B. This means when you connect B to A by inserting the link to A yourself, automatically A will be connected to B as well, by a backlink that is automatically created in A.

Since the linking is only complete when the link was inserted (here in B, pointing to A), the backlink only appears after the placement of the initial link. It can take a few moments until the system makes the connection, and shows the backlink.

When in your example notes A-M hold links pointing to notes N-Z, you will not find backlinks in A-M. All backlinks will be in N-Z.

Hope this helps you to solve the backlink mystery. As I said, all of us is still learning about it as well. I really like your description about how backlinks can improve your genealogy research - a very helpful use case.

[idoc 400]

Here are some actual images from my phone.  The first is a screen shot of 3 notes in my inbox.  Each of these notes have hyperlinks to the other two notes.  You can see the 3 notes and their hyperlinks below the title.  For example, the "Genteal gel" note has hyperlinks to "Phaco settings India" and to "Peloponnese".  If it's set up in this way I don't even have to care about backlinks because I can just jump around any of these 3 notes and they all have the hyperlinks to take me to any of the other two.  

 

But let's say that this was not the case.  Let's say that Genteal gel is my parent note and it contains the two hyperlinks to the India and the Peloponnese notes and that those two notes do not contain any hyperlinks.  Now when I go to India or Peloponnese I only see the backlink that takes me back to the parent (Genteal).  So if I jumped from Genteal to one of the hyperlinks, got lost there and wanted to return to the note I came from, I simply click on the backlink and the parent note pops up.

 

In the second example, when I'm in the India note I have no idea that there is any connection between this note and the Peloponnese note.  There is no hyperlink to it and the backlink just takes me back to Genteal, the parent note .  However, when I'm back to the parent (Genteal) I can see that there is also a hyperlink to Peloponnese.  So the parent note contains all of the means to get to any one of the children, but each child note simply leads back to the parent.  This arrangement is different than the first screenshot in which you can skip from parent to child, child to child, child to parent.  This second arrangement is designed to have a Master or Parent note which controls the children and always leads back to itself.  Hope that clarifies the different strategies of backlinking.

[Momofthrees 20]

I may not have been clear. All my notes are linked to each other.

Here is a real example:

Note A: (no back links)  Has the following text:  All the links point to Note B:

[x]1820 census (Drury and Elizabeth married in 1811) 1820 Bennett, Drury

~ Drury Bennett is head of household in Williamson County, TN There are a male and female over the age of 45 in this household. Most likely Drury's parents.(It is possible the father was also Drury Bennett, but I don't believe he is the one buying and selling land, because no record is found of Drury Sr. willing or deeding land to Drury Bennett.-Most likely his parents did not own any land at all)

~Elizabeth Bennett was a free white female 26-45 in the household of Drury Bennett, Williamson County, TN.  (They were in their 30s, and children's ages fit with known children)

[x]40-A: Martha Bennett died before 1820 

[x]40-B: Nancy Bennett was most likely free white female 0-10 in the household of Drury Bennett, Williamson County, TN

[x]40-C: Hardeman Bennett was most likely free white male 0-10 in the household of Drury Bennett, Williamson County, TN

[x]40-D: John Bennett was most likely free white male 0-10 in the household of Drury Bennett, Williamson County, TN

[x]20: Stephin Bennett was most likely free white male 0-10 in the household of Drury Bennett, Williamson County, TN

 

Note B: (has two backlinks: one to Note A and another to Note C.  Note C looks exactly like Note A and also has no backlinks.

---

Drury Bennett household, Williamson County, TN Federal Population Census: Page 174. Microfilmed copy of original record can be found in 1820 Williamson County Federal Population Census, Robertson, Smith, & Williamson Counties, TN, (National Archives Microfilm M33, Roll No. 125), National Archives, Washington, D. C.

---

 

I am trying to get Note A and C to show a back link to B.  Do I need to create a link in the NOTE, instead of linking to the note?  Because neither of them shows a back link and this is where my issue is coming in.  I can easily create a link in B pointing to A & C if that will create the back link.

[Momofthrees 20]

Thank you all for your amazing help and also for the many examples. 
So here is the deal. To get a back link, you must create a link IN the note, not just TO the note. So now I know how to fix my issue and need to decide if I care to do so.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

In fact I see 2 different issues here:

- The strategy of linking - only vertical, or sideways as well. Vertical means child-parent relations, sideways means sisters/brothers, maybe cousins etc. It can go as far as linking friends, business partners, and others.

- The other issue is backlinking. This is only an extension of the linking strategy. For every link inserted into a „link holding“ note, the backlink function creates a backlink in the „donor“ note to which the link established is pointed. If only parents are linked, each child note will show 2 backlinks (maybe only 1, if one parent is unknown, or even zero).

Another example: Let’s say we have a novel, with 10 chapters. Each chapter is in one note. We create links from each note, and insert them into a new note, holding a table of content (TOC). This is VERY easy on desktop: Select the 10 Chapter notes, create the links from the selection, go to the TOC note, and insert the links. Before backlinks were introduced, that was all that was achieved: A TOC.

With backlinks the situation changes: The new TOC note will hold 10 links, and NO backlink. Every chapter note holds the chapter, no active link, and 1 backlink, leading to the TOC note. All this linking and backlinking can be performed with only one action: Select all participating notes, create the links (just one command), insert them into the TOC note, done. The backlinks (that would manually mean go to 10 notes and insert a link) are created by EN, automatically.

[idoc 400]

40 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

In fact I see 2 different issues here:

- The strategy of linking - only vertical, or sideways as well. Vertical means child-parent relations, sideways means sisters/brothers, maybe cousins etc. It can go as far as linking friends, business partners, and others.

- The other issue is backlinking. This is only an extension of the linking strategy. For every link inserted into a „link holding“ note, the backlink function creates a backlink in the „donor“ note to which the link established is pointed. If only parents are linked, each child note will show 2 backlinks (maybe only 1, if one parent is unknown, or even zero).

Another example: Let’s say we have a novel, with 10 chapters. Each chapter is in one note. We create links from each note, and insert them into a new note, holding a table of content (TOC). This is VERY easy on desktop: Select the 10 Chapter notes, create the links from the selection, go to the TOC note, and insert the links. Before backlinks were introduced, that was all that was achieved: A TOC.

With backlinks the situation changes: The new TOC note will hold 10 links, and NO backlink. Every chapter note holds the chapter, no active link, and 1 backlink, leading to the TOC note. All this linking and backlinking can be performed with only one action: Select all participating notes, create the links (just one command), insert them into the TOC note, done. The backlinks (that would manually mean go to 10 notes and insert a link) are created by EN, automatically.

Thanks Pink,

That's pretty much how I set up my master itineraries for trips and other things.  The backlinks have helped a lot because I often get lost in a "child" and then need to remember how to get back to the parent note.  However, I have one question...the concept of "one command" creating multiple hyperlinks in a TOC is available in my Legacy version (and probably v10) but does not seem to appear possible in the web or iphone versions.  It's not such a big deal because I don't really do this that often but I was just wondering.

[PinkElephant 8,112]

To create several links at once one needs to select several notes first. This is a feature of the desktop clients only - web and mobile can only select one note at any time. There link creation requires much more finger / mouse / trackpad work.

[idoc 400]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

To create several links at once one needs to select several notes first. This is a feature of the desktop clients only - web and mobile can only select one note at any time. There link creation requires much more finger / mouse / trackpad work.

Actually, I can select several notes at once on the web version.  When I do that I get the options you see below.  Theoretically they could include the links option also. 

 

 

 

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,112]

On the desktop, the option to create links to all selected notes at once is behind the 3 dots menu on the blue menu bar.

On the web, this option is missing. Selecting the 3 dots top right has the effect that all but one note is deselected.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,959]

6 hours ago, Momofthrees said:

Here is a real example:

Note A: (no back links)  Has the following text:  All the links point to Note B:

[x]1820 census (Drury and Elizabeth married in 1811) 1820 Bennett, Drury

~ Drury Bennett is head of household in Williamson County, TN There are a male and female over the age of 45 in this household. Most likely Drury's parents.(It is possible the father was also Drury Bennett, but I don't believe he is the one buying and selling land, because no record is found of Drury Sr. willing or deeding land to Drury Bennett.-Most likely his parents did not own any land at all)

~Elizabeth Bennett was a free white female 26-45 in the household of Drury Bennett, Williamson County, TN.  (They were in their 30s, and children's ages fit with known children)

....

Note B: (has two backlinks: one to Note A and another to Note C.  Note C looks exactly like Note A and also has no backlinks.

It sounds to me like this is working exactly as it should: You link from Note A and from Note C to Note B. What you see in Notes A and C are those links to B. What you see in Note B (in a little blob at the top right) are the backlinks indicating that Notes A and C link to Note B. The purpose is to let you get directly from B back to any notes that have links to it, without having to manually create any links in B to A and C.

I am glad I do not have to think about this very often or at great length. I would be babbling in no time.

[Dave Edwards 244]

Evernote has always allowed you to link one note to another, but going the opposite direction hasn’t been easy until the recent introduction of backlinks. We talk with the project manager.

https://daveedwardsmedia.com/2023/04/14/help-with-backlinks-in-evernote/