I added that last one sentence because it’s true and not because i wanna reinforce that I’m right, but… that I’ve a wider overview in regards.
The 3 pane layout is “recurrent” in many Mac apps so in the end it’s easy to attribute it to a “apple thing” - conceptually it’s not Apple but an outline as you pointed out. An outline is just a method of organizing.
Debating which brand used this layout most is most rhetorical nature and less helpful, imo.
A lot of customization is appealing but not essential, so what I do is, I try to understand what features are essential to improve a gui.
I still remember Notational velocity and you hadn’t any folders at all - very minimal and : functional. It’s still alive if someone wants to explore functionality over cosmetic designs .
Tangent Notes is a separate program (Windows, Mac, Linux only) but can be used as if it were a plugin. It uses workspaces (= Obsidian vaults) and Obsidian syntax. As well as the Notes view, it also has a Feed view, showing the content of all the files in seuence.
Early stage in its development - and it’s one developer’s side project - but this part works well and easily integrates with Obsidian use. Based on Typewriter rather than Codemirror.
This isn’t the same, but I was thinking about improvement to the sidebar when I added this thread. The idea might appeal to those interested in a three pane system.
I don’t see this thread as a matter of cosmetic design choice. It’s more like a workflow choice. I’d accept an argument that Obsidian is different because of the graph, and backlinks, and whatever, but because we already have a file tree, it makes sense that some users would want it exploded into separate columns: divided by folders, and files, with a preview. All able to be hidden away with a hotkey for a distraction free experience when preferred. The examples provided by the op demonstrate the utility clearly, so I don’t accept an argument that it’s just a common pattern, and not rooted in function.
I’m sorry to say this is probably why most developers shouldn’t design user interfaces. It always pains me how they fail to understand user intent.
BTW-that is exactly what you did. You made a judgement claim about the idea being not essential, and then stated your authority on the matter. It seemed arrogant and dismissive.
This is a forum on the internet, so I could be getting a totally wrong impression. If so I apologize. My point is to support options that would be used and useful.
I would love this! It would make a very large improvement in it’s functionality, maybe even essential for Obsidian. It’s not necessarily an ‘Apple’ design I’d say. In other note apps, like Evernote, Synology notes or even every e-mail program like Outlook it helps and improves day to day work for me having this kind of preview.
This looks exactly like how I would want it as well! Thanks for taking the time to mock this up.
Like you, I am really interested in such a layout. I like, also, the idea that as a plugin you could toggle this on or off. So you could go back to the more compact, “standard” file explorer if you wanted, or could use this layout.
Obsidian would also replace Ulysses for me if we had this! I think a three pane view like this is particularly well-suited to a certain kind of longer-form writing. Ulysses employs the metaphor of “sheets” that you can glue together. That is easily translatable to internal liniks and embeds in Obsidian. What we need is just this alternative way of looking at the files.
And I agree, a built-in ability to drag-around to custom sort would be really great too.
Who do we know in the developer community that could pull this off???
I also think @Jopp 's reply ended up being a digression which put an over-emphasis on the “Apple” design, which wasn’t my primary point. I actually had Evernote in mind as well, I just don’t have that installed anymore. I’m kind of surprised that with the three-pane view being such a popular layout, there’s no plugin yet to support it as one possible view that might be helpful for users.
I like this as it is a time-tested format that works for a lot of people. I insist on his visual format when reading email: Mailbox List of emails with a line or two of context) Full view of one email. The format is helpful for quick overviews of a number of items. Many apps, including apple notes, use this view because of its utility. Also, people are used to working with this format, so presenting notes this way is immediately useful.
It could be fun, even. How is the content summary generated? There’s so many ways of doing this that it would be fun to discuss.
(BTW I would LOVE to see Omnisearch results presented in a 3 pane format like this.)
Agreed! One thing that would be cool would be settings to choose the number of preview lines, the metadata, etc. that would be displayed under the title of the note.
Another thought: maybe an option to choose between showing the note title and the first heading (h1)
To start off, one might just modify the existing file list to show a preview line, would not be too difficult I guess (needs to reset/trigger on file save or folder expand/close, etc), for example:
I am happy to edit the JS and CSS files myself. But I fail to find them.
In a search I checked the Program directory, the User folder and in the Vault directories.
Which would be the correct file/directory to edit?
Many thanks!
Great job, thank the developer/s for this plugin! I searched a lot for that kind of solution and i know a lot of other obsidian users would like to use that too. Hopefully, they will ”find” this plugin.