Aliases are duplicating in the graph view and the searching result

[Konfido]

What happened?

I found the alias feature works in an unusual way, and after checking this issue https://github.com/logseq/logseq/issues/4342#issuecomment-1048049248 and the related discussion, I figured it out and think it's really nice.

this is actually a feature, not a bug :

• if [[aliaspage]] is empty, all links are redirected to [[sourcepage]]
• if [[aliaspage]] has a different content from [[sourcepage]],links are displayed as linked refs in the sourcepage

you can read more about the implementation and arguments in this topic: discuss.logseq.com/t/improve-implementation-of-aliases/81/8

BUT, here is what I cannot figure out:

• If there no content/page for some alias which means they're identical to the "source" and not in a link-and-backlink connection, why link all the alias to each other in the graph? And it makes no sense to link all the backlinks to them separately. This causes tons of duplications in the graph view and create a huge obstacle to figure out the real relationship among them.
• Same for the searching result.

Instead, you could only show the source node, and list all its alias beneath it. It will make the result way much clearer and may also alleviate the potential performance issues. I list some of my rough thoughts in the following. Please consider improving current graph view experience. Thank you.

Reproduce the Bug

Just preview a page with a couple of alias.

Expected Behavior

No response

Screenshots

• For a set of alias nodes:

  • test1 is the source file
  • test2 and test3 is alias to test1 and has no content.
  • testing is alias to test1 but has different content.
  • foo1 is linked to source file test1
  • foo2 is linked to alias test2
  • foo3 is linked to alias testing

• A possible alternative for the graph view:

• Possible alternative for the search result:

Desktop Platform Information

• MacOS 10.15.7
• logseq 0.6.4

Mobile Platform Information

No response

Additional Context

No response

[cnrpman]

May add an option to hide

[Artafinde]

I've just been experimenting with page aliases for the first time, and like @Konfido I was surprised to see empty aliases appear as nodes in the graph. They clutter the graph and don't appear to serve any purpose.

[raawaa]

Former Obsidian user here. The empty alias pages in graph view seem unintuitive. It makes a page that has many aliases seem like a cluster center of the knowledge base... which is not.

[antomal]

I also consider this a problem. You need to hide aliases!

[rfsbraz]

I agree that alias are currently causing to much noise on the graph, and splitting connections that should be converging on the main page.

[ZeusDeus]

+1. Please consider

[cnrpman]

Better to add an option on the UI PR on this is welcome :)

[cnrpman]

It should share a same entry point in codebase with #5691 https://github.com/logseq/logseq/issues/5691#issuecomment-1157229847

[danieltomasz]

This is especially annoying when having Zotero literature notes full titles and Zotero aliases

[HaomingFu]

There is so much noise with all the aliases displayed on the graph view. Please consider a fix/improvement on it. +1 I personally like the feature that the aliases appear on the search result though.

[cnrpman]

https://discuss.logseq.com/t/enhancement-of-aliases/14466/16

[gitwah]

Still behaves like that in 0.9.13 and limits the use of the graph view.

[candideu]

May add an option to hide

This would be a really great idea:

[jacdyb]

Hi, I discovered Logseq just few days ago and I must say this is the app I always dreamed of :) And I discovered aliases just today. But I fully agree it would be great to hide aliasses on the graph. Especially in languages such as Polish; because of declension I have to use at least four aliasses for each noun. It makes my graph really hard to read. It would be great to hide aliases! I hope it will come some day. But thank you for this great app! :)

[Julian-1-2-3-4-5]

Also found this really annoying and making the graph view unusable with many aliases

[MNandor]

I was going to open a separate issue for what I found, but I think it's related here and to https://github.com/logseq/logseq/pull/6241.

Aliases, in general, don't inherit page-properties from the page they're referencing.

[GonzRon]

just wanted to find out if anything was planned for this issue?

[Arridian]

This also is a big problem for me, as I use Logseq for world building and having all of these different aliases show up in my graph is extremely cluttered and makes the graph useless.

For instance I have multiple nodes with six or seven aliases, and while they all refer to the same idea, the graph makes it look like they are instead related concepts.

[kassianh]

A way I've found to get around this is to create a separate page for the alias and add exclude-from-graph-view:: true as a property. But of course ideally it shouldn't show up

[lightproof]

add exclude-from-graph-view:: true

At least as of v0.10.8 this doesn't work. If you add this property to an alias, it stops behaving as an alias and becomes just another page.

Also, to do this you would have to either manually create the alias .md file first and add the exclude property to it, or first unset the alias on the parent page and then set it back again after adding exclude property to the alias.

In any case, excluded aliases don't work as they should, so the issue still stands.

[ogil109]

It's amazing that this is still unresolved. It can be traced back to 2022 (maybe even earlier) in #6480.

How's LogSeq supposed to produce insight about clusters and topics in the graph when the graph itself is unusable?

Edit: Yep, it even goes back further to 2021 (#2759). This could have no relevance, but for me, a feature request that is demanded for 3 straight years and is not implemented is a red flag that should be taken into consideration in OSS.

This is not to discourage devs, on the contrary, just to make the point clear that gaining traction is a matter of gaining in word of mouth. Been preaching LogSeq myself over Roam and Obsidian during the last couple of years, but there're things that do great harm to the software. This, imho, is one of them.