Paragraph Explode

Rearrange the sentences of a paragraph by exploding it into pieces and putting them back in a new order with a few clicks. Works on desktop and mobile.

Your note is never touched until you confirm, and every change is a single edit, so one undo (Ctrl/Cmd+Z) restores the original.

Commands

Run these from the command palette. Each works on your selection if you have one, otherwise on the paragraph under the cursor (a block delimited by blank lines).

The reorder window

Pick pieces from Remaining to build the New order, then Apply. A Preview shows exactly what will be written.

Modes (switch at the top of the window at any time, nothing is lost):

Building the order

• Click a piece to add it, or drag its handle (⋮⋮) into the New order at the position you want.
• Drag items in the New order to reorder them. Drag one back onto Remaining, or press Put back.
• Set aside parks a piece. Set-aside pieces can be clicked to bring them back, and are deleted or kept below the result when you apply.

Cut where you choose: split marks

• Type a mark (default ~) into your text wherever you want a cut, select it, and run any explode command. Example: Genetic differences ~ are thought to contribute to~ the lions share ~of the liability for autism,~ with estimated heritability as responsible for 50-90% of the vulnerability to the disorder~.
• The text is cut only at your marks, and the marks are deleted from the pieces and from the result. Anything you type next to a mark (a comma, a period) stays with the piece before it.
• If the text has marks, sentences without marks stay whole. If it has none, the usual automatic splitting is used.
• A doubled mark (~~strikethrough~~) is ignored. Change or turn off the mark in the settings.

Drafting: rewrite parts of a sentence

• Edit (or double-click a piece) turns it into a text box. Rewrite it and press Save (or Enter). Esc cancels the edit. Everything is undoable.
• To rewrite only part of a piece, select that text in the box and click Split out selection. The piece becomes up to three (before, selection, after), and the selection opens for editing.
• Placeholders such as XYZ get their own piece automatically in Explode selection into phrases, are highlighted, and are counted under the lists until you rewrite them. Example: "Genetic factors are thought to contribute to XYZ of the liability for autism." becomes three pieces: Genetic factors are thought to contribute to, XYZ, and of the liability for autism. Edit XYZ into your own words and Apply.
• Which words count as placeholders is a setting (default XYZ, TBD, ___, case-sensitive).

Notes mode

• Group: select items (click, Shift+click for a range, Cmd/Ctrl+click to add) and merge them into one note. Ungroup splits them again.
• New note: press it (or N), then click pieces. They all join one note. Press N again to start the next note, and twice to stop.
• Indent / Outdent (Tab / Shift+Tab) move the selected notes one level at a time, up to six levels deep. The first bullet, and the first bullet after a heading, always stays at the top level. Output uses one tab per level.
• H1, H2, H3 (or H to cycle) turn the selected items into #, ## or ### headings, and Bullet turns them back. Headings are written without a bullet. They only appear in Notes mode; in the other modes they are written as normal text.

Keys: 1-9 pick the remaining piece with that number; Backspace undoes the last change; Enter applies; Esc cancels; N, G, U, H, Tab, Shift+Tab for notes as above; Alt+Up / Alt+Down move the selected item.

Reorganize notes

Select any stretch of notes, or select nothing to use the whole page (frontmatter is left alone), and run Reorganize notes (selection or whole page). Your notes are split into blocks: headings, paragraphs, bullets (each top-level bullet with its nested bullets), quotes and callouts, code, tables and dividers.

Seeing the structure

• Headings are bold, colored by level, and carry an H1-H6 badge. Everything under a heading is indented beneath it, so sections and subsections read as a tree.
• Click the arrow (or double-click a heading) to collapse a section. Show collapses everything to All sections, H1, H2 or H3 so you can see just the outline, and Expand all opens it back up.
• A heading that skips a level (an H3 directly under an H1) is marked level skipped.

Reorganizing

• Drag a row's handle to move it. Moving a heading moves its whole section, including the subsections inside it.
• Click to select; Shift+click selects a range, Cmd/Ctrl+click adds. Selected blocks move together. Up and Down (or Alt+Up/Down) move the selection one step; for a section that means hopping over the neighboring section.
• Promote and Demote (Shift+Tab / Tab) change heading levels. A section's subsections shift with it, and nothing moves if a level would leave H1-H6.
• Undo (Cmd/Ctrl+Z), Reset, and a Preview the result panel. Apply writes everything as one edit, so one undo in the note restores it.

Formatting: choose what survives when the notes are written back.

The window shows each block as it will be written, so the effect is visible before you apply. Your choice is remembered.

Notes: blank lines between blocks are normalized (runs of blank lines become one), and a moved block is separated from its new neighbors by a blank line. Underlined (setext) headings are treated as paragraphs; use # headings.

What it protects

Sentences are copied verbatim; only their order changes. Splitting does not happen inside:

• abbreviations (e.g., i.e., et al., Dr., vs., Fig., p., and more), initials such as "J. K. Rowling", or decimals like 3.14
• parentheses or brackets, so APA citations like (Smith et al., 2020. p. 4) stay whole
• [[wikilinks]], [links](https://example.com), URLs, inline code, footnotes like [^1], and citation keys like [@smith2020]

Headings, code blocks, tables, frontmatter, lists and quotes are skipped with a notice. A soft line break inside a sentence becomes a single space.

Settings

• Extra abbreviations: words ending in a period that should never end a sentence.
• Reorganize notes: the default formatting choice.
• Split marks: the mark you type to cut your own text (default ~).
• Phrases: toggle splitting at punctuation and at conjunction words, edit the word list, and set the placeholder words.
• Reorder window: the mode the window opens in, and whether set-aside sentences are deleted or kept by default.

Known limits

• A single capital letter before a period ("Plan B. The next step") is treated as an initial and does not split.
• A sentence that is entirely in parentheses ("(See above.) Next.") does not split after the closing parenthesis.
• A sentence that starts with a lowercase letter is not treated as a new sentence.

Install

Once listed: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "Paragraph Explode".

Manual: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/paragraph-explode/, then enable the plugin.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm test        # vitest
npm run build   # type-check and production build

License

MIT