Managing notes#

Everything in this page writes to your vault. It is also the part of Scoria whose rules were hardest to get right, so the rules are spelled out rather than summarised.

Each opens a small prompt. The index is brought up to date before the file watcher's events even arrive, so the Files tree, the panes and the graph are correct the moment the operation finishes.

Creating a note#

A new note is named Untitled, then Untitled 1, Untitled 2, and so on. Where it lands is your newFileLocation setting:

A link with a folder in it creates the folders: clicking [[reference/formats/DNG]] where none of that exists creates reference/, reference/formats/ and the note.

Creating a note over a path that already exists fails with Obsidian's own message, "File already exists."

Renaming and moving: what happens to your links#

This is the important part. When you rename or move a file, every link in the vault that resolved to it is rewritten — and nothing else in those notes is touched.

The new link is written in your newLinkFormat — shortest path, relative path, or absolute path — whatever form the old link had. All of [[a]], [[A.md]], [[Sub/A]], [A](./A.md) and [A](/A.md) become the same thing. Shortest format falls back to the full path when a basename is ambiguous.

A link whose written path already matches is left byte for byte. This matters more than it sounds: moving a note whose name is unique changes nothing in the notes that link to it, because [[Name]] still says what it needs to say.

The style of each link survives. Scoria rewrites the target, not the shape:

• A wikilink stays a wikilink; a Markdown link stays a Markdown link.
• An embed stays an embed.
• An angle-bracketed destination keeps its brackets.
• A Markdown destination keeps its .md, and encodes only spaces — [x](Ä%20(b)%20100%.md).
• The subpath is kept: [[Note#Heading]] keeps #Heading.

Aliases are kept verbatim, with one exception that matches Obsidian: an alias that was equal to the old basename, and is not the written path, follows the new basename. So [[Sub/S|S]] becomes [[S2|S2]], while [[S|S]] becomes [[S2|S]]. A Markdown link's text follows the new basename when it was the old basename, or the new link path when it was the old destination without its .md.

What is never touched:

• Code spans and fenced code blocks.
• Reference-style links and their definitions.
• [[#Heading]] self-links.

A moved note's own links are regenerated only when the move would break them — a [B](../B.md) in a note that just went into a subfolder.

Frontmatter links update. Here Scoria differs from Obsidian deliberately: Obsidian re-serialises the whole YAML block when it rewrites a frontmatter link, which can turn aliases: [Bee] into a block list. Scoria replaces the link text in place and leaves the rest of the bytes alone.

Renaming onto a path that exists fails with "Destination file already exists!". A case-only rename succeeds.

How these rules were established#

They were not inferred from documentation. A throwaway plugin in a scratch vault renamed files through Obsidian's own fileManager.renameFile under every newLinkFormat, resolved links through getFirstLinkpathDest, created and trashed files, and dumped the resulting notes; what it showed is what the code implements and what its tests assert. A second suite renames every note in a 1,009-note corpus, moves its folders under every format, and renames its attachments, checking each time that every resolved link still resolves to the same file, that no link appears or disappears, and that nothing outside the links changed.

The same probe corrected Scoria's link-resolution order — see internal links.

Deleting#

Where a deleted file goes is your trashOption:

With promptDelete on (the default) you are asked to confirm first.

Deleting does not rewrite links. The links that pointed at the file simply become unresolved, which is what Obsidian does and is almost certainly what you want — a broken link is a reminder, a silently removed one is lost information.

Not yet#

• Drag and drop in the Files tree.
• Inline title editing (rename through F2 or the menu).
• Pasting or dropping an attachment into the vault.
• The real system trash on Windows and macOS.

Next#

• Internal links — how a link decides which file it means.
• Settings — where newLinkFormat and friends live.