Hesitation about Proprietary Card Linking Syntax

I am absolutely in love with Supernotes and already within a couple weeks I have used all my cards. I am thinking of upgrading to unlimited but I have just one hesitation. The syntax used for linking cards together is not compatible with other programs. I don’t much care about other programs because none of them feel as beautiful as Supernotes but it is important for me to future proof my notes and their organization.

An official feature would be great but I understand why the founders would not want to invest time into a feature that streamlines the process of users moving out of the app. But is there a way to use API for scanning all of the proprietary links generated with [[ ]] and converting them into more standard formats that could be compatible with apps like Obsidian or one of the open source ones.

These links are the primary way of organizing notes in this app and if I export my markdown files without appropriate links 4 years in the future then I’ll simply be left with thousands of individual cards - this is a nightmare scenario.

Hi @krtktwri, welcome to the Supernotes Community :wave:

Really happy to hear you’re enjoying Supernotes :heart: Our linking syntax is in fact just based on standard Markdown links but instead of a url we insert the id of a card [Alias Name of Card](^id_of_card). We chose this so our format is more in line with Markdown and less proprietary (although less common) than the double bracket syntax found in other systems.

Another reason why we do this is that Supernotes’ card names are non-unique, you can have multiple cards called meeting for example (and can belong in different parent cards in your hierarchy). This isn’t possible in flat structured programs like Obsidian which require names to be unique.

I can understand your concern for future-proofing though, and that’s why we’ve recently been looking into supporting a universal export format like TextBundle – which will give you a more comprehensive way of moving your notes. You can upvote that feature request here. You can also always export all your data as a .json file and I’m sure with a little help of AI (esp. in four years) you can convert the data to match whatever system you’d like to import them in the future.

However we actually think that importing / exporting notes between systems is often counter-intuitive, most of the information you won’t need in the future and it might not work well in a different system / format – often it’s best to keep the old system around as a reference. That’s why one of our promises is that even if you decide to cancel your subscription you’ll always be able to access and edit your existing notes for free.

I hope that helps give you some more peace of mind :blush:

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