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Johan Sanneblad edited this page Mar 16, 2026 · 177 revisions

Updated March 16, 2026

Index

This page

  • Forks and contributions
  • Features that will not be added in the near future
  • SDK Features I would like to see in Obsidian
  • Notebook Navigator backlog

Other pages

  • Custom CSS - Handy CSS snippets to make Notebook Navigator work better with some themes.

Forks and contributions (please read this first)

Notebook Navigator is actively maintained and changes quickly. If you plan to spend significant time on a fork, be aware that:

  • I do not provide support for forks (bugs, feature requests, merge coordination, or troubleshooting).
  • Forks of an actively maintained plugin are generally not accepted in the Obsidian Community Directory. In practice, directory forks are only considered in limited cases (abandoned original, full rewrite, or original author approval), per Obsidian staff guidance.
  • There is a high chance that features implemented in a fork will be implemented upstream soon, making the fork effort redundant.

Features that will not be added in the near future (important)

Core Architecture

  • Mixed folders and files in same pane - To implement this I would have to create a new root container, basically an entire new user experience. It would break things like pinned files and all custom folder display settings (like preview text rows and grouping style per folder), and I am not even sure it would make sense to have this in the same plugin. This is not something I am actively looking into now, but I might look into this in the future.
  • Custom sort order for subfolders in navigation pane. This is a complex implementation that requires lots of custom code. Most users are happy with the current solution where you can sort either A->Z or Z-> on a per-folder level and custom sort order for root elements. I might look into this in the future.
  • Drag and drop to custom sort files in list pane. This is complex especially since we have the setting Show notes from subfolders / descendants. I might look into this in the future.
  • Monkey-patching or DOM-hacks. I will avoid features that hack into the Obsidian editor internals or the DOM tree. Main reason is I do not want to spend my time debugging plugin conflicts, race conditions or internal Obsidian changes.
  • Separate zoom levels for navigation and list pane - Not technically possible, I can only set one zoom level for the plugin

SDK Features I would like to see in Obsidian

  • Batch operations, being able to move or delete multiple files at once. Currently Obsidian only supports single-file operations through the API, so when multi-selecting files and deleting them they are removed one at the time. I would very much like to see multi-file operations in the API.
  • Font scaling information. Right now I have to add HTML probes during startup on Android to measure font scaling before the REACT view appears. Capacitor has a text zoom function and exposing it to plugins would be great. https://capacitorjs.com/docs/apis/text-zoom
  • Options to set default file explorer. Basically being able to register a plugin as file explorer, and then pick the default one to use. Would affect clicking on breadcrumbs etc within Obsidian. Much better solution than me trying to monkey patch the entire Obsidian UI. Posted as official feature request at: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/set-default-file-explorer-internal-or-plugin-like-notebook-navigator/108593
  • Show files in the .trash folder - There are many reasons for not showing a "🗑️ Trash" folder in Notebook Navigator. Files in Obsidian trash folder are not TFile / TFolder references and has to be read like an external folder. This means we will receive no file update events from Obsidian and have to manage everything within this folder manually. If Obsidian in the future adds support for the .trash folder to the Vault so files in it are indexed and events are firing then it would be extremely simple to add a "🗑️ Trash" folder to view and undelete files, so users do not have to go to the file explorer navigating a hidden folder.
  • Expose the Page preview core plugin as SDK. Being able to render a page preview thumbnail through API like the "Page preview" core plugin. Would make it possible for plugins to show page previews too.

Navigation Pane

  • Drag folders to Obsidian canvas documents - See https://github.com/johansan/notebook-navigator/issues/555. The problem is the way this works within Obsidian. Obsidian builds the entire payload in the drag-target. A better solution would have been to just drag the folder name and then allow Canvas to traverse and ge the notes. But this is not how it's done. Implementing this means Notebook Navigator would have to traverse the entire folder tree when users start dragging, filtering for hidden folders and notes, and builds a stringified list of notes. It scales very poorly.

List Pane

  • Virtual folders. Same as Custom file order - the entire folder contents have to be saved to the synced settings file - it doesn't scale well and limits would have to be put in place like max files per folder and max number of folders. See this FR for more details: Virtual folders

Obsidian Editor Integration (Out of Scope)

Notebook Navigator backlog

Settings

Customization

Navigation

Shortcuts & Recent Files

Folders

Folder notes

Tags

Properties

File List

Files

Icons

Icon packs

Search

Calendar

Keyboard & Commands

API & Plugin Integration

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