Buttons Panel
approvedby Kevin
Create customizable button panels for quick access to files, commands, links, and scripts. - This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff.
Buttons Panel
Buttons Panel is a modern Obsidian plugin that lets you create a customizable button panel for quick access to files, commands, links, and scripts.
✨ Features
- 🎯 Quick Access: Instantly open files, execute commands, visit links, or run scripts with a single click.
- 🎨 Icon Picker: Integrated Lucide icon library with search and live preview.
- 🏷️ Three View Modes: Switch between list, tabbed, and folder views.
- 📁 Folder View: Android-style folder grid with drag-and-drop, auto-expand on hover, pin to keep open, click-to-close, and editable folder names.
- 📁 Category Management: Organize buttons by category; reorder categories and buttons via long-press drag-and-drop.
- ⚙️ Flexible Configuration: Fully customizable panel layout, button styles, and animation effects.
- 📱 Responsive Design: Optimized for both desktop and mobile devices.
- 🌙 Theme Adaptation: Seamlessly adapts to Obsidian’s light and dark themes.
- 🎛️ Dedicated Settings Tab: Manage all plugin settings in a separate, user-friendly tab.
- 🔄 Live Updates: All changes take effect immediately—no restart required.
- 🛡️ Form Validation: Required fields (button name, file path, command ID, URL, folder, script name) are highlighted in red if empty for intuitive feedback.
- 🖱️ Interaction Mode: Three modes — Locked (view only), Sort (drag to reorder), Edit (create/edit/delete via context menu) — switchable from the top navigation bar.
- 🧭 Top Navigation Bar: Dropdown menus to quickly switch panel view, button style, and interaction mode; plus search and settings access.
- 🔍 Search Feature: The navigation bar includes a search function that filters categories and buttons in real-time for quick access.
- 🔗 Action Sequences: Configure multiple actions for a single button and execute them in order with one click.
🚀 Installation
🏪 Install from Community Plugins (Recommended)
- Open Obsidian and go to Settings → Community Plugins.
- Click Browse and search for "Buttons Panel".
- Click Install, then Enable.
📦 Manual Installation
- Download the latest release from the Releases page.
- Place the plugin folder into your Obsidian plugins directory (usually
.obsidian/plugins/, e.g.YourVault/.obsidian/plugins/buttons-panel/). - Enable the plugin in Obsidian under Settings → Community Plugins.
🔧 Install via BRAT (Recommended for Beta Users)
- Install the BRAT plugin.
- In BRAT settings, click "Add Beta plugin".
- Enter
TracingOrigins/obsidian-buttons-panel-plugin. - Enable the plugin.
📖 Usage
🎯 Opening the Button Panel
- Use the command palette (Ctrl+P) and run "Open buttons panel (right sidebar)".
- Click the grid icon in the left ribbon to quickly open the panel and settings.
- The button panel will appear in the right sidebar for fast access.
⚙️ Opening the Button Panel Settings
- Use the command palette to run "Open buttons panel settings (central content area)".
- The settings page will open in the main content area for detailed configuration.
- You can also access settings via the plugin section in Obsidian’s settings.
🔗 Action Sequences
- Action Sequences: Configure a button to perform multiple actions in sequence (e.g., create a file, insert a template, run a script). Clicking the button will execute all actions in order. Each action can be of a different type, greatly enhancing automation and batch processing.
- How to configure: In the button editor, click "Add Action" to add multiple actions and drag to reorder them.
- Typical use cases: One-click to create and open a template note, batch execute multiple commands, automate daily routines, and more.
🔗 Supported Action Types
- Open File: Open any file in your vault.
- Command: Execute any Obsidian command.
- Open Link: Open an external web link.
- Create File: Create a new file at a specified location, supporting date variables (e.g.
{{DATE:YYYY-MM-DD}}) and templates. - Run Script: Run a custom JS script from your vault (supports both QuickAdd and Components script formats). Scripts must be placed in the configured script folder.
✅ Form Validation
- When creating or editing a button, clicking "Save" will automatically validate all required fields.
- If any required field is empty, the corresponding input will be highlighted in red.
- The red highlight disappears automatically once the field is filled.
🎛️ Panel Options
- View Mode: Choose between list, tabbed, or folder view.
- Button Style: Display icon and text on the same line, or icon above text (folder view always uses icon-top).
- Animation: Enable button hover animation.
- Interaction Mode: Choose between Locked (view only), Sort (drag to reorder), or Edit (create/edit/delete).
- Top Navigation: Enable or disable the top navigation bar.
Example: Choose "Tabbed View" to group buttons by category.
📁 Path Management
- Template Folder Path: Set the folder path for storing template files (e.g.,
templates/). The create file action will use templates from this path. - Script Folder Path: Set the folder path for storing script files (e.g.,
scripts/). The run script action will load script files from this path. - Path Validation: Paths are validated in real-time. Invalid paths are highlighted with a red border.
- One-Click Creation: Click the "Create Paths" button to automatically create any missing folders.
Example: Set the template folder to
templates/and script folder toscripts/so that the create file and run script features work properly.
🖱️ Interaction Mode
The navigation bar edit button opens a dropdown with three modes:
| Mode | Icon | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| 🔒 Locked | lock | View only — all interactions disabled (no drag, no context menu) |
| ↕️ Sort | arrow-up-down | Long-press drag to reorder buttons and categories |
| ✏️ Edit | pencil | Context menu (right-click / long-press) to add, edit, copy, or delete |
- Switch modes from the top navigation bar dropdown or in Panel Options settings.
- Drag-and-drop reordering is only available in Sort mode.
- Editing controls and context menus are only available in Edit mode.
� Folder View
Switch to folder view from the navigation bar or settings. Categories appear as folder tiles in a responsive grid.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Open/Close | Click a tile to expand; click outside, press ESC, or click blank space (configurable) to close |
| Pin | Click 📌 to lock — folder stays open until unpinned or you switch folders |
| Edit name | Click folder name to rename (configurable in settings) |
| Reorder folders | Long-press drag in sort mode |
| Cross-folder drag | Drag button out → auto-close → hover 0.6s on another tile → auto-expand → continue sorting |
| Auto-scroll | Drag near edges inside expanded folder to scroll |
Folder settings: folder name editable, show button count, close on blank click.
�🔀 Drag-and-Drop Reordering
When Sort mode is active and search is not active, long-press and drag to reorder (mouse long-press works on desktop too):
| Target | List view | Tabbed view | Folder view |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buttons | Long-press a button, then drag to reorder within a category; drag over another category's tab/zone to move across categories | Same; active tab's grid supports drag reorder | Drag within expanded folder or between folders; hover 0.6s over a tile to auto-expand |
| Categories | Long-press the category block (title or non-button area), then drag vertically to reorder | Long-press a tab, hold ~0.4s over another tab to confirm drop target, then release to reorder | Long-press a tile to reorder in grid |
- Order is saved automatically when you release.
- Reordering is unavailable in Locked or Edit mode, or while search is active.
📱 Touch Gestures (Mobile)
- Scroll the panel: Swipe up/down on the panel (list view) or left/right on the tab bar (tabbed view) without long-pressing.
- Drag to reorder: Long-press (~0.5s) on a button or category/tab, then drag. While dragging, panel scrolling is locked so the item follows your finger.
- If a quick swipe is detected before the long-press completes, the gesture is treated as scrolling and drag does not start.
🧭 Top Navigation Bar
- The panel features a top navigation bar with the following functions:
- Panel View Switch: Switch between tabbed and list views.
- Button Style Switch: Instantly change button styles.
- Interaction Mode: Switch between Locked, Sort, and Edit modes via dropdown.
- Search Feature: Click the search icon to open the search box and filter categories and button names in real-time.
- Panel Settings: Open the panel settings page with one click.
- Tab bar scrolling (tabbed view, many tabs): On mobile, swipe left/right on the tab bar; on desktop, hover the tab bar, hold Shift, and scroll the mouse wheel horizontally.
- The navigation bar is designed for efficiency and a smooth user experience.
🔍 Search Feature
- Click the search icon in the navigation bar to open the search box.
- After entering keywords, the panel will automatically filter and display matching categories and buttons.
- Search only filters category names and button names, with real-time updates.
- Click the clear button or close the search box to clear the search criteria.
🧩 Script Feature
-
In the button editor, select "Script" as the action type and choose or enter a script file name (
.jsonly). -
Script files must be placed in the script folder specified in plugin settings (e.g.,
scripts/). You can customize this path in the settings tab. -
Two script formats are supported:
-
QuickAdd script format: The script must export an async function, for example:
// scripts/hello.js module.exports = async function (params, app, plugin, notice) { notice('Hello from script!'); // You can access the Obsidian API, plugin instance, etc. here }; -
Components script format: The script must export an object whose
default.entryis an async function, for example:// scripts/components-demo.js exports.default = { entry: async function (params, app, plugin, notice) { notice('Hello from Components script!'); // You can access the Obsidian API, plugin instance, etc. here }, };
-
-
The script environment injects
app(Obsidian instance),plugin(plugin instance), andnotice(notification method). -
Script errors are automatically caught and shown as notifications.
-
Security Note: Do not run scripts from untrusted sources. Script execution has inherent risks.
Example: Write batch processing or automation scripts and run them with a single click.
Example: Configure a button with “Create File → Insert Template → Run Script” actions, and all will be executed in order with one click.
🛠️ Development
- Clone this repository.
- Make sure your NodeJS is at least v18 (
node --version), LTS version recommended. - Run
npm installto install dependencies. - Run
npm run devto start development mode with live compilation (automatically deploys to test vault). - Run
npm run buildto build the production version and deploy to test vault. - Run
npm run lintto check code quality. - To deploy to a custom vault, create a
.envfile in the project root and add:VAULT_PATH=/path/to/your/vault.
🎨 Tech Stack
- TypeScript: Type-safe JavaScript with strict mode.
- React: Modern framework for building user interfaces.
- Obsidian API: Official plugin API.
- Lucide Icons: Modern icon library (6000+ icons).
- CSS Grid & Flexbox: Responsive layout.
- ESBuild: Fast build tool with TypeScript and React support.
- @dnd-kit: Drag-and-drop for button and category reordering.
📄 License
This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.
🌟 Support & Help
If you find this plugin helpful, please consider:
- ⭐ Starring the repository.
- 🐛 Using the bug report template to submit bug reports.
- 💡 Using the feature request template to submit feature suggestions.
- ❓ Asking questions or sharing ideas in our Discussions.
- 📝 Referring to the Contributing Guide to contribute code or documentation.
- 💰 Providing sponsorship to the developer (if available).
🙏 Acknowledgements
This plugin uses icons from the open-source project Lucide, which is licensed under the ISC License.
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