# Links and mentions Link to a page or an entity with a mention, or by highlighting your own words. A mention puts a page or an entity in your sentence by name. A linked highlight keeps your own words and colors them. Every page lists what links to it. ![A block with a mention of Priya Shah, in green with a person icon, and the words “the leftover hall tile is enough for the pantry wall” highlighted in lilac](img/linked.webp) *A mention, then a highlight.* ## Mentions 1. Type `@` (at the start of a block or after a space), or `[[`. 2. Type a few letters of a name. The list shows pages, entities and [days](dates.md). Names that start with your letters come first. 3. Press `Enter`, or click one. ![A block ending “@pri” with the Link to menu: Priya Shah #person, then New page, New #task, New #project and New #person “pri”](img/mention.webp) *Typing @ opens the Link to menu.* If nothing has that name yet, the list offers to make it: *New #person “Priya Shah”* (for your most-used tags), or *New page “…”*. A new entity lives on its own, and the mention points at it. - A mention is one solid piece. `Backspace` takes it whole. - It always shows the current name and icon. Rename the page, and every mention changes. - Click it to go there. ### Already here? Fennick says so when something you are making looks like something you have. In the list, up to three pages or entities with a name alike show right under *New page*, the closest first, each marked “already here”: typing `[[Dr. Patel` shows *Dr Patel · #person · already here*. Case, dots, accents and word order don’t count, and a slipped letter is allowed. A name that holds every word of the other counts too, such as “Dr Patel physio”. Names with different numbers, such as “Task 1” and “Task 2”, are never alike. Enter still makes the new one; pick the row to mention the one you have. When you tag a block you have just written, and an entity with that tag has a name alike, a small note under the block asks: *Same as Dr Patel? Link instead · Keep new*. The name is the block’s words up to the first comma, colon, semicolon, bracket or dash, so “Dr. Patel, physio #person” asks about Dr Patel. - **Link instead**, on a block that is only the name, such as “Dr Patel #person”, puts the Dr Patel already there in its place: one block, with its tags and fields, and typing there types on it. The block you just made goes to the Trash. On a block with more words, it turns the name into a mention of Dr Patel, keeps the rest of your words, and takes the tag off. Either way there is one Dr Patel, and Undo puts it back. - **Keep new** keeps yours, and Fennick doesn’t ask about that pair again on this device, here or in the Library’s [Maybe duplicates](library-and-tasks.md#library) and *Might be the same*. - You can keep typing. The note goes after a few seconds, or when you press `Esc`, scroll or go to another block. - Only a block made in the last 10 minutes, that nothing links to yet, is asked about. `#person`, `#project`, `#place` and your own tags are asked; `#task`, the date tags and Fennick’s other tags are not: two to-dos alike are two. Agents get the same rule. When one adds a tagged block named like one already there, Fennick makes nothing and tells it which one, such as “Dr Patel is a #person already”. The agent then mentions that one, or asks again for a new one. ## Linked highlights Link your own words to a page or an entity, without changing them. The words become a [highlight](#research-highlights) About that page or entity. 1. Select the words. 2. Press `⌘K`, or click **Link** in the toolbar. 3. Type to find the page or entity. Press `Enter`. - The words stay as you wrote them. The entity's color shows behind them. - A small badge in the right margin shows the entity's tag icon (or its first letter, if the tag has no icon). Click the badge to go there. - The entity's page lists the passage, with the words around it. - Paste a web address in the same box to make a web link instead. To take a link off: select the words, press `⌘K` and pick *Remove link*, or click the pressed Link button in the toolbar. A mention gives back its name as plain words. ## Highlights Highlight words you want to keep: a passage in your notes on a book, a few words from a call. Each highlight is an entity of its own, tagged `#highlight`, so you can find, sort and count them with queries. 1. Select the words. 2. Press `⌘⇧H`, or click the highlight button in the toolbar. To pick a color first, click **⌄** beside it. To write a note or set About as you go, without leaving your writing: 1. Select the words and press `⌃⌘H` (`Ctrl+Alt+H` elsewhere). On a phone, hold the highlight button in the toolbar. 2. The highlight's peek opens beside the words (on a phone, across the screen above the keyboard), the caret in its note. Type your note. 3. Press `Tab` (on a phone, tap **About**) to go to **About**. Type to find a page or an entity, and press `Enter` to link it. The caret goes back to the note; `Tab` again links another. `Tab` in the search goes back to the note without linking. 4. Press `Esc`, or tap **Done** on a phone. The caret is back in your writing, where it was. With the caret in a highlight, `⌃⌘H` opens its peek the same way. - The words stay exactly where you wrote them, with a soft color behind them. - The highlight's name is its words. Change the words and its name changes with them. - It knows its **Source**: the entity its words sit in, such as the `#book` your notes are under, or the day you wrote them on. Fennick keeps it as the words move. - Its **About** field holds what it is about, and its **Color** field its color. Add fields of your own to `#highlight`, or a tag that builds on it, such as `#insight`. - Rest the mouse on the words to see the highlight's card: its fields and your notes on it. - Delete the words, or pick **Remove highlight**, and the highlight goes to the Trash with them. Undo brings both back. A query can go through Source to the fields of what the words sit in: `#highlight where Source › Status is Reading`, or `#highlight where Source › Topic is Ayurveda and Source › Name contains Vata`. On `#book`, a Rollup that counts back through Source shows how many highlights each book has. See [Queries](queries.md). Agents can make them too: the connector's `highlight` tool, or `==words==` in what an agent writes, which become a highlight as `⌘⇧H` makes one. `==(Rose)words==` makes a Rose one. See [People and agents](agents.md). Words with a color but no highlight of their own, such as yellow words an agent wrote before, show no card. Select them and press `⌘⇧H`: they become a highlight in the same color. ## Peek On a computer, rest the mouse on a mention, a reference, a linked highlight or an entry in a tag's [Calendar view](views.md#calendar) for about half a second. A peek opens: the entity itself, not a summary. - It shows the tag's icon, the title, the tags, the fields and the first 8 blocks. A longer one says how many more blocks there are, with *go to the page*. An empty one says “Nothing inside yet.” - You can edit the title, the fields and the blocks right there. A day's title can't be changed. - *Go to page →* opens it in full. - Rest the mouse on a name inside a peek, such as a highlight's Source, and its own peek opens over it, the first one still under it. - It stays while the mouse or the caret is in it. `Esc` closes the top peek, and the one under it stays while the mouse or the caret is in it; a click outside them all closes every one. ![A peek over the page for Priya Shah: her name, the #person tag, her Company, Phone and Email, and Go to page](img/peek.webp) *The peek: the entity itself, editable.* Phones have no peek. A tap goes straight to the page. ## Backlinks Every page and entity shows what points at it, one row for each place: - **A page it is shown on**: its name. - **A mention**, or words linked to it: the words around them, with its name marked. Highlights About it are in [Highlights](#highlights-in-the-panel). - **A field pointing at it**: the field's name and its name, such as “Owner: Priya Shah”. A link written in a Text value counts. See it on an entity's page in [Tags](tags.md#own-page). Click a row to go there, with that place lit up for a moment. A page's own blocks that mention it are not listed. Backlinks sit in the right panel, in its **Links** view, beside the page rather than in it. Open the panel with its button at the right end of the band across the top, or `⌘⌥\`. The **Backlinks** heading says how many there are; with none, it says “Nothing points here yet.” With more than 200, it lists the newest 200 and ends with “and 1,500 more”, the count of the rest. Under each row is where that block lives: its page, its day, or the entity it is inside. Click the heading to fold it; each page remembers its folds on this device. ### Related Under Backlinks, **Related** lists the pages and entities most related to this one, best first. The bar beside each name shows how related it is, with no number: longer and bluer is closer, shorter and redder is less. The words under it say why: “1 link” (it links here, or this page links to it), “links to the same pages”, “the same name” or “a name like it”, “shares #health” (a tag few others wear), “the same Status: Done” (the same value in the same field), or “similar ideas”. Click a row to open it. It shows 8 rows first; **Show more** shows the rest. A page with nothing related has no Related section, and a day has Related dates instead. A page with the same or nearly the same name that also shares a tag, a field value or a link says “possible duplicate”, with **Merge** beside it. Merge asks *Keep which one?*: the one you keep takes the other’s blocks, tags, values and links, and the other goes to the Trash, as with [Maybe duplicates](library-and-tasks.md#library) in the Library. Undo takes it back. “Similar ideas” is Related by meaning: in the Mac app, when your AI setting is On-device only or AI allowed (Settings › AI), Fennick also finds pages about the same subjects in other words, or in another language. It works this out on your Mac with Google’s EmbeddingGemma model, which the Mac app fetches once (about 220 MB) the first time it’s needed; nothing of your notes leaves your Mac for it. On a big notebook the first pass takes a while in the background, and Related says “Finding related notes…” with how far it is. New writing is worked out a few seconds after you stop changing it. For a notebook that syncs, the Mac also sends what it found to Fennick’s server, as numbers with no words, so a browser or phone at On-device only or AI allowed shows the same “similar ideas”. Until the Mac has sent them, or for a notebook kept only on your Mac, a browser or phone shows the links and tags. At No AI, that device’s copy is removed. When the notebook itself is set to No AI (**This notebook**, in Settings › AI), the server’s copy goes too. At AI allowed, Related also asks Jev, a service run by TypeSafe, to put its top 12 rows in order, through Fennick’s server. It sends the opening words of this page and of each row, and no ids. The rows show at once, and the next time you open the page they come in Jev’s order; a row never moves while you look. A row that links here or shares a tag always stays; one found by meaning alone may drop when Jev rates it low. See [Privacy](/privacy.md). Gemma is provided under and subject to the Gemma Terms of Use found at ai.google.dev/gemma/terms. ### Unlinked mentions The same panel lists blocks where the page's name is written as plain words, not linked yet. Whole words count, in any case. Click **Unlinked mentions** to open it; it starts folded. Each row shows the words around the name, and **Link** beside it links those words to the page: the words stay as you wrote them, and the row moves up into **Backlinks**. Undo takes it back. A name under 3 letters isn't looked for, and a day isn't either. ### Highlights in the panel Highlights have their own section, **Highlights**, at the top of the panel's **Links** view, above Backlinks: - **Outgoing**: every highlight whose words are on this page, in page order, each in its own color, with what it is About and the start of its note. Click one to go to its words on the page. - **Incoming**: every highlight elsewhere that is About this page, each in its own color, with the words around it and where it is (its Source). Click one to go to those words in their page. Rest the mouse on a highlight's words there to see its card, as on the page. A part with no highlights isn't shown, and a page with none has no Highlights section. Highlights About a page are listed here, not under Backlinks. ### Outgoing links **Outgoing links**, folded too, is the other way round: what this page links to, from its blocks and their fields, including a link in a Text value. Each row opens what it links to. ### Related dates **Related dates**, folded too, is last in **Links**. On a date page, it lists the week, month, quarter and year it sits in, and its pages that come back every year (see [Dates](dates.md#spine)). On any other page, its own Date fields, the dates of what its fields link to, and the days its blocks are dated to or name. ### This page The panel's **This page** view holds what the page is: when it was created and by whom, when it was last edited and by whom, everyone who has edited it, its words with their characters and reading time, how many blocks and files it holds, and when it was done, if it has a box. What points at it and what it points at are in **Links**. ### Dated this day elsewhere A day page's right panel also lists entities whose date field holds that day, such as a task due then. Each row shows the entity's box (for to-dos and tasks), its name, and on the right where it lives; point at a row to see which field and day. Done ones sit below the open ones, dimmed. With none, it says “Nothing else is dated this day.” A week, month, quarter or year page lists what is dated in it, with the day too. Click a section's heading to fold it. ## Links to pages and entities deleted for good A link to something deleted for good stays in the block. It is drawn grey with its last name: Old plan. Clicking it says “That was deleted for good.” Something in the Trash is not deleted for good; restore it and its links work as before.