Person Network

Person Network turns notes about people into an interactive relationship map in Obsidian. It works locally, reads data from frontmatter, and can be opened as a standalone graph or as a custom view inside Bases.

Русская версия

Features

• Two layouts: rotating planetary orbits and a free spatial layout with group circles.
• Photos, names, companies, roles, connections, and potential contacts.
• A personal note selected in the plugin settings, with no special frontmatter flag required.
• Filters for any frontmatter property with all/any matching.
• One shared group set across the standalone graph and every Bases view.
• Smooth focus for a person's connections or members of the same company on hover.
• Non-destructive photo framing that leaves the original image unchanged.
• Automatic persistence of filters, zoom, camera position, and display options.
• PNG export of the current graph.
• Russian and English interface matching the Obsidian language.

Installation

Install Person Network from Settings → Community plugins → Browse.

For manual installation:

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest GitHub release.
2. Create .obsidian/plugins/person-network/ inside your vault.
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. Enable Person Network under Community plugins.

Quick start

Create one note per person and add frontmatter:

---
tags:
  - person
name: Jane Doe
photo: attachments/jane.jpg
company: Acme Corp
relation: friend
potential_contacts:
  - John Smith
  - "[[People/Kyle Reese|Kyle Reese]]"
layers:
  - family
  - work
---

Open the graph from the ribbon or run Open person network from the command palette. Then select your personal note in the plugin settings.

Note data

The recognition tag and the name, photo, relation, potential_contacts, and layers property names are configurable. The company property name is fixed.

Layouts

Orbit

The personal note stays in the center. Everyone else is placed on rings according to the role position score from 1 to 10. People from the same company occupy neighboring sections of an orbit. Cards rotate with their connections; rotation can be disabled in the Display panel.

The orbital layout uses fixed geometry and does not depend on force simulation. Group controls are hidden in this layout.

Space

The personal note becomes a regular graph member. Visible groups are drawn as translucent Euler circles: a member of one group remains inside that circle, a shared member stays in the intersection, and a person without a visible group remains outside all circles.

The two highest-priority visible groups are drawn at the same time. A group with only one visible member remains in the list but does not draw a circle.

Roles

A role controls the card border color and style. Its position score from 1 to 10 also selects the person's orbit: a higher value places the person closer to the center.

The relation value must match a configured role name. An unknown value uses the default style and produces a warning.

Groups

Groups are configured for the Space layout. Each group has a name, unique identifier, color, and priority. Assign members through the shared frontmatter list:

layers:
  - family
  - project-alpha

The groups button opens a compact graph panel. The eye button hides the circle, while the person button hides all group members. Group definitions and visibility are shared by the standalone graph and every Bases view; membership always comes from the shared frontmatter property.

Filters and display

Open the graph panel with the gear button.

• Filters searches people and creates conditions for any frontmatter property. Conditions can match all rules or any rule.
• Display switches the layout, relationship lines, and potential contacts, and adjusts card size and line thickness. Orbit rotation is also controlled here.

Hover over a person to fade unrelated cards and reveal their connections. Hover over a company name to focus people from that company. Hold Shift when the tooltip covers useful graph content.

Double-click empty space to fit the graph into the view. Use the mouse wheel to zoom and drag empty space to pan.

Contacts

The contacts property accepts plain names and wikilinks. Person Network resolves note paths and aliases. A matched person becomes a connection; an unmatched name becomes a potential contact.

Click a potential contact to create a note. The destination folder and template note are configurable. Use {{name}} inside the template to insert the person's name.

Photos

Right-click a person and choose Edit photo crop. Move the photo inside the square and adjust zoom. Person Network stores only framing values in data.json; it does not modify or duplicate the source image.

The editor is also available for the personal note at the center of the orbital layout.

Bases

With the Bases core plugin enabled, select Person Network as a Bases view. Bases filters determine which notes appear, while view options map the name, photo, relation, and contacts properties. Every Bases view keeps its own filters and view options, while all graph views use the same group definitions.

Bases integration can be disabled in the Person Network settings. Reload the plugin or Obsidian after changing this option.

Privacy

Person Network works locally inside the vault. It makes no network requests, requires no account, displays no ads, and collects no telemetry.