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Are.na Channels

by Francesco Bernini
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Description

Obsidian plugin: render Are.na channels as masonry grids in your notes. Unofficial, not affiliated with Are.na.

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Latest Version

1.1.0
5 days ago

Changelog

What's new in 1.1.0

Fixes

  • Grids load again. Are.na started rejecting requests that carry Obsidian's default user agent, so every channel failed with a 403 error. The plugin now sends its own.
  • Full width works again. Grids were stuck at readable-line width; they now use the whole pane as intended.

New

  • Caption source: choose what appears under each block — title, description, or nothing (caption: title | description | none).
  • Description preview: show a block's description below the caption, collapsed to one line; click to expand (description: true).
  • Open in Reading view (opt-in): notes with an Are.na block open in Reading view, so the grid shows right away. Not compatible with plugins that enforce a view mode.

Compatibility

  • Requires Obsidian 1.7.2 or later.
See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

Are.na Channels

Render Are.na channels as live, responsive masonry grids inside your Obsidian notes with a single code block. Works in both Reading view and Live Preview.

Unofficial. This plugin is an independent community project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Are.na. It uses the public Are.na API.

grid

Usage

Add a code block to any note:

```arena
channel: arena-influences
```

The channel renders as a masonry grid that adapts its column count to the note width.

You can paste a full URL instead of a slug — it's extracted automatically:

```arena
channel: https://www.are.na/charles-broskoski/arena-influences
```

Per-block options

Any global setting can be overridden inside a block:

```arena
channel: arena-influences
columns: 300
gap: 20
variant: large
caption: description
description: true
link: false
fullwidth: false
```
Key Values Default
channel slug or Are.na URL (required) —
columns target column width in px 240
gap space between items in px 14
variant small / medium / large / original medium
caption title / description / none (or on/off) title
description true / false off
link true / false on
fullwidth true / false on

caption chooses what text appears under each block. description adds the block's description below the caption, collapsed to its first line — click it to read the rest. caption: true / false still work as aliases for title / none.

Settings

  • Access token — a Personal Access Token from are.na/settings/personal-access-tokens. Required only for private channels; public channels work without one.

  • Grid — default column width, gap, image quality, caption source, description preview, and Are.na links.

  • Full width — notes containing an Are.na grid use the full pane width, ignoring "Readable line length". No CSS snippet or cssclasses frontmatter needed; disable globally or per block with fullwidth: false.

  • Open in Reading view — when you open a note that contains an Are.na block, switch it to Reading view automatically so the grid shows right away. Off by default. Press Ctrl/Cmd+E to edit.

    Note: this conflicts with plugins that enforce a view mode, such as Force note view mode ("View mode by frontmatter"). If one of those sets a default mode, it overrides this setting. Use one or the other — not both.

  • Cache duration — how long fetched data is reused before refetching. Run Refresh Are.na grids from the command palette to force an update.

Network use

This plugin connects to the internet to do its job:

  • api.are.na — to fetch the contents of the channels you embed. Your access token, if set, is sent only here as an Authorization header.
  • Are.na image CDN (images.are.na / CloudFront) — block images are loaded directly from Are.na's image servers.

No other servers are contacted. No telemetry or usage data is collected. An Are.na account (Personal Access Token) is required only for private channels. The token is stored locally in your vault's plugin folder (data.json), in plain text.

Install

From the community store

Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "Are.na Channels".

Manual

  1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
  2. Copy them into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/arena-channels/.
  3. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin under Community plugins.

Development

npm install
npm run dev      # watch build
npm run build    # production build + typecheck

License

MIT

Sponsors