GoodBases

A custom Bases view for Obsidian that renders your databases as a Notion-style table: clean chrome, hover-reveal OPEN buttons, colored value pills, and inline cell editing.

Requires Obsidian 1.10.2+ with the Bases core plugin enabled.

Demo

Features

• Notion-style table — system font stack, hairline borders, hover wash, and a horizontal scroll container so columns never crush, even in embeds and reading mode.
• OPEN button — hover a row to reveal a button that opens the note, just like Notion's database rows.
• Colored pills — list properties (tags, multitext) render as pills using Notion's 9-color palette (accurate light- and dark-mode values). Colors are assigned by a deterministic hash, so a value keeps its color forever — unless you choose your own.
• Per-value color picker — click the colored square next to any value in the pill select menu and pick a color from Notion's palette. Your choice is saved and applies everywhere that value appears. (You can also set colors in bulk with the Pinned pill colors view option — value=color, e.g. Done=green.)
• Inline editing — click a cell to edit text and numbers in a floating input; checkboxes toggle in place. Pill cells open a select-style menu listing every value already used for that property, with search and create-on-Enter.
• Grouping support — respects the Bases group by configuration.
• View options — wrap cell content (on by default), toggle vertical lines, force specific properties to render as pills, and pin pill colors.

Usage

1. Enable the Bases core plugin and create a base.
2. In the base toolbar, open the view selector and choose Notion-style table.
3. Configure columns, filters, sorting, and grouping with the normal Bases controls; this view adds its own options (wrapping, vertical lines, pill properties, pinned colors) in the view settings.

Notes on editing:

• Only note frontmatter properties (note.*) are editable; file.* and formula.* columns are read-only by nature.
• tags pills are intentionally read-only for now — tags have special semantics and deserve a careful write path.

Installation

From the community plugin browser

Once accepted: Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for GoodBases, install, and enable. Then, open the view selector and pick Notion-style table.

Manual

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Put them in VaultRoot/.obsidian/plugins/good-bases/.
3. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

Optional: Notion-style toolbar

The blue Notion-style New button and icon-only Sort / Filter / Properties / Search are an optional CSS snippet (the toolbar is core Obsidian UI, outside the plugin's view, so it isn't styled by the plugin itself):

1. Copy snippets/goodbases-notion-toolbar.css into VaultRoot/.obsidian/snippets/.
2. Enable it under Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets.

The snippet only affects a Base's toolbar while a GoodBases view is open; every other base keeps its native toolbar.

Support

GoodBases is free and open source, built and maintained in my spare time. If it makes your vault a little nicer to work in, you can buy me a coffee ☕ — it goes toward new features and keeping up with Obsidian's API changes.

Roadmap

Where GoodBases is heading. These are directions, not dated promises — want to nudge one up the list? Open an issue.

• ✅ First public release (0.3) — Notion-style table view: colored pills, inline cell editing, the pill select editor, pinned colors, hover-reveal OPEN button, grouping, and view options.
• ✅ Per-value color picker (0.4) — recolor any value from Notion's palette; your choice persists everywhere it appears. Cells wrap by default.
• 🔵 Column resizing (next) — drag handles on column borders, with widths persisted per view.
• 🔵 Calculated footers (next) — a Notion-style per-column Calculate row (count, sum, average, and more).
• 🔵 Editable tags (next) — extend the select editor to write tags safely (currently read-only).
• ⚪️ Board & gallery views (exploring) — Kanban boards and card galleries; deprioritized for now while table fidelity comes first.

Changelog

The full history and downloadable builds are on the Releases page.

0.4.5

• Fixed: in dark mode the table header no longer shows a light background — it now follows the page background like the rest of the table.
• Fixed: column headers now align consistently between editing and reading mode (header text is vertically centered in both).

0.4.4

• Fixed: long, multi-line text cells now edit in a textarea, so the full wrapped text stays visible while you type — previously a single-line input scrolled the text sideways. Shift+Enter inserts a newline; Enter saves.

0.4.3

• Fixed: clicking a pill cell again now closes its tag selector (previously only an outside click or Esc would).
• Fixed: the inline text/number edit box now matches the size of the cell you click, instead of a fixed size.

0.4.2

• Changed: the optional Notion-style toolbar snippet no longer uses the :has() selector, avoiding the performance cost of broad selector invalidation. Once enabled, the snippet now restyles every Bases toolbar (not just GoodBases views).

0.4.1

• Changed: the Notion-style toolbar restyle (blue "New" button + icon-only Sort / Filter / Properties / Search) is now an optional CSS snippet (snippets/goodbases-notion-toolbar.css) rather than shipping in the plugin, so GoodBases no longer restyles Obsidian's core UI. See Installation → Optional: Notion-style toolbar.

0.4.0

🎨 New — per-value color picker. Click the colored square next to any value in the pill select menu and pick a color from Notion's palette. Your choice is saved (persisted to the Pinned pill colors option) and applies everywhere that value appears.

Also in this release:

• Changed: cell content now wraps by default.
• Changed: colored pills use Notion's exact light- and dark-mode palette values.
• Changed: restyled the Bases toolbar for the Notion-style view — a Notion-like blue "New" button and icon-only Sort / Filter / Properties / Search, scoped so it only affects this plugin's views.
• Fixed: the inline edit box no longer lingers after you click away from a cell without changing it.

0.3.2

• Added: the project landing page, demo GIF, and a Buy Me a Coffee funding link.

0.3.1

• Initial release: Notion-style table view — colored pills, inline cell editing, the pill select editor, pinned pill colors, hover-reveal OPEN button, grouping support, and view options.

Disclaimer

This plugin is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Notion Labs, Inc. "Notion" is a trademark of Notion Labs, Inc.; it is used here only to describe the visual style the view emulates.

License

MIT