Canvas Mind Map

Think in a mind map, create a Markdown note, and keep writing.

Canvas Mind Map offers three workspaces: Native Canvas for native cards, Organic for existing Markdown, and Composer for creating a new document from a blank mind map. Organic and Composer share the curved-branch renderer and layouts, but save to different sources.

Available in the Obsidian Community Plugins directory. Open the plugin page · Download releases.

This README describes the current source, including Composer's thinking and writing tools (v1.1 / v1.2 roadmap). Features available in a packaged version are listed in its release notes.

Choose a mode

For a new document, start with Composer. For an existing note, use Organic Edit. For movable cards, follow Native Canvas Quick Start. View / Edit are states inside Organic; Native's title / body choices control card content, not the workspace mode.

New Mind Map Document → Composer draft → Create Note → Organic Edit ⇄ View

Organic reading and navigation

Organic opens in its own tab and never converts or overwrites a .canvas file. In View mode, a sole top-level heading becomes the center; otherwise the note name is used. Notes without headings show the note name. Initially the center (depth 0) and two descendant levels are visible. Click a heading to open its source line, including repeated headings; use the small +/− controls to fold branches. Folding preserves branch color, side, order and the clicked heading's screen position.

Drag the background to pan, scroll to zoom around the pointer, or use the toolbar's zoom and Fit to view controls. With the background focused, arrow keys pan, +/− zoom and 0 fits the map. Headings and fold controls are keyboard accessible.

Organic automatically refreshes after source changes (500ms debounce), preserving matched heading state and the viewport. Refresh remains available. Heading identity is reconciled using section content and hierarchy; ambiguous edits safely discard unmatched state. Source navigation still checks for stale content before jumping.

Use Search headings or Ctrl/Cmd+F inside Organic to search all headings, including folded descendants. Enter/Shift+Enter moves between results; Esc clears search. Right-click a heading to Focus branch or Read this branch. Focus shows its subtree and ancestor path; Reading follows Markdown order with ↑/↓ and smooth viewport movement. Search outside a focused branch temporarily suspends Focus and restores it when cleared. Temporary expansion does not overwrite manual folding.

The layout selector offers Organic Radial, Organic Horizontal, and Compact Organic. Fold animations respect reduced motion. Export → SVG / PNG saves the current visible structure (including Focus and folding) next to the source note, with numbered filenames to avoid overwriting. PNG defaults to 2x; 1x/2x/3x are available in settings. Very large PNG dimensions are rejected with a suggestion to reduce scale or use SVG.

Folding, zoom, viewport center, Focus, Reading position, selection and layout are stored in plugin data by source path. Rename/move migrates saved state; deletion removes it. Multiple tabs interact independently; the most recent user interaction owns the saved state. Settings provide automatic refresh, remembered state/reset, default layout, animation/duration and PNG scale. View explores the note; Edit writes changes to the source Markdown and provides its own editing history.

Composer / New Mind Map Document

Start and write

1. Use New Mind Map Document in the ribbon or command palette. A folder's New Mind Map Document here action remembers that folder for the first note creation.
2. Rename Untitled with F2 / double-click. This is the document name, not automatically a Markdown H1 or a file.
3. Press Enter to add a section, type its title, then Enter to start the next sibling or Tab to start a child. Esc cancels the unfinished node. Enter after F2 confirms the rename without adding another node.
4. Select a node and write its direct body in the right panel. The root body is the document introduction. Body: auto / show / hide controls visibility; drag the divider to resize it.
5. Choose Create Note, review the export options and Markdown preview, then create the file. The current tab becomes Organic Edit.

The root suggests a filename, which can be changed independently in the create dialog. Document name only exports children as H1; Use root as H1 exports the root as H1 and children as H2. Structural operations and root-behavior changes validate the complete subtree against H6. Create section headings as map nodes, rather than placing headings in a heading node's body.

Organize ideas

• Ctrl/Cmd+click adds/removes a selection; Shift+click selects a visible range. Body editing applies to the primary selected node. Type changes apply to all selected non-root nodes.
• Right-click → Create → Create parent from selection groups sibling nodes under a new heading. The nodes keep their order, bodies, metadata and descendants.
• Drag one or several selected branches to Before / Make child / After. The preview rejects cycles and excessive depth before committing. Keyboard promote/demote/reorder works on consecutive selected siblings; batch deletion can remove branches or retain children. Each operation is undoable as a single action.
• Open Unsorted Ideas to capture ideas outside the document tree. Use Add idea, Move selection here, drag between the drawer and map, or use Structure → Move to document root / Move to Unsorted Ideas.
• Choose Heading / Idea / Todo in the body panel or node menu. Idea nodes have a ? prefix and dashed outline; Todo nodes have a checkbox indicator and Mark complete / incomplete action.

Find and focus

Search or Ctrl/Cmd+F searches Titles, Bodies, or Everything, including folded and unsorted nodes. Enter / Shift+Enter cycles results; Esc closes search. Focus shows the selected branch and its ancestor path; Show overview restores the document. Search can temporarily show a result outside Focus without changing saved fold flags. The node menu also provides Expand one level, Expand branch, Collapse branch, and Show to level….

Writing tools

Use New Composer from template in the command palette, or ⋯ → New from template, for Blank, Essay, Project Plan, Meeting Notes, Research Notes or Course Notes. Each opens a new draft. ⋯ → Duplicate draft makes an independent copy, including bodies, types, properties and unsorted ideas.

⋯ → Document properties edits YAML frontmatter without --- delimiters. It must be a YAML mapping; valid properties are placed before the introduction. ⋯ → Copy outline copies a Markdown bullet outline, including Todo checkboxes and an Unsorted Ideas group. The status line shows section, idea, Todo, unsorted-node and word/character counts plus draft save status.

Export and saving

Create Note checks structure and filenames, uses an existing vault folder, and never overwrites another note. The root-name suggestion and filename can differ. An empty export requires confirmation. Preview Markdown shows the same generated text used for creation.

Excluding an Idea excludes its whole branch. Whenever any content is excluded, the complete draft remains available after note creation. Otherwise it is removed only after Organic Edit initializes successfully. Selection and folding transfer by generated source positions; nodes exported as list items select their nearest exported heading, or the document introduction.

Draft saved means plugin data is saved, not that a Markdown file exists. Drafts autosave after 500ms and survive tab closure. Restore Composer Draft reopens drafts and provides Rename / Duplicate / Delete plus recovery-data import. Close an open draft before deleting it from that list, or use its Discard draft menu. Save failures offer retry and copyable recovery data. Undo history belongs to the current editing session and is not restored after reopening.

Composer shortcuts

Horizontal, Radial and Compact reuse Organic's layout and renderer. Composer remembers its layout and panel width defaults independently of Organic.

The current Composer remains a document tree. The proposed v2 features—non-tree relationships, shared ideas and free-form knowledge mapping—are not implemented.

Edit / Mind Map Writing

1. Right-click a Markdown note and choose Open note in Organic mode, or run that command with a note open.
2. Choose Edit at the top of the Organic view.
3. Click a heading to select its section. Double-click it or press F2 to rename it; use Enter to add a sibling and Tab to add a child.
4. Write in the right-hand editor. It edits the selected heading's direct body, excluding child sections, and saves automatically to the same .md file.
5. Switch back to View to browse the map and jump to the source note.

Drag a heading to move its entire section, including its body and descendants. Drop targets offer Before / Make child / After with a preview. You can also promote, demote, or reorder sections with the keyboard. Operations that create cycles or exceed H6 are rejected. Deletion asks whether to remove the entire subtree or keep its body and promote its children.

Editing shortcuts

These shortcuts apply while the map has focus:

When creating headings inline, Enter confirms and starts another sibling; Tab confirms and starts a child. Esc cancels the draft. In the body editor, undo/redo edits text; Esc returns focus to the map. The editor supports Markdown highlighting and Ctrl/Cmd+B/I/K for bold, italic, and links.

Drag the divider to resize the body panel, or hide it through the more menu. The filename root provides access to text before the first heading and lets you add top-level sections; it does not rename the file. Mode and split-view state can be restored when reopening; undo history lasts only for the current session.

Edits update the original Markdown. If another editor has unsaved changes, save there first and refresh the map. External refreshes preserve unsaved body drafts; failed saves on closing offer draft recovery. Renaming headings does not update links in other notes. See the Writing Mode guide (Chinese) for conflict handling and current editor/line-ending limitations.

The existing features below describe Native Canvas. Its title/body content options are separate from rendering modes.

Features

• One-click generation: Generate a mind map from a Markdown note card or a text card containing headings. Supports H1–H6 headings.
• Two content modes: Title-only mode is ideal for reviewing structure, while body mode lets you read section content directly alongside the outline.
• Seven layouts: Radial, bidirectional horizontal, bidirectional vertical, and four one-way tree layouts: right, left, down, and up. Layouts can be switched at any time after generation.
• Progressive expansion: Collapse an entire branch, expand only the next level, or display the mind map up to a specified depth.
• Links to the source note: Heading cards generated from notes link directly to their corresponding sections. Text-source cards display headings directly.
• Per-level appearance settings: Customize width, height, color, and automatic height for the center node and each level. Individual nodes can also be adjusted separately.
• Refresh from source: Update the mind map after the original note structure changes while preserving manual edits to matching nodes. Confirmation is required before removing unmatched nodes.
• Native Canvas experience: Card editing, additional connections, undo, and redo remain available. Mind maps are stored directly in the Canvas, so the cards remain even if the plugin is disabled.

Installation

Method 1: Install from the Obsidian Community Plugins directory (Recommended)

1. Open Obsidian and go to Settings → Community plugins.
2. Click Browse and search for Canvas Mind Map.
3. Click Install, then click Enable after the installation is complete.

Method 2: Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the same version on the GitHub Releases page.

2. Open your Obsidian vault directory and navigate to .obsidian/plugins/. Create a folder named canvas-mind-map:

   .obsidian/plugins/canvas-mind-map/
   

3. Place main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css inside this folder. The final directory structure should look like this:

   .obsidian/
   └── plugins/
       └── canvas-mind-map/
           ├── main.js
           ├── manifest.json
           └── styles.css
   

4. Reload Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins, find Canvas Mind Map, and enable it.

If the plugin does not appear in the list, make sure all three files are located directly inside .obsidian/plugins/canvas-mind-map/, then restart Obsidian.

Requires Obsidian 1.7.7 or later.

If you previously used the mind map functionality from Enhanced Canvas, disable the old plugin first. Existing mind map metadata from the old implementation is currently not compatible.

Native Canvas Quick Start

1. Open a Canvas and add a Markdown note, or create a text card containing headings.
2. Select the card and right-click Generate collapsible mind map. You can also run the same command from the Command Palette.
3. Choose Title only or Include body, select a layout, and click Generate. The plugin remembers your most recent selection.
4. Click the ＋ / − control below a node to expand or collapse its branch.

The default configuration is Title only + Bidirectional horizontal layout, displaying the mind map up to level 2. Saved layout preferences remain respected.

If the source contains only one top-level heading, that heading becomes the center node. If there are multiple top-level headings, they are arranged around the note center.

Generating a mind map replaces the source card and reconnects existing external edges to the new center node. The operation can be reverted with Undo.

Adjusting the Mind Map

Open the context menu on any mind map node to:

• Navigate using Return to center / Focus branch / Show overview / Search titles.
• Expand / Collapse groups progressive expansion, branch collapse and show-to-level actions.
• Layout groups layout switching and relayout.
• Appearance groups node appearance, level templates, branch appearance and restoring a node template.
• Refresh from source note synchronizes the heading structure. Existing Command Palette actions remain available.

Each mind map stores its layout independently.

All seven layouts pack complete subtrees using actual card dimensions and progressively shorter base gaps. Radial layout allocates sectors by subtree weight. Expansion fixes the clicked card and its ancestor path and arranges its descendants; other first-level branches and ordinary Canvas cards remain in place. Subtrees can extend outward to avoid obstacles. Explicit relayout rearranges the entire map and replaces manual positions.

New maps use branch colors: descendants and native edges inherit their first-level branch's palette identity. Title mode also uses lightweight cards and typography hierarchy; body mode retains its reading space. Existing maps are unchanged on load: use Relayout for improved geometry and Options → Apply branch appearance (keep customizations) for the new appearance. Manual card colors, dimensions and edge colors are preserved. Restore level template resets a single card. Native curves remain rendered by Obsidian.

During refresh, if an existing node cannot be matched—for example because a heading was deleted, renamed, moved to another parent, or duplicated—the plugin displays a confirmation dialog before applying the changes.

Build from Source

Node.js and npm are required:

npm install
npm run build

The production build checks TypeScript and generates main.js. Copy it with manifest.json and styles.css into your vault's plugin directory. For development, npm run dev rebuilds on source changes; stop it with Ctrl+C.

Run npm test for the Native, Organic and Composer model regressions. npm run test:composer-browser exercises Composer interactions and the Organic handoff in a headless browser with simulated Obsidian APIs. Set CMM_PLAYWRIGHT to a Playwright module path and CMM_BROWSER to a Chromium/Edge executable when using a different local test setup. These tests do not replace checking a real vault.

Feedback

Report bugs and suggestions through GitHub Issues. Include your Obsidian and plugin versions, rendering mode, View/Edit mode, layout, reproduction steps, and a shareable minimal note.

Credits and License

Based in part on Enhanced Canvas, including Canvas integration and helper implementations. Thanks to its author and contributors.

Licensed under the MIT License, with upstream copyright notices preserved.