Looks really good!
Also wondering what the options will be for the column/panel. Can you hide the column or switch to panel even with wide window size? That would be ideal I think
The “non-column column” you’ve specced here seems like a nice way to keep this information persistently visible without the visual weight of an explicit column.
A few minor comments:
- I’m not sure what the “link” icon is intended to convey in the bottom-most backlink in your sample screenshots. Is it trying to indicate that this last item is an unlinked mention? If so, it seems odd to indicate that with a link icon; the absence of the red link styling would be enough for me, I think.
- The secondary background color you’re using for the inline column is heavy enough to draw my eye a great deal, particularly in conjunction with the very heavy type treatments for the statistics. I’d suggest going substantially lower-contrast. It’d be much more delicate, but I’d probably try hard to use no background at all for the inline info column—just careful type and spacing to separate the hierarchy.
- Like others, I find myself routinely using much more context around backlinks than would be available here. If you’re worried about clutter or overwhelm, I might try a hover interaction to “peek into” 3-5 more lines on either side of the excerpt.
- The thing about backlinks (for me, anyway) is that navigation to a backlink is most often ephemeral: I’m usually briefly consulting a reference, not fully switching my attention from the primary note I’m viewing or editing. In Bear, that usually means opening the backlink in a new window, then closing it a few seconds later—so as not to disturb the state of the previous note. But often the couple sentences around the backlink are sufficient to remind me of what’s important about the reference, so I don’t need to navigate at all. And that’s even better! But of course, that’s only possible when enough context is visible.
- This is much less important for me, but I do sometimes strongly prefer backlinks in the body of a note. And on other occasions, I’d prefer them in a parallel list. The discriminating factor is generally whether the note I’m viewing itself has a lot of content (parallel is better), or whether it’s mostly a stub whose value rests in collecting lots of references (inline is better—the backlinks are the content). For an example of the latter, see e.g. here; for some more theory, see here.
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I support this suggestion/question. For me, links to sections/headers are important and it would be great if Backlinks would show and differentiate them. (Main design mistake of Craft IMO is that it does not show backlinks to sections at all, only after focusing/folding to particular header/section)
I agree with the in-note idea. I’d honestly prefer them at the bottom of the note as you would see in apps like Logseq and RemNote.
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The first one is a link icon that turns unlinked mention to a link so it would prob not just be an image but a clickable icon.
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But in the case of a long note a panel is much more convenient than having the backlinks at the bottom of the note
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I like the implementation of the info panel. I want to use the back links implementation first, but I usually prefer the backlinks at the bottom of a page personally. I think @andymatuschak comment about having them in a side column for long notes makes a lot of sense. This has made me look at Obsidian and their back link side panel looks useful. I look forward to working with Bear’s implementation.
This implementation looks really great and useful. However, I’m not convinced that the statistics panel (the one with word count etc.) needs an always-visible sidebar. When I use it it’s usually just for a quick check. But I also understand that adding another popover for just the info may be too much and this is the only way.
Maybe I’d lower the contrast of the side panel; the card background could be even more subtle, and maybe the text too, to differentiate it from the main note body. The statistics panel especially is very eye-catching with its bold type.
You may be right with that but on the other side: why not if someone wants to have it always visible? We EITHER could switch to toc/backlinks as that makes more sense OR we could turn off the whole info column. The main point is: as the statistics shows attributes of the note it belongs together with toc and backlinks that do the same
I see, I think you’re right.
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I see suggestions of backlinks being in the note body, below the note content; yes, you could put backlinks below the note body, but you can’t really put the outline or stats there. The info column would still be necessary.
If you have a long note, you’d probably wish the backlinks were shown on the side instead. Showing backlinks always on the side is a good compromise. I think it would be too much if we had backlinks on the bottom of the note AND outline in the side panel.
I think it would be essential to have keyboard shortcuts to access a specific tab of info column, not just have one keyboard shortcut to expand/close it. That way you could quickly access backlinks, outline, stats with one key-combo.
Also it looks like the info column tab selector is a dropdown menu which you’d have to click to show the options, then another click to select? The old 3-way-button is probably visually more busy but saves a click, so it gets my vote.
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Hard to comment on static screenshots, compared to trying the functinoality in practice but I would expect that the info panel, when pinned, shows me all its information (if vertical size allows it), rather than only showing statistics or outline or backlinks.
My thoughts go towards that I would like to see outline and backlinks always shown, not just showing one and switching back and forth, as the needs arises.
In general I love the ideas and the simplicity/non-bloatedness of your implementation.
I don’t know how I missed this thread. 
I love your solution – the only thing I worry about is discoverability, i.e., unless you expand your editor, you might never even know this was an option.
Two suggestions:
- if the editor is big enough vertically, it would be awesome to be able to open more than one info panel at the same time. E.g., have the stats up top as one item, and then backlinks right below that, visible concurrently
- for backlinks, there really needs to be a “collapse all” and “expand all” option. You want to be able to quickly search through the list of backlinks sometimes (collapse all), while other times you need to look through content (expand all). I was using these options constantly when I was working in Obsidian.
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Something similar: even if you know the feature it may happen that you don‘t know if the popup or the info column will be open, depending how wide the editor is. Think it would be helpful if the icon in editors Toolbar somehow indicates what will be opened. Something like two similar but nevertheless different icons
I love the Idea of Backlinks - and in my opinion this is a good place. I do agree, that sometimes it would be really nice to have the Backlinks right in the Note itself at the very end, as footnote. But maybe this would be optional to choose, show the Backlinks and also with the option to expand those Backlinks with some context.
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Additional thought: If the icon indicates if the info columns will be opened rather than the popup we could adjust the editor to the minum or maximum wideness so to get a guarantee that the desired ui element will be opened
Keep in mind, we still CAN write our own backlinks. The act of making the connection yourself is key to the zettelkasten method (just like making your own flashcards is key to spaced repetition in anki). So for those times you mention where you want the back link at the bottom, you can still have that with manual entry.
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I agree with everyone that said to let the section of backlinks and unlinked to be inside the document at the bottom! Great work! 
Backlinks look great and I think how they are currently designed has more positives than placing them at the bottom of each note as many other apps do. As some have said it before scrolling down a long note is not very productive and is more accessible on the panel.
I do wonder if it is possible to link to portions of a note or just the entire note itself? I think the context is key.
Either way it’s a great development for a wonderful app!
This looks great!
Is there a way to toggle rich preview for multiple links at once? Or for all links in a specific note? I have some notes with many links I use for reading lists and I’d like them all to have rich previews.