Edit Link Alias

This is a plugin for Obsidian that adds an Edit link alias command (changes only the display text of the link under your cursor) and an Edit link (URL and alias) command (a two-field pop-up that edits the link's target and display text together). Both are available from the Command Palette, the editor right-click menu, and the link long-press / Reading-view context menu, and work on internal wikilinks, markdown links, external links, and links in a note's frontmatter alike. Alt + clicking a link opens that editor right at the link, and the same editor is what the context menu opens.

Editing a link by Alt + clicking it

Alt + click a link (Option + click on macOS) and the editor opens as a small pop-up right at the link, instead of the link opening. It works in Reading view, Live Preview, and source mode, on desktop and mobile.

The pop-up opens on the alias with the text already selected, so the more common edit needs no extra click; Tab moves to the URL.

It does not matter which part of the link you click — the display text or the destination — or where the text cursor happens to be, including inside the link itself.

Alt + click is used because Obsidian gives it no meaning on a link, so nothing you already do changes: a plain click still opens the link, and Ctrl + click (Cmd + click) still opens it in a new tab.

It is on by default; turn it off with Should open link editor on Alt + click in Settings → Edit Link Alias.

Links in the frontmatter

Links living in a note's properties are editable the same way: Alt + click one in the Properties panel, right-click it, or put the cursor on it in source mode where the frontmatter is plain YAML. Property names are matched regardless of their capitalization, so a Homepage: property works exactly like a homepage: one.

Such an edit is written back through the frontmatter, so the value is quoted whenever it needs to be — url: https://example.com becomes url: "[Example](https://example.com)" rather than a note that no longer parses. Two consequences worth knowing:

• the frontmatter block is re-serialized, so comments and hand formatting inside it are normalized;
• the change is written to the file rather than typed into the editor, so it is not part of the editor's undo history.

Demo vault

A demo vault with usage examples ships with every release. You can access it via any of the following:

1. Running the Edit Link Alias: Open demo vault command.
2. Downloading edit-link-alias-demo-vault-<version>.zip (<version> is the release version) from the Releases.
3. Browsing its source in demo-vault/ in this repository.

Installation

The plugin is available in the official Community Plugins repository.

Beta versions

To install the latest beta release of this plugin (regardless if it is available in the official Community Plugins repository or not), follow these steps:

1. Ensure you have the BRAT plugin installed and enabled.
2. Click Install via BRAT.
3. An Obsidian pop-up window should appear. In the window, click the Add plugin button once and wait a few seconds for the plugin to install.

Debugging

By default, debug messages for this plugin are hidden.

To show them, run the following command in the DevTools Console:

window.DEBUG.enable('edit-link-alias');

For more details, refer to the documentation.

Support

My other Obsidian resources

See my other Obsidian resources.

License

© Michael Naumov