Metadata Visuals

Transform Obsidian metadata into powerful visual workflows.

Metadata Visuals is a standalone visual workflow engine for Obsidian that turns frontmatter metadata into colours, icons, smart folders, metadata highlighting, and bulk workflow actions—without modifying the stored metadata itself.

✨ Why Metadata Visuals?

Metadata Visuals allows a single metadata field to drive your entire vault.

Instead of decorating metadata with emojis or formatting, keep your metadata clean while automatically displaying:

• 🎨 File Explorer colours
• 🏷️ File Explorer icons
• 📂 Smart folders with inherited workflow states
• ✨ Metadata highlighting inside note Properties
• 🔄 Bulk metadata updates across notes and folders
• 📋 Workflow visualisation
• 📑 Metadata value pickers
• 📁 Folder inheritance

Ideal for:

• ✍️ Novel writing
• 📚 Worldbuilding
• 🎓 Research
• 📋 Project management
• 🧠 Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)
• 📖 Documentation
• 💼 Knowledge bases

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install Metadata Visuals.
2. Open Settings → Metadata Visuals.
3. Select a metadata field.
4. Click Add Rule.
5. Configure colours, icons and behaviour.
6. Your vault updates automatically.

📖 Documentation

New to Metadata Visuals?

➡️ Start with the illustrated User Guide.

It includes:

• Installation
• First-time setup
• Rule creation
• Smart folders
• Bulk metadata updates
• Metadata highlighting
• File Explorer visualisation
• Workflow examples
• Troubleshooting

⭐ Features

🎨 Visualisation

• Metadata-driven File Explorer icons
• Metadata-driven File Explorer colours
• Metadata/property highlighting
• Folder inheritance
• Live rule previews

⚙️ Workflow

• Smart folders
• Bulk metadata updates
• Rule groups
• Drag-and-drop rule ordering
• File Explorer rule selection
• Note and folder targeting

📝 Metadata

• Clean metadata values
• Read-only generated value lists
• Automatic field discovery
• Automatic value discovery
• Legacy value normalisation
• Optional field definition import

🖥 User Interface

• Compact grouped settings
• Collapsible rule groups
• About & Support panel
• SVG branding
• Obsidian-native interface

🔒 Standalone

Metadata Visuals works with a standard Obsidian installation.

No runtime dependency on:

• Metadata Menu
• Dataview
• Templater
• Iconize
• Any other community plugin

📸 Screenshots

For a complete visual walkthrough, screenshots and examples, see the Metadata Visuals User Guide.

📦 Installation

Community Plugin

Once approved, Metadata Visuals can be installed directly from the Obsidian Community Plugins directory.

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release.
2. Copy these files into:

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/metadata-visuals

• manifest.json
• main.js
• styles.css

3. Enable Metadata Visuals in Community Plugins.

💡 Highlights

Smart Folders

Folders automatically inherit workflow state from the notes they contain.

Bulk Updates

Apply metadata values across multiple selected notes or folders in a single operation.

Metadata Highlighting

Colour metadata values inside the Obsidian Properties panel using the same visual rules as the File Explorer.

Clean Metadata

Metadata Visuals never stores emojis or colours in your metadata.

Example:

---
Editing Status: In Progress
Editing Stage: Published
Importance: Critical
---

All colours, icons and visual styling are generated by Metadata Visuals.

🔐 Privacy / Data Access

• Core functionality works offline.
• No internet connection is required for rules, File Explorer visuals, smart folders, metadata colouring, or bulk updates.
• External support/documentation links open only when you click them.
• Optional local field-definition import is a one-time copy into Metadata Visuals settings and is not a runtime dependency on another plugin.
• Metadata Visuals may scan markdown files in the local vault to discover metadata fields, build rule groups, update smart folders, and apply bulk metadata updates. This happens locally inside Obsidian. File contents are not sent anywhere.

🧰 Development

npm install
npm run build
npm run lint

🗺 Roadmap

• Visual icon picker
• Additional metadata definition importers
• Colour themes
• Mobile layout improvements
• Automated tests
• Additional workflow automation

❤️ Support

• 🐞 Report a bug
  https://wolf359.app/metadata-visuals/report-bug/

• 💡 Request a feature
  https://wolf359.app/metadata-visuals/request-feature/

• 🌐 Website
  https://wolf359.app/metadata-visuals/

• 📚 Wolf 359 Press
  https://wolf359.press/

• ☕ Buy me a coffee
  https://buymeacoffee.com/wolf359pressab

📄 License

Metadata Visuals is released under the 0BSD License.

See LICENSE.

Created with ❤️ by Anthony Fitzpatrick

Wolf 359 Press AB

🐞 Report a bug • 💡 Feature request • 🌐 Website • 📚 Wolf 359 Press • ☕ Buy me a coffee