Export to common graph formats

Plugins ideas
1

I was writing a feature request, then a plugin idea, before realizing they amounted to “please rebuild yEd in the form of Obsidian features.” Perhaps it would be more useful to simply export the node relationships in a format that yEd, Neo4j Desktop, Visio, et. al. can read.[1]

Similar post that someone suggested should be a plugin idea: GraphXML export and import

Two approaches

  1. Export the graph in a file format that other applications can read directly (like Graphml or GraphXLM for yEd, or DOT for Graphviz/R Studio/etc.).

This would allow users to explore and expand on the relationships between notes, using the tools that they like best.

  1. This is probably a terrible idea: Export the commands that would re-create the note relationships graph in a graph database.

Hear me out. This would allow the user to edit those commands before the point of graph creation. If you want typed nodes and relationships, here you go. If you want a high-level diff view of your Obsidian note structure, bingo. If you want to bring an existing graph database up-to-speed with your recent changes without losing work you’ve done in the database, edit the commands file to create just the entities you need. This might be a stupid good band-aid until we have a true sync solution or a boatload of graph features in Obsidian plugins.

[1]: Yes, I know, :musical_note:one of these things is not like the others:musical_note: and so forth.

14 Likes
2

Definitely onboard with the general idea, I’d like to have more freedom as to what one is able to do with the graph.

I’m biased towards neo4j just because I think yEd (for example) is not well suited for having large amounts of text at each node. I’d like to suggest another approach, creating a specification for the obsidian graph (there’s probably already one?) that makes it easy for neo4j-plugin developers to hook into it.

2 Likes
3

Today is my first day as an Obsidian user, and this is literally the first feature I wanted to suggest. I guess exportability would be great as a part of the core system as well.

1 Like
4

l think is more important. creating these things by typing is very time-consuming. If we could make it in a gui app and importing it into obsidian would be handy. even a better idea would be a graphical plugin inside obsidian

5

I am working on a plugin that will export the Obsidian graph to the Neo4j format: GitHub - HEmile/obsidian-neo4j-stream .

It is almost finished, but I haven’t tested it properly yet and haven’t gotten around to releasing it yet. I’ll let you know in this thread!

Also, the Juggl graph is compatible with Cytoscape desktop.

4 Likes
6

Thanks @Emile, I’ll keep an eye on the Neo4j plugin. Looks like nice work on Juggl.

1 Like
7

Hello, Emile! How’s your work on plugin? Do you need some help?

8

Hi Sergey. I’ve stopped working on the Neo4j plugin as I no longer have a use case for it. Feel free to contribute to the repo! You can also get in touch directly at the Juggl Discord if you wish to discuss this, see Juggl