Problem with backlinks not showing up

[stefano franchi]

Hello,

I am trying to put together a very minimal project mngt system for my personal use and I am having troubles getting the backlinks[] filter to work. Here is my problem:

- Let's say I have a tiddler tagged Project and a series of tiddlers tagged Task

- I want a list with all the Tasks belonging to a given Project showing up in said Project page

- I thought I could solve the problem by looking for all the tiddlers tagged Task with backlinks to the Project.

- IOW, I would (automatically) put something like the following in a Project tiddler:

<$list filter=[[all[current]backlinks[]tag[Task]]>
<$link/>
</$list>

- This approach works if I explicitly insert a link to a Project into the body a Task, i.e. if I have a tiddler "someTask", for instance, whose body contains the text "This task is needed by [[someProject]]"

- It does NOT work however, if someTask has a field 'project" with value "[[someProject]]" or "someProject", NOR does it work if I transclude into the body of someTask the content of the field "project".

What am I doing wrong? I am trying to have the backlink to Project created  automatically when a Task is created, instead of having to insert it manually into the body of the Task.

Help greatly appreciated,

 

Stefano

 

--

__________________________________________________
Stefano Franchi

stefano...@gmail.com

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefano_Franchi

[PMario]

Hi Stefano,

It seems your filter syntax is wrong. 

There is a very simple test, which I always do with my fingers. I add 1 for opening brace and remove on for a closing brace. In the end it needs to be 0. 

This does not tell if the filter is valid, but it is a good indicator. If at the end there is a finger left, or "missing" ;)

I did test it. It should do what you want. See the start of the filter `[all[current]...` there is only 1 opening brace in front a "all"

<$list filter=[all[current]backlinks[]tag[Task]]>
<$link/>
</$list> 

You may also have a look at talk.tiddlywiki.org, which is the new official forum now. 

There is much more traffic so you may get your answer faster. 

Have fun!

Mario

[stefano franchi]

On Sat, Jan 3, 2026 at 11:41 AM PMario <pmar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Stefano,

It seems your filter syntax is wrong. 

There is a very simple test, which I always do with my fingers. I add 1 for opening brace and remove on for a closing brace. In the end it needs to be 0. 

This does not tell if the filter is valid, but it is a good indicator. If at the end there is a finger left, or "missing" ;)

I did test it. It should do what you want. See the start of the filter `[all[current]...` there is only 1 opening brace in front a "all"

<$list filter=[all[current]backlinks[]tag[Task]]>
<$link/>
</$list> 

Thanks Mario,

It was my mistake in the post to add an extra bracket. The syntax of my actual filter in my TW5 is exactly as the one you suggested.

In fact, I do get back the names of the tiddlers with explicitly inserted links, which seems to suggest there are no syntax errors. I am just not getting those linked through the tiddler's fields 

And I wasn't aware the forums had moved---its been a few years since I used Tiddlywiki.

I will repost there (and with the correct syntax, this time!)

  

You may also have a look at talk.tiddlywiki.org, which is the new official forum now. 

There is much more traffic so you may get your answer faster. 

Have fun!

Mario

On Saturday, January 3, 2026 at 2:16:35 AM UTC+1 stefano franchi wrote:

Hello,

I am trying to put together a very minimal project mngt system for my personal use and I am having troubles getting the backlinks[] filter to work. Here is my problem:

- Let's say I have a tiddler tagged Project and a series of tiddlers tagged Task

- I want a list with all the Tasks belonging to a given Project showing up in said Project page

- I thought I could solve the problem by looking for all the tiddlers tagged Task with backlinks to the Project.

- IOW, I would (automatically) put something like the following in a Project tiddler:

<$list filter=[[all[current]backlinks[]tag[Task]]>
<$link/>
</$list>

- This approach works if I explicitly insert a link to a Project into the body a Task, i.e. if I have a tiddler "someTask", for instance, whose body contains the text "This task is needed by [[someProject]]"

- It does NOT work however, if someTask has a field 'project" with value "[[someProject]]" or "someProject", NOR does it work if I transclude into the body of someTask the content of the field "project".

What am I doing wrong? I am trying to have the backlink to Project created  automatically when a Task is created, instead of having to insert it manually into the body of the Task.

Help greatly appreciated,

 

Stefano

 

--

__________________________________________________
Stefano Franchi

stefano...@gmail.com

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefano_Franchi

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/fef63401-0f45-476f-9293-1f321b51991bn%40googlegroups.com.

[springer]

This topic is still not showing up at the talk.tiddlywiki.org forum as something we can reply to.

Briefly, I can say: I do believe backlinks is designed to look only for explicit links within the text field of other tiddlers.

It seems you were hoping that the backlinks filter operator would catch links in various other fields, and gestures toward the project in the form of transclusions. 

There is a backtranscludes operator (https://tiddlywiki.com/#backtranscludes%20Operator).

You can also have a filter search fields to check for the current (project) tiddler (using a colon and an asterisk directs the search to consider all fields. You could also just use search:project to restrict focus to the project field.

So, something like what's below should catch the two kinds of connections (to a project, from task tiddlers) that you weren't seeing with backlinks alone:

{{{ [<currentTiddler>backlinks[]] [<currentTiddler>backtranscludes[]] [search:*<currentTiddler>] +[tag[task]] }}}

Cheers!