MagicLink for Obsidian

MagicLink is a powerful hover-first navigation plugin for Obsidian. It automatically detects words and multi-word phrases in your notes that match note names, headings, tags, or property values, and displays an interactive popup with quick navigation and link insertion options.

You can quickly turn it off & on from the button near the View/Edit button.

MagikLink will show the highlighted links in Read mode.

✨ Features

🔍 Smart Detection

MagicLink detects words and phrases that match:

• 📄 Notes - Words/phrases matching note file names
• # Headings - Words/phrases matching headings in any note
• 🏷️ Tags - Words matching tags (without the # prefix)
• 📋 Properties - Words matching frontmatter property values

📝 Multi-Word Phrase Detection

MagicLink can detect phrases of up to 10 consecutive words. For example:

• A note named "Machine Learning Basics" will be detected when you hover over those 3 words
• The plugin prioritizes the longest matching phrase
• Configurable via slider in settings (1-10 words)

🎨 Customizable Styles

You can fully customize how detected words appear in your reading view:

• Color - Choose any color using a color picker
• Bold/Italic - Toggle bold and italic styles independently
• Granular Control - Set different styles for Notes, Headings, Tags, and Properties

🪄 Quick Toggle

A "Magic Wand" button is added to the header of every note view:

• Click to instantly enable/disable the plugin
• Visual Feedback - The wand becomes transparent when disabled
• Instant Update - The view refreshes immediately to show/hide highlights

🎯 Interactive Popup

When you hover over a matching word or phrase, a popup appears with:

• Navigation links - Click to open notes, jump to headings, or navigate to tags
• 🔗 Insert buttons - Small button next to each result to insert the appropriate link
  • [[NoteName]] for notes
  • [[NoteName#Heading]] for headings
  • #tag for tags
  • [[NoteName]] for properties

⚙️ Highly Configurable

Detection Toggles

Toggle each detection type independently:

• ✅ Detect Notes
• ✅ Detect Headings
• ✅ Detect Tags
• ✅ Detect Properties

Phrase Detection

• Max phrase words (slider 1-10) - Maximum consecutive words to detect as a phrase

Behavior

• Hover delay - Time before popup appears (default: 250ms)
• Min word length - Minimum characters for single word detection (default: 2)
• Max results - Maximum items shown per section (default: 10)
• Show insert buttons - Toggle 🔗 buttons on/off

🚫 Word Exclusions

Add common words to an exclusion list so they won't trigger the popup.

⏱️ Smart Behavior

• No popup while typing - Prevents distractions during writing
• Popup stays visible - The popup locks in place when your mouse enters it
• No interference - Another word underneath won't replace the current popup

Settings

---

📦 Installation

Method 1: BRAT (Recommended for Beta Testing)

1. Install the BRAT plugin from Community Plugins
2. Open BRAT settings
3. Click "Add Beta Plugin"
4. Enter: infinition/obsidian-magiclink
5. Click "Add Plugin"
6. Enable MagicLink in Community Plugins

Method 2: Manual Installation

1. Go to Releases
2. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css
3. Create folder: <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-magiclink/
4. Copy the 3 files into this folder
5. Reload Obsidian
6. Enable MagicLink in Settings → Community Plugins

Method 3: Build from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/infinition/obsidian-magiclink.git

# Navigate to plugin folder
cd obsidian-magiclink

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the plugin
npm run build

# Copy main.js, manifest.json, styles.css to your vault's plugin folder

---

⚙️ Settings

Detection

Setting	Description	Default
Detect Notes	Match words/phrases with note names	✅ On
Detect Headings	Match words/phrases with headings	✅ On
Detect Tags	Match words with tags (without #)	✅ On
Detect Properties	Match words with frontmatter values	✅ On

Phrase Detection

Setting	Description	Default
Max phrase words	Max consecutive words to detect (1-10)	5

Styles

For each type (Notes, Headings, Tags, Properties), you can configure:

• Color: Pick a custom color
• Bold: Toggle bold text
• Italic: Toggle italic text

Behavior

Setting	Description	Default
Hover delay (ms)	Time before popup appears	250
Min word length	Minimum characters for detection	2
Max results	Max items per section	10
Show insert buttons	Show 🔗 button for link insertion	✅ On

Exclusions

Setting	Description	Default
Excluded words	Comma-separated list of ignored words	the, and, for, with, this, that, from, have, been

---

🖱️ Usage

1. Hover over any word or phrase in your note
2. If it matches a note, heading, tag, or property, a popup appears
3. Click on any item to navigate to that location
4. Or click the 🔗 button to insert the appropriate link
5. Toggle Plugin: Click the 🪄 wand icon in the note header to enable/disable MagicLink.

📝 Popup Sections

Icon	Section	Action
📍	Here	Jump to heading in current note
📄	Notes	Open notes with matching names
#	Headings	Jump to headings in other notes
🏷️	Tags	Jump to where a tag is used (with line number)
📋	Properties	Open notes with matching property values

🔗 Link Insertion

Each result row has a small 🔗 button that inserts the appropriate link:

Type	Inserted Link
Note	[[NoteName]]
Heading	[[NoteName#Heading]]
Tag	#tagname
Property	[[NoteName]]

---

🔧 Technical Details

• DOM-based detection - No CodeMirror conflicts
• Efficient indexing - Indexes built on load, updated on file changes
• Multi-word support - Detects phrases up to 10 words
• Smart popup - Locks when mouse enters, prevents accidental replacement

---

📄 License

MIT License - Free to use and modify.

👤 Author

Infinition

🔗 Links

• GitHub Repository
• Report Issues
• Releases

---

Made with ❤️ for the Obsidian community.

Star History