Trail

Trail is an Obsidian plugin for adding named relations between notes and traversing them through a dedicated pane.

Documentation · Getting Started · Examples · Support

Features

• Inline typed relations using a concise :: syntax.
• Frontmatter relations via relations map and relations.<type> properties.
• Implied relations with forward/reverse/both/sibling direction rules.
• Hierarchy view to browse all ancestors of the active note.

Inline syntax

Single relation per link, prefix or suffix:

• up::[[Parent]]
• [[Child]]::down

Frontmatter relations

Map format:

relations:
  up: "[[Parent]]"
  down:
    - "Child A"
    - "[[Child B]]"

Dot property format:

relations.up: "[[Parent]]"

Implied relations

In Settings → Trail, add implied relation rules:

• Base relation
• Implied relation
• Direction: forward, reverse, both, or sibling

Examples:

• up -> parent (forward) makes A -up-> B imply A -parent-> B
• up -> parent (reverse) makes A -up-> B imply B -parent-> A
• up -> sibling (sibling) makes notes sharing the same target siblings of each other

Using the Trail pane

• Open with the Trail: Open pane command.
• Use Trail: Refresh graph to rebuild all relations.
• Filter which relation types to include using the filter button.
• Browse the full ancestor chain of the active note.

Installation

Install via BRAT

1. Install the BRAT plugin from Settings → Community plugins.
2. Enable BRAT.
3. Open BRAT settings and select Add Beta plugin.
4. Enter https://github.com/theoryzhenkov/trail and select Add Plugin.
5. Enable Trail in Settings → Community plugins.

Manual install

Copy main.js, styles.css, manifest.json to:

<Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/trail/

Development

npm install
npm run dev

Support

If you find Trail useful, consider buying me a coffee.