My Mind

My Mind is an Obsidian plugin that adds an optional mindmap mode to Obsidian Canvas.

My Mind is desktop-only. It uses Obsidian Canvas runtime internals that are not supported on mobile.

When mindmap mode is enabled for a canvas, My Mind only intervenes in Canvas interactions needed for mindmap workflows, such as node creation, navigation, editing, subtree drag, and layout.

Features

• Mode toggle: Canvas control toggle for each .canvas file. Turn on to activate My Mind's mindmap mode.

  

• Auto layout button: when mindmap mode is enabled, a Canvas control button appears below the toggle to run Auto layout current mindmap canvas.

  

Basic operations

• Tab: create a child text node.
• Enter: create a sibling text node.
• Space: enter node editing mode.
• Esc: leave node editing mode and keep the node selected.

Optional settings

• Keyboard
  • Use Arrow keys to navigate.
  • Set the Shift + Arrow move distance.
• Node creation
  • Edit new nodes automatically.
  • Zoom to newly created nodes.
• Colors
  • Auto color first-level nodes.
  • Customize first-level branch colors.
• Layout
  • Turn subtree drag on or off. When on, dragging a selected node also moves its descendants.
  • Auto layout siblings after creating nodes.
  • Expand root branches left or right from the root connection side.
• Spacing and size
  • Set the row gap.
  • Set the column gap.
  • Set the default new node width.
  • Set the default new node height.

How it works

Feature	Implementation summary	Resource use
Mindmap mode toggle	Stores enabled state per .canvas file path. My Mind only changes behavior when the current Canvas has mindmap mode enabled.	Very low. Only updates when Canvas view/layout changes or the toggle is clicked.
Keyboard node creation	Tab / Enter create Canvas text nodes and parent-child edges. Edges created by My Mind are marked as structural with myMindStructuralEdge: true.	Low. Runs only on the key press.
Arrow navigation	Uses an Obsidian Scope while mindmap mode is enabled. It reads the structural tree first, then falls back to geometric navigation.	Low. Runs only on Arrow key presses.
Shift + Arrow move	Moves all selected nodes by a configured Canvas-coordinate distance. Moved nodes are marked with myMindManualPosition: true.	Low. Runs only on the key press and commits one Canvas history entry.
Manual position preservation	Nodes moved by drag or Shift + Arrow get myMindManualPosition: true in Canvas node data. Auto layout skips affected subtrees so user-positioned nodes are preserved. Use Return to automatic layout to clear the marker.	Low. Checks node data during layout and creation.
Auto layout	Builds a structural tree from myMindStructuralEdge edges. Cross-links and extra parent edges stay visible but do not affect layout. Root positions are preserved.	Medium only when layout runs. No continuous layout loop.
Root branch left/right direction	Uses the root edge fromSide as the source of truth. Changing branch side updates edge sides and relayouts the tree.	Low to medium. A lightweight requestSave() hook is active only for enabled Canvas files when this setting is on.
Branch coloring	Stores automatic color markers as myMindAutoColor. Manual colors are preserved when they differ from the auto marker.	Low. Runs when nodes are created or colors are applied.
Text node auto-size	On Esc or blur, the node text is measured once with Canvas text measurement and the node is resized. There is no per-character resize and no polling.	Low to medium on edit finish only.
Subtree drag	When enabled, temporarily expands the Canvas selection to include descendants of the highest selected nodes, then restores the original selection after drag. No modifier key is required.	Low. Runs only during drag start/end.
Recover selection after deleting	After deleting selected nodes, selects the unique direct parent when the deleted selection has one unambiguous parent.	Low. Uses short delayed checks after Delete.
Iframe editor listeners	Canvas text editors live in iframes. My Mind attaches Esc / focusout listeners with a MutationObserver and removes them on detach/unload.	Low. No fixed polling.
Undo batching	Plugin compound actions batch data changes and commit one Canvas history entry where possible.	Low. Reduces extra undo steps.

Notes

Obsidian does not currently expose a stable public runtime API for Canvas manipulation. My Mind uses a small adapter around Canvas internals, so future Obsidian updates may require maintenance.

This plugin is inspired by ideas and workflows from:

• Advanced Canvas
• Lovely Mindmap

Installation

From Community Plugins

1. Open Settings → Community plugins.
2. Turn off Restricted mode.
3. Select Browse and search for My Mind.
4. Select Install, then select Enable.

Manual Installation

1. Go to the Releases page.
2. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
3. Create a folder named my-mind in your vault's plugin folder: <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/my-mind.
4. Move the downloaded files into that folder.
5. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

License

MIT

Donate

If you find this plugin helpful, please give me a GitHub star ⭐️ or buy me a coffee ☕️!