Single File Section Cards

An Obsidian plugin that shows the sections of one note as a wall of cards — one card per heading — and lets you edit any section in place. With many layout and view options, it functions as a home for ad hoc dashboards, a day planner, sticky notes, flash cards, task management, brainstorming, and a diary or journal.

Why one big note? A single file has real advantages over a folder of small ones: an AI agent can read the whole context in one go, nothing about the structure is locked into a plugin, and any app that edits Markdown can edit it. The usual price is scrolling — like hunting for today's section in a year-long note or finding a to-do item in a large project file. This plugin removes that price: the note stays one plain Markdown file, and you work in the view that fits the job — a wall of cards, a calendar, a day planner, a canvas — landing on the section you want without scrolling for it.

While this is a standalone plugin that works on any note, it pairs nicely with Single File Daily Notes as well as Tasks.

Install it from the Obsidian community plugin directory → · Release notes

If this plugin is useful to you, you can support its development:

What it does

• One card per heading. Pick which level becomes a card (H1–H6). Multiple layouts, sort orders, and per-card colors.
• Work directly on the cards. Click a card to edit its markdown, tick task checkboxes (with optional ✅ done dates), quick-add text or delete it. Pinned cards stay at the top.
• Drag and drop. Reorder cards, or drag a task, paragraph, or image onto another card.
• Select many. Click a title bar to select its card, Shift-click to select a run (or press Ctrl/⌘+A), then pin, color, flip, move, or delete them together from the bar that appears (or a title bar's menu). Ctrl/⌘-click makes a card big. Arrow keys walk the cards; Enter edits, Space selects, Shift+arrow extends.
• Group by. Divider bars over buckets — first tag, date, open tasks, stars, or length — from the toolbar's Group dropdown. Collapse any card to its title bar; both are remembered.
• Plays with the Tasks plugin. Ticking a checkbox uses its toggle (recurring tasks recur), and the right-click menu gains its create/edit dialogs.
• Flash cards. A marker line splits a section into a front and a back; the card's flip button turns it over to the answer, definition, or notes behind (see Card Flip).
• Make it yours. Apply custom card colors and background images (remembered per note), and tune the look with the Style Settings plugin.
• Navigate as cards. Wikilinks open the linked note's card wall, the ↗ button opens the section in a normal editor.
• Templates and dates. New cards can start from a template note.
• Deck. The toolbar's deck button (or D) flips the view to thumbnails of your pinned and most recent card notes — click one to hop over.
• Pick or create a note. The toolbar's note button (or O) opens a picker of recent notes that searches the vault as you type. Type a title that isn't a note yet and the last row offers to create it (Shift+Enter, or the footer's "Create new note…" button), in Obsidian's default new-note folder — or include a folder/ to place it.
• Keyboard shortcuts. 1–6 heading level, L/Shift+L layouts, V view modes, D deck, M menu, ,/. previous/next heading, N new card, O pick a note, S starred lines only, F flip the card under the pointer, Shift+F all cards face up, arrows move the card focus (Enter edits, Space selects), Ctrl/⌘+A select all, Ctrl/⌘+F filter, Ctrl/⌘+T a new task in a card editor via the Tasks plugin. Click ? to show keyboard shortcuts.

Layouts

Pick a layout from the toolbar's Layout dropdown, the Layouts row of the toolbar's ☰ menu or any right-click menu, or press L to cycle (Shift+L backwards). Layouts you never use in a note can be hidden from it: Ctrl/⌘-click one in the Layouts menu and it leaves that note's dropdown and L cycle, staying in the menu dimmed as "(hidden)" — click it there to bring it back (remembered per note; the layout showing can't be hidden — switch away first).

Vertical

Full-height cards side by side.

Custom Grid

A freeform canvas: drag sections on from the tray, then place, move, and resize them. The arrangement is remembered per note in the plugin's data — never in your notes.

Images

The same canvas for the note's images and videos — a reference or idea board built from what the note already links. Hover a preview to magnify it or open the original; right-click to copy, cut, delete, or paste.

Grid

Masonry columns: every card takes only the height it needs.

Grid Aligned

A uniform grid — every row starts at the same height, with a rule between rows.

Tight

The same masonry packing, denser: narrower columns, smaller gaps and type.

Tasks Only

Each card shows only its task lines, ordered by date, #tag, or task count, with an open/done filter and a per-card count badge. Editing still opens the section's full text.

Horizontal

One card per row, full pane width.

Rolodex

One card at a time, filling the pane, with every card's title as a tab across the top — the strip grows to more rows as titles pile up, and past four it scrolls sideways. Click a tab (or press , / .) to turn to that card, drag a tab onto another to move its section there in the note, or drag a paragraph or task from the card onto a tab to send it to that card.

Day Planner

One day on one page: the card's title sits across the top with arrows to yesterday and tomorrow, and each sub-heading directly beneath it is a card of its own in one of two columns, its tasks and any deeper headings inside (a month shows its weeks, each week its days); loose lines above the first sub-heading form one card, named after the unfiled card. Drag a card to the other column or into a new order, resize it, tick its tasks, or send it to the next day by dropping it on an arrow — the note changes underneath, and the arrangement is remembered per note. Stepping onto a day with no card offers to create it or to skip to the nearest day that has one.

Document setup

☰ → Document setup… says what each heading level of the note holds: nothing, text in document order, text in alphanumeric order, or a year, month, week, or day. With the toolbar's Dates checkbox on, the defaults are detected from the headings themselves (“September 2026” at H1 is a month in the “MMMM YYYY” spelling, ISO days at H3 are days); with it off every level is text. The Day Planner's arrows follow the setup: at a month level → is the next month and ← the one before, a missing month can be created on the spot, and at an alphanumeric level the arrows walk the sections A→Z (numbers by value). Saved per note; Reset to detected forgets the saved rows.

Calendar

Date cards on a monthly grid, today highlighted. Click an empty day to start its card, or drag a card onto another day to move it. Needs date headings.

Heatmap

A year-at-a-glance graph of the dated cards, shaded by tasks done, with streak stats above. Click a day to open (or create) its card. Needs date headings.

Links

The canvas for the note's web links: placed tiles show a live page preview. The magnifier opens the page big and interactive; ↗ opens it in your browser.

Hierarchy & Dividers

The toolbar's View mode toggle groups cards by the headings above the card level, in any layout except the Custom Grid canvas. Hierarchy adds drill-down columns on the left — click a heading to see its branch, with card and open-task counts per row. Dividers keeps one wall, split by a collapsible bar per ancestor heading; the count at the bar's right end shows the group's size. In either mode, , and . step to the previous/next heading — switching the selected column row in Hierarchy, scrolling the previous/next bar to the top in Dividers.

On mobile

The plugin works reasonably well on iOS devices, though it isn't fully tested there yet. The Horizontal layout in particular makes an excellent way to input data while on the go: one full-width card per section, with quick add, checkboxes, and in-place editing a thumb-tap away.

Group by

The toolbar's Group dropdown puts divider bars over buckets of cards instead of the ancestor headings: Tag (a card's first #tag), Date (the heading's date, else the latest date in the body — Upcoming, Today, Yesterday, This week, This month, Older), Open tasks (6+, 3–5, 1–2, none), Stars, or Length (long, medium, short). Cards keep the active sort inside a bucket; click a bar to collapse its bucket. The choice is remembered per note, like the sort.

Selecting many cards

Selection works like a file manager: click a card's title bar to select it, Shift-click another card to select the run between them, Ctrl/⌘+A for every visible card, and click empty space (or press Esc) to clear. Ctrl/⌘-click makes a card big instead. Changing the sort or grouping keeps the selected card in view. A bar along the bottom then offers Pin, Unpin, Color…, Flip / Unflip (two-faced cards), Rename card… (rewrites the heading text; pins, colors, and placements follow), and Delete…; a title bar's right-click menu has the same, plus Move selected before / after this card. Dragging one selected card drags them all (document order). Esc clears the selection.

Keyboard. The arrow keys move a dashed focus ring to the nearest card in that direction; Enter opens that card's editor, Space selects or deselects it, and Shift+arrow extends the selection as it moves. In the Rolodex and the Day Planner, left and right step to the neighbouring card.

Collapsing cards

The chevron in a title bar's action strip (or Collapse card in its right-click menu) folds a card to its title bar; click again to open it. Collapsed cards are remembered per note.

Brainstorming with cards

A single note makes a whole brainstorm: one ### heading per theme, and the wall becomes your sticky notes (sample-vault/Brainstorm.md is this example).

Then switch to Custom Grid and arrange: cluster related themes, size cards by importance, and leave the "later" cards in the list on the right. Drag tasks between cards.

The right-click menu

Right-click a task or paragraph on a card (long-press on mobile) for a menu.

• Move line to previous / next card — sends the block to the neighbouring card in the current sort order
• Move line to today — on a dated note, sends the block to today's card, creating it first if the note doesn't have one yet
• Edit line… — opens the block in a small edit window, in the same live-preview (or source/plain) editor mode cards use; double-clicking the line opens it too
• Mark done / Mark undone — ticks or unticks the task where it sits
• Copy / Cut line — puts the block on the clipboard; Cut also removes it from the section
• Paste below — inserts the clipboard contents after the block (from a card's empty space, Paste at end appends to the card instead)
• Add star / Remove star — marks the line with the star emoji, for the toolbar's starred-only view (see Filter and starred lines)
• Delete line — removes the block (and sub-items) from the section

Working with the Tasks plugin

When Tasks is installed and enabled, the integration switches on by itself:

• Ticking a checkbox goes through Tasks, so recurring tasks spawn their next occurrence and done dates follow your Tasks settings. (The "Toggle tasks with the Tasks plugin" setting, on by default.)
• Edit task (Tasks)… — the right-click menu opens a task in Tasks' edit dialog (via a normal editor, since Tasks edits at a cursor).
• New task (below) (Tasks)… — Tasks' create dialog, inserting the finished line below the clicked block, or at the section's end from a card's empty space.

Without Tasks, the menu omits those entries and this plugin's own toggle applies — with the optional ✅ YYYY-MM-DD done date.

Ctrl/⌘+T in a card editor opens the Tasks plugin's dialog for the task on the cursor line, or creates a new task there — the same as Tasks' own Create or edit task command. (The plain-text editor has no cursor for Tasks to read, so it gets the create dialog and the line drops in at the cursor.)

Due-task marks (settings → Tasks → Mark cards with due tasks, on by default): a card with an open task due today gets an amber pill and edge; one with an overdue task, red. Both Tasks-style 📅 2026-09-10 dates and Dataview [due:: 2026-09-10] fields count.

Pinned cards

Every card's title bar has a pin button (click again to unpin). Pinning pulls the card into a pinned section at the top of the wall regardless of sort order, remembered per note across layouts, views, and restarts.

Filter and starred lines

The toolbar's filter box (Ctrl/⌘+F) narrows the wall to cards containing the typed text; Esc clears it. For longer-lived highlighting, right-click a line and pick Add star — the star emoji is written into the note as plain text, and the toolbar's star toggle (key S) then shows only the starred lines.

Stickies

Any card can float in a window of its own: click the sticky-note button in its action strip, or Open in a sticky window on its title bar menu. The window shows just that card — tasks, editing, and all — stays in sync with the note, and can be kept on top of every other window with the button in its strip. Desktop only.

The Deck

The toolbar's deck button (or D) flips the view to thumbnails of your card notes — pinned ones first, then the most recently opened — each with the note's first lines and its layout. Click one to hop over; the Sort dropdown reorders them by recency, file name, or the file's modified/created time. Right-click a tile for Rename note… (links update and the remembered view follows) above Obsidian's own file menu.

Manage notes

The ☰ menu's Manage notes… (also a command) lists every note the plugin remembers a cards view for — searchable, pinned notes first, each with its heading level and layout. Click a note to open it, or use the row's buttons: pin it into the right-click menu's quick switch, rename it (links update), duplicate it with its view settings, forget the remembered view, or delete the note.

The menu, and per-note backgrounds

The ☰ button at the toolbar's left end collects the per-note controls, including Background: give the note's card wall an image — from the vault, your computer, or a URL (downloaded once into the attachment folder) — with live sliders for transparency, brightness, and saturation, all remembered per note. That one URL download is the plugin's only network access; everything else works fully offline.

Style Settings

With the Style Settings plugin installed, Settings → Style Settings → Single File Section Cards offers visual knobs: card gap, column width, wall padding, card surface strength per theme, a flat (shadowless) card toggle, calendar day-cell height, and the default background-image veil. Without Style Settings everything simply uses the defaults.

Card colors

Every card's title bar has a palette button offering nine colors, which tint the card's border and title bar in every layout. Colors are remembered per note in the plugin's data.

Card Flip

A card can have two faces. Put the back-side marker on its own line and everything above it is the card's front, everything below its back — a study question with the answer behind it, a term and its definition, or notes and metadata kept out of the way.

### Capital of France?

%% flip %%
Paris — since 508, with a gap for Vichy.

Cards with a back get a flip button (a horizontal loop arrow) at the end of the title bar's action strip, and a Flip the card over item in its right-click menu. The faces slide past each other, the flipped card shows in inverted colors so it stands out, and the card keeps its size — a longer back scrolls. F flips the card under the pointer, Shift+F turns every card face up, and the toolbar menu has Flip all cards over / back. Flipped cards stay flipped through edits, layout switches, and closing and reopening the note (remembered per note in the plugin's data). Making a card big shows both faces stacked, the back under a labelled rule. The back is display-only; click the card to edit the whole section.

The default marker %% flip %% is an Obsidian comment, invisible in reading view. Any text works (settings → Card Flip → Back-side marker), such as --- or <!-- back -->. Leave a blank line above it. The Flip-over button setting (on by default) turns the whole feature off.

New-card options, per note

The toolbar button beside + New card holds the open note's new-card options: a template note, and the note's own heading-name format.

Templates

A template pre-fills the body of every new card, so a daily-notes file can start each day with the same skeleton. Pick one via the new-card options button ("Choose template note…") — one template per note, stored in the plugin's data, never in your notes; the button wears the accent color while one is set. On + New card the template is read, its placeholders filled in, and the new card opens for editing.

Placeholders.

Placeholder	Becomes
{{title}}	The new card's heading text
{{date}} / {{date:FORMAT}}	The date named in the new heading — today if it names none
{{time}} / {{time:FORMAT}}	The current time

FORMAT is a moment format string, as in Obsidian's core Templates. {{date}} follows the card, not the clock: back-filling a card for last Tuesday writes last Tuesday's date.

Example. With this template note:

- [ ] Standup notes
- [ ] Review {{date:dddd}}'s plan
- [ ] Shutdown checklist ({{title}})

creating the card 2026-08-20, Thursday produces:

### 2026-08-20, Thursday
- [ ] Standup notes
- [ ] Review Thursday's plan
- [ ] Shutdown checklist (2026-08-20, Thursday)

Dates, per note

The toolbar's Dates checkbox says whether the open note's headings name dates. It governs the today-card highlight, the jump-to-today scroll, and the calendar button — per note. Until clicked, it decides from the note itself; click it once and your choice is remembered.

Hide future or past dates

With Dates on, two toggle buttons beside the toolbar's calendar button (and the same items in the toolbar menu) offer Hide future dates and Hide past dates: dated cards after today, or before it, drop out of the wall (today's card and undated cards always show). A status bar along the pane's bottom says which are hidden, with a button to show them again; jumping to a hidden date turns the hide off. Remembered per note. The Calendar, Heatmap, and Day Planner ignore them — the grids place every day, and the planner shows one day at a time and walks to the next with its arrows — so the toggles step aside on those layouts and come back, still set, when you return to a wall layout.

Jump to a date

With Dates on and date headings present, a calendar button appears beside the checkbox. Pick a date and the view scrolls to that card and flashes it; if no card exists for the date, a prompt offers to create it (template applied, default placement).

Usage

• Click the deck icon in a note's top-right corner: that tab becomes the note's cards view (settings → Cards button on notes turns the icon off).
• Right-click any note in the file explorer (or its tab header) and choose Open as cards.
• Click the deck-of-cards icon in the ribbon, or run one of the commands:
  • Single File Section Cards: Open today's section — the default note as cards with today's card brought into view, created first if the note doesn't have one yet (also the calendar-check icon in the ribbon, "Open default card"). A note that doesn't use date headings (the toolbar's Dates toggle is off, or its cards carry no dates) opens the card named by the Default card for undated notes setting instead, creating it if needed — or, with that setting empty, just opens. The single-file stand-in for the core Daily notes plugin's "Open today's daily note"; give it that command's hotkey under Settings → Hotkeys.
  • Single File Section Cards: Open section cards (default note)
  • Single File Section Cards: Open section cards for the active note
  • Single File Section Cards: Create new card
• The toolbar button switches notes: your default note, notes you've viewed as cards, and recently opened notes lead the list, with the rest of the vault's notes below them — type to search everything by name or path.

Settings

Setting	What it does
Default note	Vault-relative path opened by the ribbon icon and command
Cards button on notes	A deck icon in every note's top-right that opens the note as cards in the same tab (on by default)
Reopen remembered notes as cards	A note you've viewed as cards before opens in the cards view instead of the editor; a card's ↗ button still reaches the editor (off by default)
Heading level	Which heading rank becomes a card (H1–H6)
Show unfiled text as a card / Unfiled card title	Text above the first heading (below any properties) becomes its own card, with a display-only title (off by default)
Show properties as a card / Properties card title	The note's properties (frontmatter) become the first card, as a table of names and values; editing the card edits the raw properties text. Display-only title (off by default)
Jump to today's card	Scroll to today's card when a note opens in the view (on by default; needs the note's Dates checkbox)
Keep pinned cards on screen	Pinned cards stay on screen while the rest scroll — below the toolbar, or left of the row in Vertical (on by default; not in Custom Grid)
Mark cards with due tasks	Amber badge and edge for cards with an open task due today, red for overdue (Tasks 📅 or Dataview due fields); click the badge to jump to the first overdue task
Card colors	Each of the nine card colors' RGB value and label, with preset palettes to apply in one pick
Card Flip	Flip-over button on cards that hold the back-side marker line; the marker text itself (default %% flip %%)
Default sort	A→Z, Z→A, or document order
Default layout	Grid, Grid Aligned, Tight, Horizontal, Vertical, Custom Grid
Show open-task counts in Hierarchy columns	Square badge per column row counting the unfinished tasks beneath it (on by default)
Default heading name	Date format used to pre-fill "New card" (any note can set its own from the toolbar's new-card options menu)
Default placement	Where a new card is inserted
Default card for undated notes	Card that "Open default card" / "Open today's section" opens (creating it if needed) when the default note doesn't use date headings; empty just opens the note
Autosave open card editors	Write an open editor's content to the note every few minutes, and when the view closes, so an edit left open isn't lost (on by default)
Autosave interval	Minutes between autosaves while a card editor is open (default 5)
Toggle tasks with the Tasks plugin	Route checkbox ticks through the Tasks plugin when it's installed (recurrence, its done dates)
Completion date on tasks	Append ✅ YYYY-MM-DD when a task is ticked
Cross out nested items	Whether ticking a task also strikes through the items nested beneath it
Star emoji	The emoji "Add star" writes at the start of a line, matched by the starred-only view (default ⭐)
Card height	Maximum card height before the body scrolls

Install

From the community plugin directory (recommended)

In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Single File Section Cards, install, and enable. Updates arrive through the normal plugin updater.

With BRAT (pre-release versions)

To track releases straight from this repository, add jordanlong121/singlefilesectioncards as a beta plugin in BRAT.

FAQ

Is this vibe-coded? Yes!

Will you maintain this? Yes! I use it everyday and want to make it the best I can.

Are there other plugins like it? I don't know, that's why I wrote it.

Do you need the Single File Daily Notes plugin for this to work? No, but you should use it because it's cool.

Do you need the Tasks plugin? No — checkboxes, done dates, and the right-click menu all work without it. If it's installed, ticking goes through Tasks (so recurring tasks recur) and the menu gains its create/edit dialogs.

Do you accept feature or bug fix requests? Yes, please open an issue on the GitHub page.

License

MIT