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Time Canvas

An Obsidian plugin that surfaces notes written on this day in previous years, displayed as collapsible cards in the sidebar.

Features

• On This Day — Automatically finds notes from the same month and day across all previous years
• Active Note Pinned to Top — The currently open note always appears first in its year group, doubling as a quick outline
• Dual View Modes — Switch between outline view (headings only) and snippet view (content preview)
• Collapsible Cards — Expand or collapse individual notes and year groups
• Date Source Priority — Choose between created, date, or custom frontmatter fields, with fallback to file creation time
• Follow Active Note — Dynamically updates based on the currently opened note's date
• Display Properties — Show frontmatter properties (title, tags, custom fields) on each card
• Exclude Folders — Filter out folders you don't want included in the history search
• Customizable Appearance — Font sizes, colors, card backgrounds, and hover effects
• Bilingual UI — Full Chinese and English support

Installation

From Obsidian Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Settings → Community Plugins
2. Search for "Time Canvas"
3. Click Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json from the latest release
2. Create a folder named time-canvas in your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory
3. Copy the three files into that folder
4. Enable the plugin in Settings → Community Plugins

Usage

Opening the Sidebar

• Click the calendar-clock ribbon icon on the left sidebar
• Or run the command "Time canvas: Open sidebar" from the command palette

View Modes

• Outline mode — Shows heading links for each note
• Snippet mode — Shows a text preview of each note's content

Use the view mode toggle button in the sidebar header to switch between them.

Date Detection

Time Canvas detects note dates in this priority order (configurable in settings):

1. Frontmatter field (e.g., date, created, or a custom field)
2. Date pattern in the filename (e.g., 2024-01-15 Daily Note.md)
3. File system creation time (fallback)

Settings

Setting	Description	Default
Follow Active Note Date	Update sidebar based on active note's date	On
Show Active Note	Include the current note in results (pinned to top)	On
Date Field Priority	Which frontmatter field to read first	date first
Display Properties	Frontmatter fields to show on cards	title, tags
Max Heading Level	Maximum heading level to display	H1–h3
Heading Spacing	Vertical gap between heading items	2px
Snippet Lines	Lines shown in snippet mode	3
Collapse Year Groups	Also collapse year groups when folding	Off
Show Time Span	Display "X years ago" next to year	On
Exclude Folders	Folders excluded from search	None
Card Hover Glow	Highlight card borders on hover	Off
Font Sizes	Adjustable offsets for all text elements	Follow theme
Colors	Customizable colors for titles, tags, headings	Follow theme

Development

# Install dependencies
npm i

# Development build with watch mode
npm run dev

# Production build
npm run build

# Lint
npm run lint

License

0-BSD