A TextReference is a general purpose way to describe a fragment of text as either a field of a tiddler, or an index within a data tiddler.

In different situations, text references can be used to retrieve values, or to specify a value that should be modified.

A TextReference consists of several parts:

• The title of the target tiddler. If omitted, it defaults to the Current Tiddler
• Either one of:
  • The name of a field (marked with !!)
  • The name of an index within a data tiddler (marked with ##)
• If both the field and index are omitted, the text field is used as the default

Most of the parts of a text reference can be optional:

• tiddlerTitle - the title field of the specified tiddler
• tiddlerTitle!!field - a tiddler field (eg, modified, modifier, type etc)
• !!field - a field of the current tiddler
• tiddlerTitle##propertyIndex - extracts a named property from DataTiddlers

Text references can be used in several places:

• As indirect parameters within Filters (eg, <$list filter="[tag{MyTag!!name}]"/>)
• As indirect attributes of an element or widget (eg, <$widget attrib={{Title!!description}}/>)
• As the parameter of a shortcut transclusion (eg, {{MyTiddler!!title}})
• As the state attribute of the RevealWidget and the LinkCatcherWidget