NaviBoard
IvyYang199920 downloadsGather webpages, files, apps, and notes on a free canvas. Arrange, connect, preview, and revisit everything in one visual navigation board.
- Overview
- Scorecard
- Updates3
An Obsidian plugin that turns your bookmarks into a visual navigation board. Drop a link, an app or a note onto a free canvas and arrange it the way you arrange icons on your computer. Every item is a plain Markdown file; positions live in frontmatter, so the canvas syncs with your vault and nothing is locked in a database.
在 Obsidian 里把收藏摆成一张桌面。丢一个链接、一个应用或一篇笔记进画布， 像整理电脑桌面一样拖拽归类。每个收藏都是一个 Markdown 文件，布局写在 frontmatter 里，随 vault 同步，没有数据库也没有 sidecar。
Features
- Links become Markdown. Dropping a URL fetches the article (Readability), a tweet, or builds a site card from Open Graph metadata, then saves it as a note in your bookmark folder.
- Web pages, local apps and notes on one canvas. Drag a
.app, a folder or any file from Finder and it becomes a launcher icon with its real system icon. Double-click to launch. Drag Markdown or PDF from your vault and it becomes a note card. - Areas, ratings, arrows and text. Group things spatially, rate them, or annotate the canvas. Areas carry their members when you move them.
- Zoom that stays readable. Area names keep a constant on-screen size; captions, descriptions and titles drop away as you zoom out, so the small view is a navigation view.
- Canvases inside notes. A
```web-deskcode block renders the same canvas inline, with the same capabilities.
Install
From the community plugin list
Not yet listed. Until it is, use one of the options below.
With BRAT (recommended for now)
- Install BRAT from the community plugin list.
- Run BRAT: Add a beta plugin for testing and paste
IvyYang1999/obsidian-naviboard. - Enable NaviBoard in Settings → Community plugins.
BRAT keeps the plugin updated automatically.
Manually
Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the
latest release,
put them in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/naviboard/, then enable the plugin.
Usage
Open the canvas from the ribbon (grid icon) or the command palette (Open web desk). Then:
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Drop a URL, or paste one | Fetches it and adds a bookmark note |
Drop a .app, folder or file from Finder |
Adds a launcher icon |
| Drop Markdown or PDF from the vault | Adds a note card |
| Drag an item into an area | Writes desk_group into its frontmatter |
| Double-click | Opens the page, launches the app, or opens the note |
| Scroll / ⌘-scroll | Pan / zoom |
Bookmarks are stored in the folder set in plugin settings (default 收藏夹).
Local app icons are cached under the attachment folder.
Privacy and permissions
NaviBoard is a desktop-only plugin. It does not collect analytics, require an account, or send your vault contents to a NaviBoard server.
- Network access happens only for features you invoke. Importing a URL may request the source page, Open Graph images, favicon services, and—for X posts— the public FxTwitter API. Embedded web views load the destination website directly.
- Local file access is explicit. When you drop an app, folder, or file from Finder, NaviBoard stores its path in Markdown so it can open or reveal that item when you ask. It may read a local app icon for display.
- Clipii is optional. If Clipii is installed at its standard Homebrew path, NaviBoard can invoke it to convert supported WeChat and Xiaohongshu pages. Temporary conversion files are cleaned up after import.
Your imported notes and canvas data remain ordinary files in your vault. The websites and optional tools above have their own privacy policies.
Development
npm install
npm run build # tsc + production bundle
npm run test:unit # unit tests
scratch/parity-visual-smoke.cjs drives a real Obsidian instance over CDP and
checks that both canvases keep the same capabilities.
Design constraints live in DESIGN.md.
License
MIT
NaviBoard bundles Mozilla Readability (Apache-2.0) and Turndown with its GFM plugin (MIT). Their license notices are preserved in the distributed bundle.