EtherPK User Docs

Scoped Concepts

A scoped concept is a name with another wikilink inside it, such as [[[[Garden]] Tools]]. The inner link, [[Garden]], is the scope, and the rest of the name picks out one page within it. A link points at the whole name, scope included, so a scoped concept is a page of its own, separate from both [[Tools]] and [[Garden]]. Subjects that share a plain name can each have a page this way, as [[[[Garden]] Tools]] and [[[[Kitchen]] Tools]] do.

The scope can go anywhere in the name, as in Types of [[Plant]], and a name can hold more than one. Scopes can also nest to any depth, as in [[[[Garden]] Shed]] Roof. A scope is an ordinary wikilink and needs no page of its own. Since it is part of the name, the name by itself links a scoped concept to its scope, and renaming the scope renames the scoped concept.

To write a scoped link, type [[ to start the outer link and [[ again inside it for the scope. You can also select [[Garden]] Tools on one line and press [ twice to get [[[[Garden]] Tools]].

In the outer brackets, the suggestion list offers every name, scoped concepts included. In the inner brackets it leaves them out, so you pick the scope from plain names.

A scoped link is a single link with one part per name, and each part works as a link on its own. Click the scope to open its page, or click anywhere else in the link to open the scoped concept. Right-click a part and the items on its menu, such as Show Backlinks, Show Tasks and Rename…, act on the name under the pointer. A part whose name has no page gets a dashed underline of its own, so the other parts still look like links to pages that exist.

Scopes in page names

Once a page has a scope in its name, you can find the scope in Search and in the suggestion list, even if it has no page and no text links to it. The Backlinks panel for a scope lists every page whose name contains it. In the panel for Garden, [[Garden]] Shed gets a group labelled Page, with its name quoted under a Title label.

The Backlinks panel for Plant, listing the scoped page Plant Foods under a Title label

Tasks on a scoped concept also count for every scope in its name. The tasks on [[Garden]] Shed, for example, show in The Tasks View and on Kanban Boards when either is set to Garden. The Graph View tints the lines that join a scoped concept to each scope in its name, but not the lines for links in text.

Renamed and deleted scopes

Renaming a scope also renames every scoped concept that has it, at any depth. If you choose Update the links, the app rewrites links to those scoped concepts to use their new names. If the scope has a page, you can choose Keep the old name working instead. The scoped concepts then keep their old names as aliases, so a link written with an old name still opens the page. See Titles Aliases And Frontmatter for more information.

Deleting a scope's page with Delete… leaves its scoped concepts as they are, because a name can exist without a page. They still link to the scope, which becomes a name with no page again.

Scoped concepts outside the editor

Search reads the brackets in a name as spaces, so typing garden tools finds [[Garden]] Tools. In Local Graphs, the inner brackets stay in the file name, as in pages/[[Garden]] Tools.md. See Graph Folder Layout for more information.

On a published site, each part of a scoped link points to its own page, or to the not found page if that page is not published. See Publishing Your Notes As A Website for more information.

When you import from Logseq, each level of a namespace becomes a scope of the next. For example, garden/tools comes in as [[garden]] tools, so the Backlinks panel for garden lists the imported page. Imports from Obsidian and AS Notes keep each file name as the page name. They add a scope only where names clash across folders, and take it from the nearest folders that tell those names apart. See Importing A Knowledge Base for more information.

  • Document Syntax
  • Glossary
    • | scope | The ordinary wikilink inside a scoped concept, such as [[Garden]] in [[[[Garden]] Tools]]. It needs no page. | Scoped Concepts |
    • | scoped concept | A name with a wikilink inside it, such as [[[[Garden]] Tools]]. It has a page of its own. | Scoped Concepts |
  • Importing A Knowledge Base
    • Namespace pages become scoped concepts, such as [[Garden]] Beans for Garden/Beans (Scoped Concepts). Tags become links, such as [[garden]] for #garden.
  • Kanban Boards
    • A task that links to one of a page's aliases goes on that page's board. Tasks on a page named within a concept, such as [[Garden]] Beds, also go on the Garden board. For aliases, see Titles Aliases And Frontmatter, and for pages named within a concept, see Scoped Concepts.
  • Pages And Wikilinks
    • A link inside a link names a scoped page. For example, [[[[Garden]] Beds]] links to Beds within Garden, a different page from [[Beds]]. See Scoped Concepts for more information.
  • The Graph View
    • A tinted line joins a page to the scope in its name, such as Garden in [[Garden]] Notes (see Scoped Concepts). Lines run into Protected Documents but never out of them, locked or unlocked, because their links sit in encrypted text that the index never reads. The picture leaves out Templates.
  • The Tasks View
    • A task matches a name when the name is linked on the task line itself, on any bullet above it in the outline, or in a heading above it. Links in a heading apply to every task in that section, while links on a bullet apply only to the tasks under that bullet. A task also matches the document it is in and each scope in that document's name, so the tasks on [[Garden]] Shed show for Garden. See Scoped Concepts for more information on scopes.
  • Titles Aliases And Frontmatter
    • Renaming a page also renames the pages that use its name as a scope, such as Garden in [[Garden]] Tools. See Scoped Concepts for more information.