Graph Color Propagation

日本語ドキュメント / Japanese Documentation

Propagates graph node colors to uncolored nodes based on their connections.

Define color groups in Obsidian's built-in Graph view → Groups panel as usual — this plugin reads those groups and automatically spreads their colors to nearby notes that don't have a group of their own, based on how closely they're linked. No extra configuration files or query syntax to learn.

Features

• Automatic color propagation — notes without a matching group inherit a blended color from linked notes that do, weighted by distance (number of hops) and the number of paths that reach them.
• Live sync with Graph view groups — as soon as you add, edit, or remove a color group in the Graph view settings, the plugin detects the change and re-applies colors immediately. No button press needed.
• Adjustable propagation — control how far colors spread and how strong the effect is via the decay factor, max hops, and minimum influence settings.
• Manual controls — a ribbon icon, a command palette command, and an "Apply now" button in settings are all available if you want to trigger propagation by hand.

How it works

1. The plugin reads the color groups you've defined in Graph view (Settings → Graph view → Groups), matching either path: or tag: queries.
2. It builds a graph of your notes based on their links ([[wikilinks]]).
3. For every note that doesn't match a group, it searches outward (breadth-first) for the nearest colored notes, up to Max hops away.
4. Each colored note found contributes to the final color, weighted by decayFactor ^ hopDistance. Contributions below Min influence are ignored.
5. The weighted average color is applied directly to the nodes in any open Graph view.

Settings

Setting	Description	Default
Auto-apply	Automatically re-apply colors when Graph view opens or its groups change	On
Decay factor	How much a color's influence shrinks per hop (0–1). Lower = influence fades faster	0.6
Max hops	How many hops to search for a colored note	3
Min influence	Minimum weight required for a color to count; smaller contributions are discarded	0.05

Commands

• Apply propagated colors to graph — manually recompute and apply colors.
• Debug: Dump node structure to console — dumps the internal structure of the first graph node to the developer console, useful for troubleshooting if Obsidian's internal Graph renderer changes.

Requirements

• Desktop only. The plugin relies on internals of the desktop Graph view renderer and is not available on mobile.

Installation

From Community Plugins (once published)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse.
2. Search for "Graph Color Propagation".
3. Click Install, then Enable.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release.
2. Copy them into <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/graph-color-propagation/.
3. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin under Settings → Community plugins.

Notes

• This plugin does not add its own group/query UI — all color groups are managed through Obsidian's native Graph view settings.
• Propagated colors are recalculated live but are not written back into graph.json; they only affect the visual rendering of the Graph view.

License

MIT