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Backlinks Panel

Overview

The backlinks panel shows which files in the workspace link to the currently active file. It detects both [[wikilinks]] and standard [text](file.md) markdown links, providing a reverse-link graph for navigating between related documents.

The panel is accessible as a "Links" tab within the existing outline panel (alongside Outline, Statistics, and Hub tabs).

Key Files

File Purpose
src/ui/backlinks_panel.rs BacklinksPanel UI component — renders the backlink list, handles click-to-navigate
src/state.rs BacklinkIndex, BacklinkEntry — in-memory reverse-link index with build/update/scan methods
src/ui/outline_panel.rs Hosts the "Links" tab in OutlinePanelTab enum, passes through to BacklinksPanel
src/app/navigation.rs refresh_backlinks() — smart refresh strategy based on workspace size
src/app/file_ops.rs Triggers incremental index update on file save, clears index on workspace close
src/app/mod.rs backlinks_panel field on FerriteApp, tab-switch detection via last_active_tab_for_backlinks

Implementation Details

Index Strategy (Adaptive)

The indexing approach scales with workspace size:

Workspace Size Strategy Trigger
≤50 files On-demand scan via BacklinkIndex::scan_on_demand() Every tab switch
>50 files Full HashMap<filename, Vec<BacklinkEntry>> cached in AppState.backlink_index Built on first access, updated incrementally on file save
Single-file mode Scans all markdown files in the current file's parent directory Every tab switch

Link Detection

extract_links_from_content() in state.rs performs lightweight regex-free text scanning:

  • Wikilinks: [[target]] and [[target|display text]] — extracts the target portion
  • Standard links: [text](file.md) — only matches local .md/.markdown files (ignores http://, https://, and #anchor links)
  • Filename normalization: normalize_filename() strips .md/.markdown extensions and lowercases for case-insensitive matching

Reactivity

Backlinks refresh on two events:

  1. Tab switch — detected by comparing last_active_tab_for_backlinks with the current active tab index
  2. File save — handle_save_file() and handle_save_as_file() set backlinks_need_refresh = true and call backlink_index.update_file() for incremental updates

UI Integration

The backlinks panel is rendered as a tab inside the existing OutlinePanel:

  • OutlinePanelTab::Backlinks — new enum variant
  • Tab bar shows "🔗 Links" between Statistics and Hub
  • BacklinksPanelOutput.navigate_to propagated through OutlinePanelOutput.backlink_navigate_to → file open in app/mod.rs
  • Click on a backlink entry opens that file as a tab via state.open_file()

Dependencies Used

No new crate dependencies. Uses only standard library (HashMap, PathBuf, fs::read_to_string).

Usage

  1. Open a workspace containing markdown files with [[wikilinks]] or [text](file.md) links
  2. Open the outline panel (toggle via ribbon or keyboard shortcut)
  3. Click the "🔗 Links" tab
  4. The panel shows all files that link to the currently active file
  5. Click any backlink entry to navigate to that file

Tests

11 unit tests in src/state.rs:

  • test_normalize_filename — case-insensitive extension stripping
  • test_extract_wikilinks_from_content — [[target]] and [[target|display]] extraction
  • test_extract_standard_links_from_content — [text](file.md) extraction
  • test_extract_links_ignores_urls — HTTP/HTTPS URLs filtered out
  • test_extract_links_ignores_anchors — #anchor links filtered out
  • test_extract_mixed_links — combined wikilink + standard link extraction
  • test_extract_unclosed_wikilink — malformed [[ handled gracefully
  • test_extract_empty_wikilink — empty [[]] produces no link
  • test_backlink_index_get_and_build — full index build from test files
  • test_backlink_index_update_file — incremental update after file modification
  • test_backlink_scan_on_demand — on-demand scanning for small workspaces