Getting 404 for all links on Netlify

[ShannaSeigel]

Hi again, more questions!

I forked this repository, changed nothing, and then connected it to a site on netlify. I then added a few markdown notes and linked to them from the index page and the "your first note" page.

On the index, every link I click except "your first note" gives me a 404 error. If I go to "your first note" and mouse over any links I added I'm immediately prompted to download the markdown file.

No idea what I've messed up! Any thoughts?

Site: https://mv-dg.netlify.app/
Repo: https://github.com/ShannaSeigel/digital-garden-jekyll-template

[maximevaillancourt]

Nice! Almost there. Try moving your Markdown files to the '_notes/' directory (instead of 'pubzk/'). 🙂 The reason why your browser tries to download the Markdown files is because they're in a directory that Jekyll (the static site generator used in the template) considers as "static files", so it tells the browser to download the files (instead of simply viewing them).

[maximevaillancourt]

As for linking to notes from other notes, you may use the double-bracket syntax (for example, using [[videos on how to zk]] in a Markdown file would generate an HTML link to /videos-on-how-to-zk, which should work since you have a file named videos-on-how-to-zk.md in the _notes/ directory).

[ShannaSeigel]

I was testing both the "_notes" folder and another since the first notes I tested weren't showing up. I'll try just using the notes directory. To make sure I understand, do I have to use the double brackets for links? By default I've been using [link text](filename.md) for all my links in case I ever use a platform that doesn't support [[ links.

That's the part that's been confusing to me. In the index.md file I have [videos-on-how-to-zk](../_notes/videos-on-how-to-zk.md) but that link comes backs with 404-not found. I'm working in Obsidian and it generates a relative link when I link to a note.

Edit: I just noticed in the syntax section it has {: .internal-link} after markdown style links. I missed that before.

[maximevaillancourt]

I was testing both the "_notes" folder and another since the first notes I tested weren't showing up. I'll try just using the notes directory.

There are a few things to understand before we discuss linking to notes.

All Markdown notes in the _notes/ directory must have a "front matter" section defined at the top of the files. As an example, look at the first 4 lines in this file:

---
title: Your first seed
image: /assets/image.jpg
---

This is what Jekyll considers as front matter.

Notes in the _notes/ directory that have valid front matter will be exposed on the final website at the /<note-filename> path. For example, if you have a note file in _notes/cats.md (which you do), you'll be able to access the note on the generated website at this relative address: /cats (so https://mv-dg.netlify.app/cats in your case).

Make sure all your Markdown notes have a front-matter section (with at least a title).

---

To make sure I understand, do I have to use the double brackets for links? By default I've been using link text for all my links in case I ever use a platform that doesn't support [[ links.

That's the part that's been confusing to me. In the index.md file I have videos-on-how-to-zk but that link comes backs with 404-not found. I'm working in Obsidian and it generates a relative link when I link to a note.

As for linking to other notes from a note, there are three ways to do so (in descending order of how easy they are to use).

Let's assume we have a file at _notes/cats.md with the following content:

---
title: "A note about cats"
---

This is a note about cats!

A) Double-bracket link syntax (Roam/wiki-style)

You may use the double-bracket syntax to link to another note by its title, or its filename without extension (as defined by this plugin).

• Double-bracket syntax using note title: Here's a link to the note about cats: [[A note about cats]]
• Double-bracket syntax using note filename without extension: Here's a link to the note about cats: [[cats]]

This approach doesn't let you use a link label that's different than the note title or filename. The next two do.

B) Markdown link syntax

You may use an HTML anchor tag to link directly to a note, like this: [A link to the note about cats](/cats).

C) HTML anchor tag

You may use an HTML anchor tag to link directly to a note, like this: <a href="/cats">A link to the note about cats</a>.

[maximevaillancourt]

I pushed a commit to show how we could fix the link syntax for a few links: ShannaSeigel@bd2321b

Feel free to take inspiration from this commit!

[ShannaSeigel]

OK! Looks like we're getting there! And thank you for the examples in the commit.

I started reading about front matter recently for my notes and didn't consider that for these test pages. I added titles to a few notes and I'm able to navigate to them from page links and from the graph 😃

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to all my questions with such detailed responses! I'm looking forward to doing some more playing around

[maximevaillancourt]

I'll close this as it's not an issue with the template itself, but feel free to reach out for help. 🙂