README file from
GithubObsidian Amoeba
Amoeba drops a living organism into your vault, bringing dynamic visual movement to Graph view, and helping you clean up broken links at the same time.
The Idea
Graph view looks great, but it quickly becomes the same stale, motionless vault overview that you saw yesterday... and the day before that. Ideas are organic and always changing, and our technology should reflect that.
Amoeba brings life into your graph by:
- Introducing a self-powered, moving 'Amoeba' note inside the Graph view environment, which sets the global graph in motion
- Providing customizable parameters to adjust the movement of the amoeba to your liking — including a Spider preset!
- (Optionally) Logging your broken links as the amoeba encounters them to help you clean up your vault
How it works
Amoeba creates a note inside your vault that randomly links and unlinks with other notes — a constantly self-updating process that causes the note to pull itself and other notes around the graph. Sub-notes that trail the amoeba are also created, adding to the visual effect.
But the amoeba can be helpful too. Turn on broken link scanning, and the amoeba logs broken links found across the notes it encounters and adds them to a checklist. Check them off as you fix them, and the amoeba eventually removes them from the log.
Parameters in settings help you determine the movement, speed, and look of your amoeba, including:
- Movement interval: how quickly the amoeba jumps to a new note
- Simultaneous links: how many notes the amoeba links to at once
- Pseudopods: the number of trailing sub-notes linked to the amoeba
- Color: can be changed in Graph view settings, like any other note
- Advanced settings to fine-tune link scanning, if desired
Inside the Amoeba note itself, you will find:
- The Note Stream: shows the notes the amoeba is currently linked to
- Broken Link Encounters: a checklist log of broken links that have been discovered
- Pseudopods: a short list linking the amoeba's trailing sub-notes
Note: This plugin frequently agitates the graph view renderer, which may cause a spike in CPU usage as long as the amoeba is active. It is not recommended for giant database-style vaults.
Getting started
- Install Amoeba from Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian, or manually by copying
main.js,manifest.json, andstyles.cssinto<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/amoeba/. - Enable the plugin.
- Open Settings → Amoeba and click Start Amoeba (or run the Start Amoeba command from the command palette) to create the 'Amoeba' note/folder and start it running.
- The amoeba immediately starts moving around your graph.
Commands
- Start Amoeba — Starts the amoeba moving and scanning the graph. If plugin is newly installed, initializes amoeba folder setup.
- Stop Amoeba — Stops the amoeba in its tracks: no more movement, scanning, or logging.
- A frontmatter checkbox inside the Amoeba note serves the same function, as well as a button in settings.
Settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Initialize | Creates the amoeba, also used for stopping and starting |
| Movement interval | Sets the interval between movements (0.25-5 seconds) |
| Simultaneous links | Sets the number of links the amoeba connects to (0-10) |
| Pseudopods | Sets the number of trailing sub-notes (0-10) |
| Move like a spider | Button preset that makes the amoeba behave like a fast-moving spider |
| Broken Link Scanning | |
| Scan for broken links | Toggles broken link scanning on/off |
| Continue scanning while global Graph view is closed | Toggles whether broken link scanning continues in the background, even when the amoeba isn't visible |
| Scan folder | Limits scanning to a specific folder/subfolder |
| Interact with excluded files | Toggles whether to scan your Excluded files |
FAQ
Developer Notes
Support: If you like Amoeba and would like to support my work and other future creative projects, you can donate here: Ko-fi
AI Use Disclosure: This plugin was coded responsibly with the help of Claude Sonnet 5.