Note Relatives

Show a note's relatives as links at the top of the note: its parent, the notes beside it and below it, its counterpart in another language, and any list property read both ways, such as requires and required by. Everything is read from frontmatter, and nothing is written into your notes.

Using it

Put a nav code block in a note, usually right after its frontmatter, or run the command Insert relatives block:

---
up: "[[Linear algebra]]"
counterpart: "[[القيم الذاتية]]"
requires:
  - "[[Linear maps]]"
  - "[[Determinants]]"
---
```nav
```

The block draws, in rows:

• 🏡 the home note, if you set one;
• ▲ the parent, the note named by up;
• ⇄ the counterpart, the note named by counterpart, for notes kept in two languages or two versions;
• beside: the notes with the same parent;
• below: the notes whose parent is this note;
• a row per relation you set up, either the note's own list (requires) or the same list read the other way (required by: every note whose requires names this one);
• routed to, for a note with no parent: the notes its chosen properties link;
• badges: a word shown when a property holds a value, such as axiom when axiom: true;
• a warning when the parent is not a note.

A click opens a note, Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on macOS) opens it in a new tab, and hovering with the same key shows a preview. A long row shows 24 links and counts the rest.

The block is drawn from an index of parents and relations that the plugin keeps up to date one note at a time, so opening a note never scans the vault. When another note's frontmatter changes, the open blocks are drawn again.

Right to left

A note whose language property is a right-to-left language (ar, fa, he and ur by default) is drawn right to left, with its own labels and its own home note. Any label left empty for right-to-left notes falls back to the ordinary one.

Where a note is taught

A relation read the other way can also say where. Give it a section heading, such as Concepts it teaches. In each linking note, the list item under that heading which links this note is read for a place:

Written	Shown
- [[Eigenvalues]] 12:40 or 1:02:03	Lecture 21 · 12:40
- [[Eigenvalues]] [12:40](https://…)	Lecture 21 · 12:40 and a ▶ link to the video
- [[Eigenvalues]] p. 82, pp. 82–84	Book ch. 5 · pp. 82–84
- [[Eigenvalues]] sl. 74	Lecture 21 · sl. 74

With short names on, a note called Lecture 21 - Eigenvalues and eigenvectors is shown as Lecture 21.

Settings

Setting	Default	What it does
Block name	nav	The code block's language. A change takes effect when the plugin is reloaded.
Parent property	up	Names a note's parent; children and siblings follow from it.
Counterpart property	counterpart	Names the same note in another language. Empty hides it.
Language property	language	Holds a note's language code.
Right-to-left languages	ar, fa, he, ur	Their notes are drawn right to left.
Show siblings, Show children	on	The two rows the parent gives.
Links per row	24	A longer row counts the rest.
Home note, and one for right-to-left notes	none	A note linked first on every block.
Excluded folders	none	Their notes are nobody's child or sibling: a templates folder, for one.
Properties for a note with no parent	none	Shown as one row when a note has no parent.
Relations listed by the note	none	Rows of what a note's own list properties link.
Relations naming the note	none	Rows of the notes whose list names this one, with an optional section that says where.
Badges	none	A word shown when a property holds a value.
Labels	English	Every row's label, and its right-to-left counterpart.

Every setting appears in Obsidian's settings search.

Privacy

The plugin makes no network requests and writes nothing into your notes; its settings live in its own data.json. It reads frontmatter from Obsidian's metadata cache. It reads a note's text only for a relation that has a "where" section, and then only the notes that link the one on screen.

Installing

From Settings → Community plugins, once it is listed there. Until then, copy main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/note-relatives/, then enable Note Relatives. It needs Obsidian 1.13 or later. It uses no desktop-only API, so it is not limited to desktop, though it has been tested on Windows only.

Development

npm install
npm test          # the model, the locator, the renderer, and the plugin end to end in Node
npm run lint      # ESLint with Obsidian's review rules
npm run build     # type check, then main.js
npm run dev       # rebuild on every change
node docs/demo/build.mjs --shots   # the screenshots above, from docs/demo

A release is a tag: npm version patch (or minor, major) bumps manifest.json and versions.json, and pushing the tag makes the workflow build the plugin and draft a GitHub release with main.js, manifest.json and styles.css.

Licence

MIT.