#1

Hi -

I would love to see a side panel option that displayed my (currently being edited) document in a outline view, like DevonThink can, or Drafts, or MultiMarkdown Composer. I end up making a note with a few different sections, and often want to hop between those sections rather than make 6 separate notes. Having the note outline visible would be really helpful.

Here’s a screenshot of the way DevonThink displays this:

Outline View
Outline View486×526 13.9 KB

Being able to click on a section and skip to it would be great; eventually allowing reordering by dragging the sections is nice.

Not sure what the behavior should be if multiple windows are open and none have active cursor, but maybe it just holds last viewed note until a new one enters edit mode.

-Robert

53 Likes
Note outliner
ToC in a separate pane
Header Navigation inside a note
Folding in preview
ToC in a separate pane
#2

I like the idea, but you haven’t posted it to Feature Requests, have you?

#3

No, I haven’t…I thought it was more of a plug-in idea since it’s not something widely incorporated into text editors, but if I should post it there as well I am happy to do so. Was definitely wishing for it this week as I did some ‘real work’ in Obsidian!

-Robert

3 Likes
#4

I guess you can just move this existing posting to another forum. Cheers.

#5

Moved to plugin ideas

#6

This would be probably what’s been asked here.

1 Like
Minimap: "Where am I in this way too long document?"
Breadcrumb / path display / list view for "How'd I get here"
#7

Typora offers the possibility (with a css), as a “togglable” option, to have all headers and subheaders listed in a TOC in a sidepane. That way, when one has a long document, one always has the TOC on the side and click to a relevant header when navigating.

With some css it is even possible to have the (sub)headers numbered.

I use this a lot and would like it in Obs too.

18 Likes
#8

I’ve definitely seen this one mentioned a lot in various places, especially back when we were doing suggestions on the discord…if it doesn’t get added now, I hope someone will make it as a plugin once plugins are possible. It’s really excellent for navigating longer notes.

4 Likes
#9

@Saros before submitting this proposal I searched to see if there wasn’t a similar one already because, like you, I also thought to have seen it. But I did not find it. I hope one of the moderators will find the other TOC proposals and bundle them into one, and hope that it will get some love. I am dying to transfer my non-Obs markdown notes into Obs, but this is stopping me. I have a collection with some very long notes, so a TOC is absolutely essential for that.

Having said that, I really appreciate Obs and think it will turn out to be a winner in the the not too distant future.

1 Like
#10

A very important feature, for sure!
But it would also be very useful to save the reading position for each note.

2 Likes
#11

My personal opinion is that this is best done in a plug-in, maybe first party but probably third party

#12

I think @Silver liked this idea. This may happen sooner than later.

1 Like
#13

I wrote a similar suggestion in plug-in ideas, but I referred to it as an outline rather than TOC…same idea tho.

1 Like
#14

But it would also be very useful to save the reading position for each note.

That’s a different issue.

#15

That would be soooooo nice. I sincerely hope she’ll get it done. I’ll be able to move the rest of my md files over to Obs.

#16

Between the 10 votes for your plug-in idea and 10 for my feature request we have 20 votes. Indeed, the 2 requests should be merged.

Anyhow, as @WhiteNoise said, @Silver likes this idea, so hopefully it’ll get implemented soon, one way or the other.

1 Like
Support table of content [toc]
#17

Since it will still be implemented as a plugin, I’ll merge it with the other post (that one is slightly older too). Do you mind?

2 Likes
#18

No, I don’t mind @Silver, I am very happy about it because that improves “visibility” of the user need.

1 Like
#19

I think this can be merged with this topic Note outliner, can it?

I think building on this, what is needed is a way to quickly rearrange sections like typical outliners have. Say, in order to rearrange topics in an outline for an essay.

Microsoft Word can do this, RoamResearch and Dynalist do, of course, but also org-roam with plain text-based documents.

#20

In the meantime, collapsing a section and then copying does copy all the children to that item.