Serendipity

approved

by Gaurav Ramesh

Forces serendipitous discoveries by displaying random notes from your vault each time you open the app

4 stars887 downloadsUpdated 1y agoMIT
View on GitHub

obsidian-serendipity-plugin

Description

Serendipity plugin was born out of my need to revisit my past notes. It might invoke nostalgia by surfacing old journal entries, allowing you to reflect on your past thoughts and experiences, or a way to trigger interesting ideas and insights from on your past learnings, whether from books, articles, or personal observations.

In short, it helps force serendipitous discoveries by displaying random notes from your vault each time you open Obsidian. It's your personal time machine, and idea generator, rolled into one.

Features

  • Displays a random note from our vault in a modal when Obsidian is opened
  • Customizable settings to specify a directory to pick a random note from
  • Customizable settings to specify a directory to exclude picking random notes from
  • Themed UI that adapts to your Obsidian theme
  • Direct link to open the source file of the displayed entry in a new tab

Installation

  1. Open Obsidian and go to Settings
  2. Navigate to Community Plugins and disable Safe Mode
  3. Click on Browse and search for "Serendipity"
  4. Install the plugin and enable it
  5. Restart Obsidian and open the vault in which the plugin is installed

Usage

Once installed and enabled, Serendipity will automatically display a random note each time you open Obsidian

Configuration/Settings

To configure the plugin settings -

  1. Go to Settings > Community Plugins
  2. Find Serendipity in the list and click on the gear icon
  3. Set the path to the directory you want the plugin to pick random notes from(Enter the path relative to the root of the vault)
  4. Set the path to the directory you want the plugin exclude while picking random notes from(Enter the path relative to the root of the vault). If a valid source directory is specified, this setting will be ignored

Development/Contribution

If you want to contribute to Serendipity, or use it as a base for your own plugin -

  1. Clone the repository
  2. Run npm run install to install dependencies
  3. Run npm run dev to start compilation in watch mode
  4. To contribute, open a PR with your changes

Reporing Issues

If you encounter any issues or have suggestions for improvements, please file an issue on the GitHub repository

Upcoming Features

  • Add support to invoke the plugin based on a command, rather than merely on start-up
  • Add a scroll to top button at the bottom of the modal to display when the user has scrolled

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