Org-Roam V2 rename file or #+TITLE

How To Requests
1

Issue: If I rename the #+TITLE tag in a file neither the file-name nor other links are changed.
Please refer to the Issue #1425 for org-roam V1 here: Renaming title doesn't update links · Issue #1425 · org-roam/org-roam · GitHub

How is this handled in V2?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Regards,
Jochen

1 Like
2

I don’t think V2 does anything for title change. The links are ID based, so title change and filename change do not affect links.

3

I do agree (because I couldn’t find anything related to V2).
But still, it is very unfortunate because:
For example:

  • My TITLE is Jochen Burkhard Department A
  • I change it to B
  • The links still show A in any buffer referring to the title

There has to be something to address this won’t you think?
Likewise, the file-name still is: jochen_burkhard_department_a
That not only looks wrong, it is wrong, I would argue

I wonder how you guys handle links to files.

P.S. As always, I’m very grateful for your fast and resourceful support.

4

I can’t speak for Jethro and the project, but my sense is that he felt the title/filename change feature in V1 had many issues (high support efforts) and it had always been “brittle” (the term Jethro often uses) despite all the support and patches.

Given this, I don’t believe the title/filename change feature will make its way back into V2.

You would probably need to think of your own way to manage the title change – filename change is a yet separate function technically speaking.

I don’t think it’s easy to come up with a generic solution. For example, it would not make sense to me at all. I can have a description for each ID link totally different to the title and each other: e.g.:

  1. #+Title: Meeting 2021-06-11 - Budget; :ID:uuid
  2. Link A [[id:uuid][Budget on the new marketing material]]
  3. Link B [[id:uuid][Meeting on budget on 11 June 2021]]

I would not want Emacs to automatically do anything to Link A and Link B.

For the filename, I use the ID as the filename (with the .org extension), so I don’t have any issue when title changes.

One thought.
An interactive function that you run per buffer.
To change unconditionally the description of every Org-roam link in the current buffer back to the current title. This would not be a good generic solution but as a custom function, it would be rather straightforward to make.

5

Agreed in regard to the Link / File handling.
3 Questions, though:

  1. None of your links in the example is a file-link, so how is this done if the filename is id:uuid and do I have to type the link-name then? and
  2. Is there a safe and manageable way to change my 700 filenames to id.org?
  3. Your #+TITEL looks as if the ID and uuid are tags, why is that and the ID already is in the :PROPERTIES: - Is there any useful idea behind that?

Thanks again, dear comrade, for your feedback,
J.

6

Sure.

  1. On V2, file-links are not recognised as nodes, so no backlinks. I don’t use file-links within Org-roam any more.
  2. Is this mass file re-naming? Have a backup of all the 700 files and have a script to do mass re-naming. I see no issue in principle. I don’t think I have such script myself, though.
  3. No that’s not how my Org files are written; just an example for the bullet points. It should be like this (a real example):
:properties:
:id: 2021-04-13T110141
:category: Meeting
:modified: 2021-06-16T131201
:end:
#+title: Meeting: Team Meeting
7

Thanks again for your insights.
Helped me a lot with understanding V2 better.
What I try to do now is:

  • No more file-links
  • Try to link to my dailies via TITLE node (because I just need that very often)

2 Questions - again :wink:

  1. Would you advise using ROAM_TAGS ROAM_ALIAS vs. FILETAGS (at all or what you propose)
  2. How are filenames done with Id.org (Can’t find anything and barely understand what {slug} does - maybe TITLE text but not id, right?)
8

I really don’t have any recommendations for tags in general. Very light use on my end.

I don’t user Org-agenda (I tried, but I cannot keep using it; I guess it’s not my thing), so I don’t use tags very much (I don’t know if I even have any in my Org-roam – it does not really matter to me).

I don’t believe ROAM_TAGS are used on V2. Have a look at the current version of V2 documentation on tags. It’s merged with the standard Org Mode’s tag system. So it’s either filetags or tags on headlines. I think this also mentioned in the wiki (Hitchhiker’s Rough Guide to V2).

I use filetags only as a category. One category per file out of 4 candidates. I have this for work files. The key for me is whether or not I squeezed my brain to come up with the idea in the note in qusetion (creation), or borrowed someone else’s work (reference). Index and meetings should be self-explanatory.

("w" "work" plain "%?" :if-new
           (file+head "work/%<%Y-%m-%dT%H%M%S>__%(substring(my/insert-category) 0 1).org"
                      ":properties:\n:id: %<%Y-%m-%dT%H%M%S>\n:modified: <>\n:end:\n#+title: ${title}\n#+filetags: %(downcase (my/insert-category))\n")
           :unnarrowed t)

  (defun my/insert-category ()
    (completing-read "Category: " '("Creation" "Reference" "Index" "Meeting")))

So my work files look like this: 2021-01-26T150000__M.org.
The first letter of the category is purely for filtering purpose in Dired or Windows Explorer (filesystem) – if I want to look at only one of the categories, I can look for files with __M or whatever. Not sure if it is useful for other people. Having dates in front of filenames is great for sorting in chronological order.

I don’t use aliases – also have look at the documentation. It should be ROAM_ALIASES – plural now, I think.

9

I read the docu and was convinced - as you said - that ROAM_TAGS are no longer a thing.
But then I saw in the DOOM Org-Roam V2 package updates some new features reg. ROAM_TAGS.

Anyway thanks again for your continued support and your stellar work on your packages and esp. your thoughts about Dendron. It’s always a pleasure to follow along what u r up to. Have a great day,
Jochen

10

Thanks :pray: Just to be sure… Dendron is not my contribution. Please credit the suthor @spicy for his awesome work :rocket:

1 Like
11

Note: This is essentially the same topic as Does renaming title no longer renames the filename?