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Why another explorer?

Obsidian's built‑in file explorer is fine but minimal. The popular community alternative — Notebook Navigator — is powerful but dual‑pane and opinionated in ways that don't suit every workflow. Obsidian Treepane is what's left when you strip back to first principles:

• A single scrollable column.
• Folders and files interleaved, VS Code style.
• Notes expose a preview and a modified‑date.
• Drag a file anywhere — including an embedded terminal — and get the absolute path.

That's it. No search, no tags view, no properties browser, no pinned section. The plugin is ~550 lines of vanilla TypeScript, zero runtime dependencies, builds to a ~20 KB bundle.

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✨ Features

🌲	Tree, not two panes. Folders and files in one column, recursive expand/collapse.
🎯	Drill‑in navigation. Click an already‑expanded folder to promote it as the view's home.
🔖	Markdown previews. Note cards show title, content excerpt, and modified date. Toggleable.
🏷️	File‑type icons. 80+ extensions mapped to Lucide glyphs (PDF, images, audio, video, code, archives…).
🔃	Auto‑reveal. Open a note via link, breadcrumb, or tab switch — the tree expands its ancestors and scrolls to it.
✊	Drag‑and‑drop. Drop one file onto another folder to move it (backlinks preserved). Drop onto a terminal for the absolute filesystem path.
🧭	Header controls. Back to home, expand/collapse all, appearance, new note — always one click away.
🗂️	Configurable home. Point the tree at any folder as its default root via settings.
🌓	Theme‑aware. Inherits your Obsidian theme's colors and typography; no hard‑coded palette.

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📸 Screenshots

Add your own after cloning — place under docs/ and link here.

• docs/tree-default.png — tree collapsed, root view.
• docs/tree-expanded.png — nested folders expanded, a note selected.
• docs/drag-to-terminal.png — dragging a file into an embedded terminal.

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🚀 Installation

Manual (current)

git clone https://github.com/fougaser/obsidian-treepane.git
cd obsidian-treepane
npm install
npm run build

Then, from your vault:

mkdir -p <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-treepane
ln -s "$PWD/main.js"       <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-treepane/main.js
ln -s "$PWD/manifest.json" <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-treepane/manifest.json
ln -s "$PWD/styles.css"    <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-treepane/styles.css

In Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Obsidian Treepane → toggle on. A new sidebar icon appears on the left.

Community Plugin store

Not yet. Once the plugin stabilizes, it will be submitted to the Obsidian community catalog.

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🧑‍💻 Usage

The header

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ←   My Vault              ⇕   ⇱   ✏        │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Icon	What it does
←	Return to the default root (only shown when you've drilled in elsewhere).
Title	Name of the current view root.
⇕ Chevrons	Expand every descendant folder, or collapse them all.
⇱ Sliders	Toggle title / description / date visibility and choose 1 or 2 preview rows.
✏ File‑plus	Create Untitled.md inside the current view root and open it.

Folder interactions

• Chevron click → toggle expand / collapse.
• Name click, collapsed → expand the folder.
• Name click, already expanded → drill in. That folder becomes the tree's new root for the session, and its index.md (if any) opens in a new tab.
• Right click → New note · New folder · Rename · Delete · Reveal in Finder.

File interactions

• Click → open in the current tab.
• Drag onto a folder row → move (internally, via fileManager.renameFile so backlinks update).
• Drag onto an external pane (terminal, etc.) → drop sets text/plain to the absolute filesystem path. Terminals that accept text drops, including most embedded Obsidian terminal plugins, insert the path at the cursor.
• Markdown files: no file‑type icon, no .md extension in the name — just the basename and its preview.
• Non‑markdown files: type icon on the left, extension preserved in the name.

Auto‑reveal

Whenever the active file changes — you click an internal link, activate a tab, or use Obsidian's breadcrumb— Treepane expands every ancestor folder of that file and scrolls the corresponding row into view.

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⚙️ Settings

Settings → Obsidian Treepane

Setting	Default	What it controls
Default root folder	Vault root	The folder the ← button returns to. Leave empty for the vault root. Supports folder‑path autocomplete.

All appearance toggles (title / description / date visibility, preview rows) are managed from the header's sliders button and persist automatically.

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🧱 Architecture

Deliberately small. The whole plugin is five TypeScript files:

src/
├── main.ts              Plugin lifecycle, data persistence, settings tab wiring
├── view.ts              FileTreeView — render loop, expand state, auto‑reveal
├── icons.ts             Extension → Lucide icon lookup (~80 extensions)
├── dnd.ts               Delegated drag‑and‑drop (internal move + abs‑path payload)
├── menu.ts              Right‑click context menu (new / rename / delete / reveal)
├── appearanceModal.ts   Show‑title / show‑description / show‑date / preview‑rows toggles
└── settingsTab.ts       Plugin settings UI (default root picker)

No React, no list virtualization. A full tree rebuild runs on every vault event — coalesced through requestAnimationFrame. At ~100‑200 folders, 4 levels deep, the rebuild is sub‑millisecond; the code stays legible.

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🛣️ Roadmap

• Keyboard navigation (arrow keys, F2 rename, Delete, Enter).
• Inline rename (instead of modal).
• Multi‑select with shift/cmd click.
• Search filter across visible rows.
• Submit to the Obsidian community plugin catalog.

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🧑‍🔧 Development

git clone https://github.com/fougaser/obsidian-treepane.git
cd obsidian-treepane
npm install
npm run dev   # esbuild watch — rebuilds on src/** changes

Pair with the community Hot Reload plugin for near‑instant in‑Obsidian reloads:

touch <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-treepane/.hotreload

Production build:

npm run build

TypeScript strict is on. No tests ship yet — contributions welcome.

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🖥️ Compatibility

• Desktop only. The plugin uses desktop‑specific APIs (FileSystemAdapter.getFullPath, app.showInFolder).
• Obsidian 1.5.0+. Relies on AbstractInputSuggest and modern event APIs.

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📜 License

MIT © fougaser.

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