Keep Sorted

An Obsidian plugin to automatically keep marked list regions sorted in your notes.

Usage

Wrap any list in keep-sorted markers using Obsidian comment syntax:

%% keep-sorted start %%
- Dog
- Cat
- Bird
%% keep-sorted end %%

The region is sorted automatically once the file has gone five seconds without changes, so lines do not move under the cursor while you type.

An ordered list keeps the number its first item had before sorting, so a list that starts at 100. still starts at 100.; the other items keep their own numbers, which Markdown ignores when it renders the list.

Tables also work: the header and separator rows are recognized and stay on top. Blank lines at the start and end of a block stay put, so the table can be set off from the markers, which Obsidian needs in order to render it as a table:

%% keep-sorted start %%

| Name | Color |
| --- | --- |
| Dog | Brown |
| Cat | Black |
| Bird | Red |

%% keep-sorted end %%

Rows are sorted by their full text, which effectively sorts by the first column. To sort by another column, name it by position or by its header text, in double quotes if the header has spaces:

%% keep-sorted start column=Color %%
%% keep-sorted start column=2 %%
%% keep-sorted start column="Due date" numeric=yes order=desc %%

Cells are compared the way list items are, by the text you see; an escaped pipe (\|, as in an aliased wikilink) stays inside its cell. With numeric=yes, cells that are numbers, such as $1,250.00, -3.5 or 12%, compare by value. Rows whose cells tie are ordered by their full text, and rows with an empty cell in that column go last whichever way the table is sorted. A column that names no column, or is given on a block that is not a table, leaves the block unsorted and logs a warning in the developer console.

A block can sit inside another block. The inner block is sorted on its own, and, indented under a list item, it moves with that item when the outer block is sorted:

%% keep-sorted start %%
- Vegetables
- Fruit
    %% keep-sorted start %%
    - pear
    - apple
    %% keep-sorted end %%
%% keep-sorted end %%

To sort every level of an outline with one pair of markers, use nested=yes instead:

%% keep-sorted start nested=yes %%
- Vegetables
    - zucchini
    - carrot
- Fruit
    - pear
    - apple
%% keep-sorted end %%

Options

Options can be added to the start marker:

%% keep-sorted start order=desc case=yes %%

These options, their values and their defaults match Google's keep-sorted, except nested and column, which it does not have. Like it, the plugin compares characters by code point rather than by language, so punctuation and accented letters sort by their character codes. Differences: the plugin compares the text you see, without list markers, link syntax or formatting; it supports none of Google's other options, and does not remove duplicates; and skip_lines ignores blank lines at the edges of the block, which Obsidian needs around a table.

Sort key extraction

Sort keys are derived by stripping the following from each line:

• List prefixes (-, *, +, 1.)
• Wikilinks: [[file|display]] sorts by display text; [[file]] sorts by file
• Markdown links: [text](url) sorts by text
• Formatting: **bold**, *italic*, `code`, ~~strikethrough~~

Multi-line items (continuation lines indented deeper than the first line) are kept together as a group unless group=no is given.

Commands

All commands are available from the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+P), prefixed with "Keep Sorted:".

Acknowledgments

The idea and the keep-sorted start / keep-sorted end markers come from Google's keep-sorted, a language-agnostic formatter that sorts lines between two markers in any file. The options listed above take their names, values and defaults from it. This plugin brings the same convention to Obsidian notes, using Obsidian comments for the markers; it shares no code with the original.