Description

The Banyan plugin transforms how you browse, filter, and rediscover your notes through a visual card-based interface. It's built for users who jot down quick notes without stressing over perfect titles or folder structures. The card view displays each note with a preview, tags, and optional quick actions like pinning or deleting. Powerful compound filtering lets you search notes by multiple tags, time ranges, or keywords, and you can save these filter conditions for repeated use. A built-in random review tool helps surface forgotten notes, while a heat map offers insights into your writing habits.

Latest Version

1.4.3

2 days ago

Changelog

Improvements

Now we have guidance pop-up and changelog pop-up, which can also be viewed in the settings panel.
Now we add switches for "Random Review" and "View Scheme" in the setting. If you have been using these features, all remains the same; otherwise, they are disabled by default. These two features may be considered for removal in later version.
We optimized the refresh logic of the card panel. Now Adding or editing notes will no longer cause a full refresh of the card panel.
Fixed the extra blank block appeared in the search box on mobile.
Optimized some styles.

新增

指引弹窗和版本更新日志弹窗，并且可以在设置面板中主动查看。
「随机回顾」和「视图空间」的设置开关，如果你使用过该功能，开关是打开的，使用照旧；否则默认是关闭的，日后考虑下掉这2个功能。

修复和优化

优化了卡片面板的刷新逻辑，现在新增或修改笔记不会再导致卡片面板全量刷新了。
修复移动端搜索框出现额外空白块的问题。
对一些样式进行了优化。

See all version on GitHub

Banyan - Your Obsidian Homepage

English | 简体中文

change log

What does this plugin do?

Banyan helps you better organize, browse, and review your notes. For example, when you want to find notes on a specific topic, see what you've written recently, or randomly browse through old notes.

When creating notes, you only need to record content and add tags, without worrying about coming up with the perfect title or organizing them into complex folder structures.
Access your past notes easily through the powerful filtering card view panel.
This is especially useful for users who prefer to write short notes.
Create custom random reviews to rediscover forgotten notes.

demo

Main Features

🃏 Card View - See All Your Notes at a Glance

Turns your notes into cards with clear titles, content previews, and tags
Supports single or double column display based on your screen size
Right-click cards for quick actions like open, delete, pin, etc.

🏷️ Compound Filtering - Find Exactly What You Need

Filter by tags: Supports multi-tag filtering, such as notes with study AND important, notes with music OR movie
Filter by time: View notes from a specific time period
Search content: Search for keywords in note content

💾 Save Filter Conditions - Set Once, Use Again

Save commonly used filter conditions for quick access
Examples: "work notes", "study materials", "todo items", etc.

🎲 Random Review - Rediscover Old Notes

Randomly open notes to rediscover forgotten good content
Can limit scope, such as only notes with the reading tag You can even use random browsing to meet your past selves from different periods again

📊 Heat Map Statistics - Understand Your Writing Habits

Shows when you write the most notes using a heat map
Helps you understand your writing patterns

How to Use

Note Panel - Browse Card Notes

You can setup a directory for the pulguin. The plugin only manages notes in this directory.
The structure of notes and subdirectories in this directory is not important.
Migrated notes to this directory will be managed by this plugin.
Click the icon in the left sidebar, or use Ctrl/Cmd + P command to open the note panel

Add New Notes

In the desktop panel, you can create notes via the editor area.
Click the bulb icon in the left sidebar, or use the Ctrl/Cmd + P command to open a new note.
Notes work just like regular Obsidian notes, but there are 2 additional properties:
- The tags field, where you can input tags, or you can add tags in the note body - they will all appear in the tag line of the card view.
- The id field - please don't modify this, it's required for the plugin to function properly.

Random Review

You can add or modify random review items in the sidebar of the panel view, and the left sidebar will also display corresponding new icons
Click on random review items, or the random review icon in the left sidebar, to open notes in the plugin directory that meet the tag filtering conditions.

Plugin Settings

Note directory: Defaults to cards to avoid conflicts with existing folders.
Open panel on startup: Automatically open the card panel when Obsidian starts.
Number of columns: On desktop, choose single or double column.
Show title or not
Card content max height: Short / Normal / Expand.
Show backlinks: Display notes that reference the current note at the bottom of the card.
Double click to edit (Desktop): Double-click a card to switch to edit view directly.

Installation

Method 1: Install from Obsidian Community (Recommended)

Open Obsidian settings
Find "Third-party plugins"
Turn off "Safe mode"
Click "Browse", search for "Banyan"
Install and enable

Method 2: Manual Installation

Download the package from the releases page
Extract to .obsidian/plugins/ directory
Enable the plugin in Obsidian settings

Questions?

Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions on GitHub!

Or join this project's Discord: https://discord.gg/HGCmK8YzaX

License

GPLv3 - See LICENSE file for details

Banyan