Canvas for StoryLine

Canvas for StoryLine turns a StoryLine writing project into connected Obsidian Canvas files and an export-ready Markdown master file. It is designed for authors who organize manuscript structure, scenes, notes, characters, and locations in StoryLine and want to explore that structure visually in Obsidian.

The generated Master.md is also intended as a stable source for a later TeX/LaTeX export workflow.

A complete Canvas and HTML workflow

Canvas for StoryLine is designed to work especially well with two companion plugins:

1. Canvas for StoryLine turns the manuscript structure into a connected overview Canvas, one Canvas per chapter, and an ordered Master.md.
2. Canvas Folding makes the generated graph easier to explore inside Obsidian by collapsing complete branches, showing selected hierarchy levels, and focusing individual chapters or branches.
3. Canvas HTML Exporter turns the overview and its linked chapter Canvases into a portable, browser-friendly HTML view with navigation, deep search, linked pages, and browser-side folding.

The generated chapter Canvases do not contain only titles or summaries. Their file cards provide the complete contents of the referenced Markdown files for scenes, scene notes, characters, and locations. Canvas HTML Exporter carries those complete Markdown contents into the corresponding HTML pages, where they can be read in a browser as part of the connected Canvas structure.

Each plugin remains useful and installable on its own; there is no hard runtime dependency between them. Together they cover the complete path from a structured StoryLine manuscript through visual work in Obsidian to a navigable HTML representation. The exporter is the final step when the Canvas book should be viewed in a browser outside Obsidian.

If Canvas for StoryLine is useful to you, you can support its continued development by buying me a coffee.

Features

• Creates one project overview Canvas and one Canvas for every manuscript chapter.
• Groups the overview by acts and chapter canvases by scenes, scene notes, characters/POV, and locations.
• Makes the complete contents of every referenced Markdown file available in the chapter Canvas cards and, when exported, in the corresponding HTML pages.
• Preserves StoryLine manuscript order and visualizes StoryLine relationships as Canvas connections.
• Uses StoryLine's six scene-status colors and explains them on the overview and every chapter Canvas.
• Reads referenced characters and locations from the project's parent-series Codex when applicable.
• Shows chapter descriptions as hover information on overview cards. Chapter cards for scenes, notes, characters, and locations remain free of hover overlays.
• Uses compact, consistent geometry: chapter cards use one uniform size and a 40-unit inner margin on every side, including above and between cards, in equally wide, compactly spaced column groups. Every column on a Canvas matches that Canvas's longest populated column.
• Keeps 70 units of space above and between chapter cards in overview act columns, with the information box aligned to the complete column grid.
• Creates Master.md with either ordinary [[...]] links or embedded ![[...]] scene notes, ordered by act, chapter, and scene sequence.
• Offers separate commands and output settings for Canvas files and the master file.
• Uses only Obsidian APIs and works without desktop-only or network access.

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.13.0 or later.
• A StoryLine project stored as Markdown files inside the current vault.
• Recognizable StoryLine metadata or common German/English category folders for scenes, scene notes, characters, and locations.

Installation

Install Canvas for StoryLine from Settings → Community plugins → Browse in Obsidian when it is available there.

For a manual installation:

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the release.
2. Create <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/canvas-for-storyline/.
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. Reload Obsidian and enable Canvas for StoryLine under Community plugins.

Canvas Folding and Canvas HTML Exporter are optional companion plugins. Install them from Community Plugins or from their respective GitHub releases to use the complete workflow described above.

Demo Vault

The repository contains a ready-to-use demonstration in examples/demo-vault. It includes a complete Little Red Riding Hood StoryLine project with three acts, six chapters, all six scene statuses, scene notes, characters, locations, and a shared series Codex. All sample content, folder names, generated headings, and metadata are in English.

See examples/How to Use the Demo-Vault.md for the standalone walkthrough, matching the layout used by Canvas HTML Exporter.

To try it:

1. Download or clone this repository.
2. Open examples/demo-vault as a Vault in Obsidian.
3. Install and enable StoryLine and Canvas for StoryLine. The Demo Vault ships without installed plugins or local plugin data.
4. Optionally install Canvas Folding and Canvas HTML Exporter for the complete interactive Canvas and browser workflow.
5. Inspect the pre-generated overview, six chapter Canvases, and Master.md under StoryLine/Enchanted Forest/Little Red Riding Hood/Canvas.
6. In Canvas for StoryLine, select StoryLine/Enchanted Forest/Little Red Riding Hood as the project folder and keep all four element types enabled.
7. Run Create StoryLine Canvas files. Existing same-named generated output is moved to Obsidian's configured trash and recreated.
8. Open the Little Red Riding Hood overview to explore or fold it. To create a browser-friendly HTML view of the complete connected book, run Canvas HTML Exporter: Export active canvas as HTML.

The sample uses StoryLine's native Scenes, SceneNotes, shared Codex/Characters and Codex/Locations, Research, Archive, and System layout. Its scenes contain StoryLine-native POV, character, location, setup/payoff, plotline, chronology, conflict, emotion, and notes references; Codex entries contain book, relationship, inhabitant, and connected-location references.

The companion plugins are not bundled. Their source code and current releases are available from the linked repositories above.

Setup

Open Settings → Canvas for StoryLine and configure:

The project and Master folders can both be selected with a Vault folder chooser.

Commands

• Canvas for StoryLine: Create StoryLine Canvas files recreates the overview and chapter canvases. It also recreates Master.md when enabled in the settings.
• Canvas for StoryLine: Create StoryLine master file recreates only Master.md, regardless of the combined-generation setting.

There is deliberately no live synchronization in version 0.8.0. Run the appropriate command again after changing StoryLine sources or plugin settings.

Generated Canvas files

Canvas files are written directly to:

<StoryLine project>/Canvas/

The overview contains act columns and linked chapter cards. Each chapter Canvas contains equally high category columns based on its longest populated column, a link back to the overview, and the complete StoryLine status legend.

Actual Canvas filenames retain the project prefix and .canvas extension for unambiguous Vault links. Visible headings omit both. Labels follow the StoryLine project's language metadata: English projects use Overview, Chapter, Act, and Book; other projects use the corresponding German labels Übersicht, Kapitel, Akt, and Buch. When the parent-series metadata identifies the book number unambiguously, the overview heading also includes it. Generated Canvas metadata provides localized short names such as Overview and Chapter N - Title, so HTML exports use those names for page and hover titles instead of exposing project-prefixed filenames.

Master file

Master.md contains only manuscript scenes in StoryLine order:

• level-one headings for acts;
• level-two headings for chapters;
• level-three headings for scenes;
• either ordinary Obsidian links or embedded scene notes, as selected in the Scene inclusion setting.

An information block records the Vault, StoryLine project folder, and creation date. This deliberately small structure is intended as the input boundary for the planned TeX/LaTeX exporter.

Important: generated files are replaced

Every user-started generation moves existing same-named target files to Obsidian's configured trash and recreates them from the current StoryLine data. This applies to Canvas files in the project's direct Canvas folder and to Master.md in its configured output folder. Manual changes made only in these generated targets are therefore not preserved.

When generated Canvas names change, obsolete plugin-owned Canvas files in the project's direct Canvas folder are also moved to trash. Other files and subfolders such as Canvas/Vorgaben/ are left untouched. StoryLine source files are never modified, and generated Canvas/** files are never read back as StoryLine source material.

Update notes

After a version change, the plugin shows the current update note once. It is marked as read only after the window is closed and does not create a file in the Vault. The About section at the bottom of the plugin settings provides Show last update to reopen that note and Show readme to open this complete documentation without leaving Obsidian.

Data and privacy

Canvas for StoryLine works locally through Obsidian's Vault API. It has no network functionality and sends no data anywhere. Settings, generated-file ownership hashes, and the update-note marker are stored in the plugin's local data.json.

Content reads are limited to the configured StoryLine project folder, its parent-series Codex, and the corresponding series.json. Folder selection uses a folder-only traversal without reading unrelated file contents.

The installed plugin does not contact the Ko-fi image or any other remote README content. Canvas HTML Exporter is a separate desktop-only plugin; its own privacy documentation applies when it is installed.

Known limitations

• StoryLine projects that use substantially different metadata or folder conventions may require parser extensions.
• Generated output is intentionally replaceable and must not be used as the sole location for manual content.
• Version 0.8.0 includes automated coverage for German and English StoryLine structures. The included English Demo Vault exercises three acts, six chapters, all six scene statuses, scene notes, characters, locations, and a shared series Codex.

Development

npm install
npm test
npm run build:prod

For local deployment with hot reload:

OBSIDIAN_PLUGINS_DIR="/path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins" npm run build:prod:deploy

For development only, the build can be watched and deployed into this repository's Demo Vault with:

npm run dev:demo

The released Demo Vault intentionally contains no installed Community plugins. After using dev:demo, remove the deployed plugin again before preparing a Demo Vault release. Reload Obsidian manually unless Hot Reload has been installed locally for development.

The deployment target is always canvas-for-storyline. Production release artifacts are written to release/.

License

Canvas for StoryLine is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. Generated Canvas and Markdown output may be used, published, distributed, and licensed independently from the plugin under the output exception in COPYING_EXCEPTION.

Support and feedback

Please report reproducible problems and feature requests through the GitHub issue tracker.