An Obsidian plugin for creating visual mindmaps optimized for literature excerpting. Runs on pure Markdown outlines with a drag-and-drop workflow.
Caution: This plugin only a sketch and will not be developed further. Bugs, data loss, and instability are still very possible, if not likely.
Developers: If you're interested in taking over the project, leave me a message.
Excerpt-Outline-Mindmap-Editor lets you visually structure text excerpts as mindmaps using a drag-and-drop system.
The underlying data model remains a standard Markdown outline (indented list) — fully compatible with Obsidian's editor and outline plugins such as Lineage.
There is no proprietary format and no external storage, just outlines in Markdown (and a little bit of frontmatter).
- Drag-and-drop support for creating and editing hierarchical structures (each node represents a list item in a Markdown outline)
- Dragging a node into another creates a parent-child relationship. When dragging a node, all its children move with it
- Hover buttons allow adding new child and sibling nodes directly in the mindmap
- Node deletion supports:
- Removing a single node from its parent
- Deleting a node along with all its children
- Undo/redo buttons let you — you guessed it — undo and redo actions (until you close a file)
- Layout options are specific to each file and are stored in the frontmatter of the respective file
- Create a Markdown file: empty or with an outline structure
- Open the file as a mindmap:
- Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of the editor and select "Open as mindmap",
- or right-click the file in the file explorer and choose "Open as mindmap"
- Use drag and drop to build or restructure your outline visually:
- Drag a node onto another to make it a child
- Note: All children move with their parent
- Use the "↓" button (visible on hover) to add child nodes directly
- Use the "→" button (visible on hover) to add sibling nodes directly
- Use the "×" button (also on hover) to delete a node, with the option to keep or remove children
- Use the undo/redo buttons in the toolbar to reverse or replay actions
All changes are written to the file as a clean Markdown outline — no custom syntax or hidden metadata. You can open Lineage files with this plugin and vice versa.
- Cytoscape.js – for visual graph rendering
- Dagre – for automatic hierarchical layout
Thanks to the developers.
- Node selection and copy/paste functionality
- Keyboard navigation
- Better text editing within nodes
- Embedding mindmaps into other Markdown files
- Export options
- View switching to display various levels of hierarchy depth
Feedback, issues, and contributions are welcome.
MIT License