Hi all,
I’ve used many block references to connect various types of information to a single project topic. Now, the list of linked (block) references to that block has grown very long and is hard to read or make sense of.
Here’s the problem:
- You can’t filter or search in the list of backlinks the way you can with regular page references .
- You can’t full text search or query the graph for block references as they don’t return the blocks that reference the original block . Referencing blocks contain only the UUID of the target block, not its actual text, and thus search or queries only find the original block, not its backlinks. So you can’t use search or queries to filter block backlinks either.
My questions:
- Does anyone have suggestions for navigating long lists of block references more effectively?
- Is there an easy and safe way to convert block references into regular page references, so I can take advantage of filtering, search, and queries on the project page?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Linked references provide only a basic means for getting informed about the existence of connections. Working with those connections needs better tools.
- Converting needs scripting, so it is not a solution of preference.
- Advanced queries support searching for and filtering block references in both directions and by actual text.
- If you provide some example pages, blocks, and searching criteria, we can construct for you a query that returns only the desired results and can be adjusted for all similar cases.
- If we reach the actual limitations of queries, we can still inform the query with a macro or employ the full power of a kit.
Thanks so much! Here’s some simplified example pages to work with:
Target page (index I want to query against)
Page: Project A
- Introduction Project A
- Data Analysis Project A
- Discussion Project A
Referencing blocks (from other pages)
Page: Test for block reference query
- From other pages like this, I want to take notes and link them
- to ((UUID-of-Discussion-Project-A)) if they are relevant to the Discussion. This could contain a statement on topic X from some other article relevant to Project A.
- TODO [#A] or to ((UUID-of-Data-Analysis-Project-A)). Here I could have a note about [[logistic regression]] that is relevant to the data analysis. Tagged with todo and priority A.
- Somewhere else I may link
- TODO [#A] or to ((UUID-of-Data-Analysis-Project-A)) about a bit of code in my code repository on that I may need as reference at some point.
Note: the mentions of “Discussion Project A” and “Data Analysis Project A” in the referencing blocks above are block references (i.e., ((UUID))), not page references.
What I’d like is a query that helps me find blocks that reference these two blocks (by UUID), and lets me filter for things like:
Data Analysis Project A + tag [[logistic regression]]Data Analysis Project A + status TODODiscussion Project A + full-text match "topic X"
Thanks again — any help with query construction or a macro setup would be hugely appreciated!
Could begin with something like this:
#+BEGIN_QUERY
{
:query [:find (pull ?b [*])
:where
[?project-a :block/original-name "Project A"]
[?target :block/page ?project-a]
[?target :block/content "Data Analysis Project A"]
[?target :block/uuid ?uuid]
; replace this comment-line with other conditions
[?b :block/content ?content]
[(clojure.string/includes? ?content ?uuid)]
]
}
#+END_QUERY
- It should return the block references of
Data Analysis Project A.
- Should then further filter them (specifically
?b) according to your needs.
- But the last two conditions are slow, so you should perform the filtering before these two lines, so as to prevent excessive full-text searching.
Thanks again! I tried the version you proposed, but unfortunately it just returns “No matched results”.
To confirm:
- The block I want to track and then filter is titled
"Data Analysis Project A" — it’s a block, not a page, and it’s referenced via ((UUID)) in other places. The block exists with that exact content.
- The referencing blocks use standard block references and display the referenced block correctly in the UI.
- I tried getting help via AI, but couldn’t quite get a working query together.
Would really appreciate help correcting or reworking the query so it reliably picks up those references. Thanks!
Thanks for the help and suggestions — they really helped me work through this! 
- The issue was with looking up the UUID.
- With help of AI, I ended up with this version.
- Does this make sense to you?
#+BEGIN_QUERY
{
:query [:find (pull ?b [*])
:where
[?target-block :block/content ?target-content]
[(clojure.string/includes? ?target-content "Data Analysis Project A")]
[?b :block/refs ?target-block]
;; Optional: Uncomment to filter by TODO
;; [?b :block/marker ?marker]
;; [(= ?marker "TODO")]
;; Optional: Uncomment to filter by tag
;; [?b :block/refs ?tag]
;; [?tag :block/original-name "tag"]
;; Optional: Uncomment to filter by priority (like [#A])
;; [?b :block/priority ?priority]
;; [(= ?priority "A")]
]
}
#+END_QUERY
It does make sense, but it will become slow as the graph gets bigger. Try this improvement:
#+BEGIN_QUERY
{
:query [:find (pull ?b [*])
:where
[?project-a :block/original-name "Project A"]
[?target :block/page ?project-a]
[?target :block/content "Data Analysis Project A"]
[?b :block/refs ?target]
]
}
#+END_QUERY
That again returns “No matched results”.
This is copied from the markdown file Project A.md,
it contains the id:: in addition:
- Introduction Project A
- Data Analysis Project A
id:: 6807eded-e4ce-42b2-a439-964e2b3cb1ac
- Discussion Project A
id:: 6807edc6-ab2d-478d-80ac-98d42e5b0e3d
Replacing the line with AI’s suggestion works.
With the project page in my real graph, I am running in issues query performance. LogSeq becomes nearly unresponsive on load of this page even if the querries are on collapsed blocks.
Setup:
- Page:
Project A
Introduction Project A (collapsed)
- query for blocks referencing this section
Methods Project A (collapsed)
- …7 such queries total, covering ~250 referenced blocks.
Questions:
- Is there any way to defer or delay execution of queries? Should collapsing the block do this?
- Or is this the point where I should consider converting to page references instead of block references?
Would love to hear if anyone’s found a good pattern here.