caption: Linking
created: 20131205155230596
modified: 20211230145939554
tags: WikiText
title: Linking in WikiText
type: text/vnd.tiddlywiki

A key capability of WikiText is the ability to make links to other tiddlers or to external websites.

! Manual Links

Link to a tiddler by title:

```
[[Tiddler Title]]
```

To link to a tiddler and specify the text of the link:

```
[[Displayed Link Title|Tiddler Title]]
```

You can also create a link from the editor toolbar. Click ''link'' (<<.icon $:/core/images/link>>), and search and select a tiddler.

! ~CamelCase Links

For tiddler titles that match the CamelCase rules, just typing the title without double square brackets will automatically create a link.

You can suppress a link from being recognised by preceding it with `~`. For example:

<<wikitext-example src:"* ~HelloThere is not a link
* ~http://google.com/ is not a link">>

! External Links

To link to an external [[resource|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_resource]] such as a website or a file, type its //full// [[URL|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL]], including the [[URI scheme|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_scheme]] such as a protocol (e.g. `http://`, `file://`) or `mailto`:

```
https://tiddlywiki.com/

[[TW5|https://tiddlywiki.com/]]

[[Mail me|mailto:me@where.net]]

[[Open file|file:///c:/users/me/index.html]]
```

For this syntax to work, the URL has to be recognisable as a URL. Otherwise, it is treated as a tiddler title. As a result, in case you want to link to a resource locatable using a relative path, use the extended syntax:

```
[ext[Open file|index.html]]

[ext[Open file|./index.html]]

[ext[Open file|../README.md]]

[ext[Open file|c:\users\me\index.html]]
```

The extended syntax still works with full URLs, although in that case it is not necessary:

```
[ext[https://tiddlywiki.com]]

[ext[TW5|https://tiddlywiki.com]]

[ext[Mail me|mailto:me@where.net]]

[ext[Open file|file:///c:/users/me/index.html]]
```

You can also use the extended syntax to force an external link:

```
[ext[Donate|bitcoin:1aabbdd....?amount=0.001]]
```

! Customising Tiddler Links

See the LinkWidget for details of the underlying widget used to implement tiddler links, including macros that can be used to customise its behaviour.

! Generating dynamic links

[[Linking in WikiText]] does not lend itself well to creating dynamic links. The reason is because this WikiText link:

```
[[link to myself|Linking in WikiText]]
```
is shorthand for using the LinkWidget and TextWidget like this:

```
<$link to="Linking in WikiText">
  <$text text="link to myself"/>
</$link>
```
Since both the link title ("link to myself") and the link target ("Linking in ~WikiText") are used as widget attributes, no WikiText expansion takes place.

For example, an attempt to use a [[reference|TextReference]] and a [[variable|Variables]] to dynamically generate a link like this:

<<.bad-example "`[[{{!!caption}}|<<currentTiddler>>]]`">>

is the same as trying to use the LinkWidget and TextWidget like this:

<<.bad-example """```
<$link to="<<currentTiddler>>">
  <$text text="{{!!caption}}"/>
</$link>
```""">>

This will not work as desired. Content inside of quoted widget attributes is [[treated as a literal value|HTML in WikiText]] and protected from WikiText expansion, so it will render like this:

<<.bad-example "[[{{!!caption}}|<<currentTiddler>>]]">>

In order to get the desired result, the LinkWidget can be used directly like this:

<<wikitext-example-without-html src:"<$link to=<<currentTiddler>>>{{!!caption}}</$link>">>

See also another example of [[constructing dynamic links|Concatenating text and variables using macro substitution]].