Hi everyone, I am a new user of Obsidian, do you know if it is possible to automatically create a canvas that represents the structure of windows folders and files ? that would be awsome
Use case or problem
I would use that feature to organize my files and folders structure more efficiently by looking at the big picture in a more visual way than the windows browser allows me too.
I would also use it to share my folder architecture to partners to design a shared structure that is relevant in everybody’s mind.
Proposed solution
The ideal solution would be a line a code or a button in the “canvas” module where I enter the selected directory folder and then an automatic canvas mind map is drawn with the ability to expand and fold every folder and an indicator of the number of files/folders in it.
It kind of sounds like you want the entire file structure of your vault available with previews whenever you feel like it within a canvas. That’s a tall order, and I’m not sure how easy it would be to make or implement.
Then you would get all the benefits of a “proper” file explore to allow you to organize files and folders, whilst still being able to preview the markdown files.
I would greatly appreciate this functionality. Folder structure view just works better for the way I view and organize my notes.
For now the only way I could find to make it work is to make a canvas for every folder manually and then put notes/canvases for child folders inside by hand. This requires remembering to put a new note on the canvas every time, which is very time-consuming, and so I only use it for small numbers of folders that I use regularly
I also found the following plugin that might help:
Supposedly it might relieve a lot of manual labor for adding notes, but I have not managed to make it work. It’s not in the community plugins in Obsidian, and I am not a software engineer, so maybe I made a mistake while manually installing it. Please let me know if you manage to make it work.
How I tried to manually install it:
Downloaded the code from GitHub link above
Unzipped it to the Obsidian’s “plugin” folder.
At this point, Obsidian does not see the plugin
Copied the files “manifest.js” & “styles.css” from plugin’s “dist” folder to the main “obsidian-auto-canvas-main” folder.
At this point, after reloading the plugin list and closing/opening the program for good measure, Obsidian shows the “Auto-Canvas” on the Installed Plugins list. The plugin is turned off. Trying turning it on doesn’t work, the program throws “Failed to load plugin obsidian-auto-canvas”
Copied the “canvas.st”, “editor.ts”, “main.ts”, “settings.ts”, “suggest.ts”, “utils.ts” from plugin’s “src” folder to the main “obsidian-auto-canvas-main” folder.
Same as above: after reloading the plugin list and closing/opening the program for good measure, Obsidian shows the “Auto-Canvas” on the Installed Plugins list. The plugin is turned off. Trying turning it on doesn’t work, the program throws “Failed to load plugin obsidian-auto-canvas”
Since I know nothing of code, tried deleting the original files in “dist” and “src” folders while keeping copies in the main plugin folder. No effect
I am not a plugin developer but this plugin is not ready to be installed as it is missing the main.js file. Maybe someone can chip in with how to compile it from the .ts files.
I’m late to this party. This is my github account. @gino_m - you are correct, this plugin isn’t ready to be shipped. It’s something I started working on and then got distracted. @Wooflman - If there’s still interest in this kind of add-in, let me know. A little external motivation never hurts.
I feel like general automation of adding things to a canvas based on things like folder structure would save a lot of time in a lot of canvas related instances. I have a few ideas of what I’d like to do with canvas, but knowing that there is the hurdle of manually setting everything up is definitely keeping the whole idea on the backburner. Not sure how much effort it would take, but I’d definitely appreciate it!
Hi @prestsauce, I just got here via search engine while I was looking for a way to do exactly what your plugin intends to do, so there is definitely some interest.
My use case would be this: I have a large collection of cooking recipe notes, where each note starts with an image of the dish. I would like to have a canvas with all these recipes, so that I can scroll through them and decide what to cook based on the images without having to open each individual note.
Manually creating and updating the canvas would be too cumbersome and impractical as there are too many recipes.
I know it’s not exactly what you are looking for, but I recently found those two plugins that allow to automatically creat canvases from links:
You could use the latter in combination with this one: obsidian://show-plugin?id=waypoint
Changes in the Moc wouldn’t be snyced with the canvas, though.
Hey, @prestsauce, just popped in to this thread again, wanted to let you know I am still deeply interested in your plugin.
Canvas is very convenient, but my usage of it slowly went down with time as setting everything up manually is extremely time-consuming.
My use-case:
Using it as a Windows-like folder view because visualization works better for me than the wiki text style Obsidian uses. 20 years of habit using Windows also contribute to this
Something that I can’t do on Windows - quick view of text files when they are large enough. There’s always been thumbnails for pictures, but being able to quickly skim short text files is awesome. I also like that canvas files on canvas show approximately how the files in that linked canvas are arranged
Adding canvas notes on top of canvas-folders to show folder name
Then there’s something that I’m not sure can be automated - I make text notes in canvas different sizes to accommodate what are the Obsidian notes on any specific Canvas Folder to fill up the space nicely (aka if there’s a picture that needs to be half a screen big to see properly I do make it that big and then arrange text notes on the other side one under another).
To make it more clear, here’s the pictures:
FolderView - main overview, I have this file easily available every time I open Obsidian. Shows canvas-folders first and then files (there’s a lot more after that at the bottom. It’s so vertical because I use Canvas on mobile a lot and this arrangement allows for easy scrolling)
Folder names manually added using inside-canvas notes (not the regular Obsidian notes)
Side note, I love it that canvas allows arrangement in manual (non-alphabetical) order, that way I always put the most important/relevant information on top
