Links & relationships

Isolated facts are hard to remember; connected ones stick. Lexicon lets you link terms with typed relationships, turning a flat dictionary into a concept graph.

Term editor Links tab listing outgoing typed relationships
Outgoing links: relationships from the current term to other terms.

In the term editor, open the Links tab to create relationships from the current term to any other term in your lexicon:

  1. Click Add.
  2. Pick the target term.
  3. Choose the relation type (see the table below).
  4. Save — the reverse direction automatically appears in the target's Backlinks.
Term editor Backlinks tab listing incoming relationships from other terms
Backlinks: who references this term.

The Backlinks tab shows — and lets you create — relationships pointing to the current term from a source term. This is handy when you're working on a hub concept and want to attach many children to it without opening each child separately.

Relation types

Choosing the right type makes the graph meaningful. Lexicon offers nine:

TypeMeaningExample
Is ATaxonomy — the source is a kind of the target.std::vector is a container
Part OfComposition — the source is a component of the target.B-tree node part of B-tree
UsesThe source makes use of the target.quicksort uses partitioning
Depends OnThe source requires the target to work or make sense.TLS depends on X.509 certificates
ImplementsThe source realizes the target interface or concept.std::map implements ordered associative container
RelatedGeneral association worth remembering.coroutines related to generators
ContrastsConcepts best understood by comparing them.TCP contrasts with UDP
Alternative ToInterchangeable solutions to the same problem.CMake alternative to Meson
Parent OfExplicit downward hierarchy link.container parent of sequence container
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Don't overthink it When no specific type fits, Related is perfectly fine. A rough link now beats a perfect link never — you can retype it any time.

Reading in context

The graph pays off while browsing: select any term in the main table and the lower pane shows its rendered content followed by a links and backlinks summary. You see a concept's neighborhood at a glance, without opening the editor.

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Coming later A visual graph view of term relationships is on the roadmap.