Fluent OneNote

A beautiful, ultra-fast 2-pane navigation plugin for Obsidian notes, inspired by Microsoft OneNote and Fluent Design principles.

[!NOTE] If you are looking for a local alternative to Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, UpNote, Bear, or Joplin directly inside your Obsidian vault, Fluent OneNote brings a familiar, high-performance 2-pane navigation system across Notebooks, Sections, and Pages.

Quick Setup & Recommended Workflow

1. Assign a Global Hotkey (Highly Recommended)

Fluent OneNote is designed around an instant, distraction-free popup workflow.

1. Open Obsidian Settings -> Hotkeys.
2. Search for Fluent OneNote: Open navigation popup.
3. Assign your preferred shortcut (e.g. Ctrl + Shift + O, Alt + O, or Ctrl + Shift + A).

Whenever you need to switch notes or capture a thought, press your hotkey, browse or search across sections, and press Enter to jump right into the note without leaving your typing flow.

Key Features

1. 2-Pane Navigation Architecture

• Sections Column (Left): Displays section folders under the active Notebook as clean cards with note counters. The header features a sleek OneNote-style Notebook Selector dropdown.
• Pages Column (Right): Displays all notes and nested sub-pages belonging to the selected section.
• Cross-Pane Focus: Seamlessly jump focus between sections and pages with arrow keys or mouse clicks.

2. Floating Popup & Fast Keyboard Navigation

• Access your entire notebook hierarchy from anywhere in Obsidian.
• Instant keyboard navigation with arrow keys, quick selection, and background tab opening.

3. Instant Search-as-you-Type with Full IME Support & Global Scope Toggle

• Instant Focus & Zero Lag: The search input receives instant focus on modal open.
• Full IME Compatibility: Complete support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean IMEs (e.g., WeChat Keyboard / 微信输入法, Microsoft Pinyin, Sogou Pinyin) from the very first keystroke without dropped composition or popup delays.
• Global vs Scoped Search Scope Toggle:
  • Single Notebook Search (📓 Current): Default search strictly scoped to the active notebook with dynamic placeholder (Search in "<Notebook>"...), showing section badges.
  • Global Vault Search (🌐 All): Instant one-click toggle in the search bar header to search across all notebooks and recursive sub-page hierarchies simultaneously, displaying full path badges (Notebook / Section).
• In-Box Navigation: Navigate search results with ArrowUp / ArrowDown while remaining in the search box; press Enter to open.

4. Physics Drag & Drop & Uniform rAF Auto-Scroll

• High-Performance Physics Engine: Reorder Notebooks, Sections, and Pages with 0ms visual latency and zero reactivity lag.
• Uniform rAF Auto-Scroll: Generous 60px linear-damping edge auto-scroller allows smooth list scrolling while dragging items.
• Anti-Flicker Protection: Child elements are shielded during drag to eliminate mouse coordinate jitter and indicator ghosts.
• Cross-Pane Moves: Drag any Page onto a Section or Notebook folder card to move the note into that directory.

5. Custom Order Management (Export, Import & Reset)

• Export Order: Export your custom drag-and-drop notebook, section, and page arrangement to a standalone .json file via the native file save dialog.
• Import Order: Import a previously exported .json configuration to restore custom orderings across devices.
• Clear Order: Reset all custom orderings back to default alphabetical order with a confirmation warning dialog.

6. Folder-Note Sub-Page Hierarchy

• Supports multi-level nested sub-pages with collapsible chevrons (> / ∨).
• When a folder and a markdown note share the same name within a section, they automatically fuse into a parent "Folder-Note".
• Safe deletion un-nests child notes to the parent section, protecting nested notes from accidental data loss.

7. Recent Pages Quick Switcher

• Dedicated command (Fluent OneNote: Open recent pages list) to quickly access your most recently opened notes with timestamps.

8. Customizable Dimensions & Theme Accent Colors

• Customize the popup modal width (40%–98%) and height (40%–95%) to fit your screen size.
• Pick a custom accent color to harmonize with your Obsidian theme.

9. Dual Display Modes

• Choose between Floating popup only or Both (sidebar + floating popup) in plugin settings depending on your layout preference.

Keyboard Controls Cheatsheet

Configuration Options

Go to Obsidian Settings -> Community Plugins -> Fluent OneNote:

• Root Folder Path: The base directory scanned for OneNote-style notebooks (default: OneNote). Folders within act as Notebooks, sub-folders as Sections. Leave empty (or /) to scan your entire vault as notebooks.
• Display Mode: Toggle between Floating popup only and Both (sidebar + floating popup).
• Global Search by Default: Toggle whether the search popup defaults to searching across all notebooks or only the current notebook.
• DOM Virtualization: Optional viewport optimization for sections containing large numbers of notes.
• Popup Modal Width / Height: Adjust the width (40%–98%) and height (40%–95%) of the popup modal.
• Accent Color: Pick a custom accent color for focus highlights and active badges.
• Custom Order Management:
  • Export Custom Order: Save custom ordering to a .json file.
  • Import Custom Order: Restore ordering from a .json file.
  • Clear Custom Order: Revert all orderings to alphabetical sort (includes confirmation dialog).
• Reset Hotkey Tips Counter: Reset the recommendation notice counter.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Keywords

onenote onenote alternative evernote upnote bear joplin notebook navigation 2-pane view sections and pages subpages fluent design quick switcher hotkey navigation physics drag and drop