Link to community plugin change logs from within Obsidian settings

Use case or problem

When community plugins are marked as updated, it takes a lot of clicking to find out what’s changed, and if it’s safe/necessary to update.

Proposed solution

Another entry proposes that Obsidian read a CHANGELOG.md file for the plugin. While that’s a neat idea, we cannot rely on ALL plugin developers to maintain that file in a trustworthy manner.

As an easy alternative (or fallback), you could add a link to the GitHub tag comparison page. Compose the URL like https://github.com/<author>/<plugin>/compare/<old.version>...<new.version>. For example changes of the Templater plugin from v1.9.11 to v1.10.0 would be: https://github.com/SilentVoid13/Templater/compare/1.9.11...1.10.0

The GitHub page gives you a nice summary of the commit messages between the two versions, and those who can read code can scroll further down to investigate.

This link would fit snugly beside the version line on the plugin page (or the version number itself could become a link):

image

…and in the installed plugins list:

image

Current workaround (optional)

  1. click to open the plugin info panel
  2. click the link to the GitHub page of the plugin
  3. click “tags” or “releases” on the GitHub Page
  4. click the “Compare” button on the GitHub tag/release list page
  5. select the previously installed version from the list
4 Likes

There is already a plugin for this(as always in this community):

obsidian://show-plugin?id=plugin-changelogs

3 Likes

Thank you @joethei ! How have I not found this? :slight_smile: Wonderfully done!

Still, I would like to lobby for this becoming an integral part of Obsidian for the sake of the security conscious. And also to avoid having to install a changelogs plugin in every single vault you manage.

1 Like