Simboard

A widget-based home dashboard for Obsidian. Drop a simboard code block into any note and get:

• Banner: a wallpaper with a greeting, a live clock and today's date
• Calendar: the current month; days with a daily note get a dot and open the note on click (it floats over the banner)
• Quick links: a row of buttons that open your most-used notes
• Todos: a todo list backed by a plain markdown file. Add, check off, delete, drag to reorder; finished items are cleaned up after a few days
• Vault stats: note, attachment and folder counts, plus an 18-week activity heatmap

Colors come from your theme, so Simboard works with any community theme. There is also an optional high-contrast e-ink mode.

Simboard is desktop-only for now.

Usage

```simboard
```

An empty block shows the default widgets (set in Settings → Simboard). To pick widgets and their order, or to pass per-widget options, use YAML:

```simboard
widgets: banner, calendar, todos, vault-stats
name: Alex                # greeting name (else the note's `name` property)
banner:
  path: Attachments/wallpapers/   # overrides the banner image for this block
  ratio: 21 / 9
```

Widget id	Layout
banner	full width
calendar	over the banner, otherwise a card
quick-links	full width
todos	card
vault-stats	card

Cards that are next to each other share a row and stack on narrow panes.

Commands

Command	What it does
Simboard: Open dashboard	Opens the dashboard note (also on the ribbon icon). Reuses an open tab.
Simboard: Insert dashboard block	Inserts an empty simboard block at the cursor.
Simboard: Refresh dashboards	Re-renders every open dashboard.

Set the dashboard note in the settings. If you leave it empty, the first note that contains a simboard block is used.

Full-page dashboard

Add the simboard-home CSS class to the note. It hides the note's title and properties and lets the dashboard use the full pane width:

---
cssclasses:
  - simboard-home
---

Todo file format

Todos are ordinary markdown checkboxes in one file (set it in the settings), written in the Tasks date format:

## Todos
- [ ] Write the report 📅 2026-10-23
- [x] Book flights 📅 2026-10-20 ✅ 2026-10-22

New todos go under the ## Todos heading. Finished todos stay in the file for the keep period and are then removed.

Installation

Until Simboard is in the community plugin list, install it with BRAT (zhezhou1106/obsidian-simboard), or copy main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/simboard/.

Development

npm install
cp .env.example .env.local   # set OBSIDIAN_VAULT to your vault
npm run dev                  # watch + build + sync into the vault + hot reload
npm run build                # type-check + one-off build (also syncs)
npm run lint                 # Obsidian's official review rules (eslint-plugin-obsidianmd)
npm run dev:test             # same as dev/build, but for the vault in .env.test.local
npm run build:test

With .env.local set, each build copies main.js, manifest.json and styles.css to <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/simboard/. If the Obsidian CLI is installed, the plugin is also reloaded in the running app.

Project layout

src/
├─ main.ts                    plugin entry: services, code block, settings tab
├─ core/
│  ├─ types.ts                DashboardWidget / WidgetScope / WidgetContext
│  ├─ DashboardRenderer.ts    layout, per-widget refresh, holds, slots
│  └─ blockConfig.ts          parses the simboard code block (YAML)
├─ widgets/
│  ├─ registry.ts             list of available widgets
│  └─ <id>/<Name>Widget.ts    one folder per widget
├─ services/                  TodoStore, ActivityTracker, DailyNotesService
├─ settings/                  types, defaults, normalize (migrations), tab
├─ i18n/                      UI strings (en.ts) + t()
├─ utils/                     date / DOM helpers
└─ styles/                    index.css → base, layout, page, widgets/*, eink

Adding a widget

1. Create src/widgets/<id>/<Name>Widget.ts that exports a DashboardWidget:
   • collect(ctx) gathers data (it can be async)
   • render(el, data, ctx, scope) builds the DOM with createEl
   • shouldRefresh(file) says which vault changes should refresh the widget
2. Register it in src/widgets/registry.ts.
3. Add src/styles/widgets/<id>.css, import it from src/styles/index.css, and scope every rule under .simboard.
4. Put any settings in their own group in settings/types.ts, defaults.ts and normalize.ts.

Releasing

npm version patch            # bumps package.json, manifest.json, versions.json
git push && git push --tags  # the Release workflow drafts a GitHub release

License

MIT