Edit Obsidian notes as mind maps.
Changes in the map are written to the note, and changes in the note show up in the map. The Markdown note is the only place the content is stored; there is no separate mind map file.
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- Headings, list items and paragraphs as nodes.
- Two-way sync. Edit the map and the note changes; edit the note, in Obsidian or another app, and the map updates.
- Drag and drop. Drag a node onto another node to change its parent, or to an empty part of the map to keep it there.
- Automatic layouts. Tidy tree, Center root and Radial place every node without overlaps.
- From the map to the note and back. Click a node to highlight its line in the note; put the cursor on a heading in the note to select its node.
- Collapse and expand. Hide the nodes under a node and show them again. Collapsing a heading or a list item folds it in the note, and folding it in the note collapses the node. The map remembers each note's collapsed nodes.
- Colors. Change the colors of the center, its text, the branches and the levels under each branch, separately for the light and the dark theme. Until you do, the map follows Obsidian's theme.
- Search. Type in the field at the top of the map, or press Cmd+F, to highlight the nodes that contain the text and jump from one to the next.
- Copy a branch as Markdown, exactly as it is written in the note.
- Mermaid export. Copy the whole note as a Mermaid
mindmapblock. - Images and videos embedded in the note are shown inside their node.
- The map stays where you left it. Closing an image opened from a node, or resizing the window, leaves the map as it was. With Remember map position on, the map also opens again where you left it.
- Undo and redo for changes made in the map, including a node dragged to a new place and a layout button, with the keyboard or the buttons under the layout buttons.
- Lock. The lock next to undo and redo stops the map from changing the note: no editing, dragging or layouts until you open it again. It is open by default, and the map remembers it.
- In Obsidian's language. Brazilian Portuguese is the first translation; other languages show English.
This note:
# Trip
## Packing
- Passport
- Charger
## Plan
Leave early to beat the traffic.
Keep the receipts.
Stops:
1. Lyon
2. Turinbecomes this map:
Trip
├── Packing
│ ├── Passport
│ └── Charger
└── Plan
├── Leave early to beat the traffic. (both paragraphs, one node)
└── Stops:
├── Lyon
└── Turin
Add a child named USB-C cable under Charger in the map, and the note gets it as a nested item:
- Charger
- USB-C cable- The heading level sets how deep a node is. When you move a node, the plugin updates the heading levels of the node and everything under it.
- If a note has more than one top-level heading, the map adds a root node named after the file.
- Paragraphs that follow one another are one node, which shows the whole text with Markdown formatting. Images stack inside the paragraph's box. Click the text to edit its Markdown source. A list right after a paragraph becomes that paragraph's children.
- Tables, code blocks, quotes and embeds belong to the node before them and move with it.
- A node shows the first line of its content under its title.
- In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins, select Browse, search for mdmap and select Install, then Enable.
- Open a note and run Edit current note as mind map from the command palette. The map opens next to the note.
To install it by hand, download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css
from a release into
<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/mdmap/, or build them from the source code
directly into the vault (see Development), and turn on
mdmap in Settings → Community plugins.
| Action | Input |
|---|---|
| Edit a node's text | Click where the caret should go and type in the node itself; click outside, or press Escape to finish and keep the node selected for the keys below (Cmd+Z then undoes it). In a paragraph, Enter and Shift+Enter add a line |
| Add a child | Tab |
| Add a sibling | Enter |
| Delete | Delete or Backspace |
| Move up or down among siblings | Alt+Up / Alt+Down |
| Move to another parent | Drag the node, or the dot on the side its edge comes in, onto the new parent |
| Collapse or expand the nodes under a node | Space on the selected node, or click the dot on the side its children leave from |
| Place a node anywhere | Drag the node to an empty part of the map; the nodes under it move with it |
| Copy a node and the nodes under it as Markdown | Hover over the node and click the copy icon in its corner |
| Undo / redo | Cmd+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z (Ctrl on Windows and Linux), or the arrows under the layout buttons |
| Lock or unlock the map | Click the lock under the layout buttons. While it is closed, you can still move around, zoom, search, collapse, copy and click a node to see it in the note |
| Search the map | Cmd+F (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) or click the search field, type; Enter / Shift+Enter center the next / previous match, Escape clears |
| Move around the map | Scroll with two fingers on a trackpad or with the mouse wheel, or drag an empty part of the map |
| Zoom | Pinch on a trackpad, or Cmd+scroll (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) |
The command Copy current note as Mermaid mindmap copies the whole note to
the clipboard as a Mermaid mindmap block.
Settings. The gear next to the layout buttons in the map has Show paragraphs, Show clicked node in the note, Remember map position and the colors. Settings → mdmap has them too, and two more.
- List items and paragraphs as nodes (on by default, only in Settings → mdmap). When it is off, only headings are nodes, and list items and paragraphs belong to the heading above them. The change applies the next time you open a mind map.
- Show paragraphs (on by default). When it is off, paragraphs are not nodes and their text stays in the heading above them; the note does not change. It needs List items and paragraphs as nodes.
- Show clicked node in the note (on by default). When it is off, clicking a node does not show it in the note.
- Remember map position (off by default). When it is on, each time the map stops on a new point, the plugin saves the point at the center of the view in the note, and the map opens there again, at the zoom that fits the whole map. That includes the moves the map makes itself, such as a layout button or jumping to a search result, so the note is saved more often.
- Mind map width (50 % by default, only in Settings → mdmap). The map's share of the window, from 20 to 80 %, when it opens next to the note.
- Colors. One tab for the light theme and one for the dark theme, each with the center and six palette colors, which the top-level branches take in turn; after the sixth they start over, 25 % closer to white each round. Click the center to see the color of its text, or a palette color to see its three shades: the branch's children take the first, their children the second, and every level further down the third. Edit unlocks a color picker and a field for the hex; Use theme colors goes back to the theme's.
Where positions are saved. When you drag a node to an empty part of the map, the plugin adds a comment block at the end of the note:
%% mindmap-positions
Pesquisa/Artigos: -54,149
view 312,-85
%%
Each line has the node's path (the titles from the root down, separated by
/) and its x,y distance from the top-left corner of its parent, so the
node stays next to its parent when the parent moves. The view line, written
only with Remember map position on, is the point at the center of the view
where you left the map. Obsidian hides %% comments in reading view. The
plugin deletes the block when no node has a saved position and there is no
view line, for example after you click Tidy tree with the setting off.
Images and videos from the internet. If an embedded image or video links
to an http:// or https:// address, the plugin downloads it from that
address when it shows the node, so the server at that address receives a
request from your computer. Images and videos stored in the vault are read
from the vault.
If mdmap is useful to you, you can support its development on GitHub Sponsors.
git clone https://github.com/pererinha/mdmap.git
cd mdmap
npm install
npm run build # builds main.js and styles.css; with MDMAP_VAULT=/path/to/vault it also copies the plugin into that vault
npm test # unit tests for reading and writing Markdown, the layouts, the Mermaid export, the colors and the translationsTo run tests in a real Obsidian app, see e2e/README.md.
- Set the new version in
manifest.jsonandpackage.json, and describe the changes in CHANGELOG.md. - Start the test Obsidian and the Android emulator, and run
e2e/all.sh(see e2e/README.md). Every scenario must exit with 0, and the only false checks must be the two expected ones listed there. - Push a tag with exactly that version and no
v(1.0.1, notv1.0.1). Obsidian finds the release by this name. - The release workflow runs the tests,
builds the plugin, and publishes
main.js,manifest.jsonandstyles.cssin a GitHub release named after the tag.
MIT, see LICENSE. Built with React Flow; the licenses of the packages included in the build are in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.