Article Navigator

Article Navigator

An Obsidian community plugin · 中文文档

Adds Previous / Next / See Also navigation to your notes through standard frontmatter properties. Supports a VitePress-style inline nav bar, floating side buttons, and automatic reverse linking — all without any external dependencies.

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Features

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Installation

Community plugin browser (once listed)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse.
2. Search for Article Navigator.
3. Click Install, then Enable.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Copy the three files to <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/article-navigator/.
3. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

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Getting started

1 · Add navigation properties to a note

Open any note and run the command:

Article Navigator: Insert navigation properties into current note

This inserts three empty frontmatter keys if they are not already present:

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PreviousArticle: ""
NextArticle: ""
SeeAlso: []
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2 · Link to adjacent notes

Fill in the keys with wikilinks:

PreviousArticle: "[[My Previous Note]]"
NextArticle: "[[My Next Note]]"
SeeAlso:
  - "[[Related Topic A]]"
  - "[[Related Topic B]]"

3 · Navigate

• Click the inline nav cards at the bottom of the note.
• Click the floating side buttons at the document edges.
• Use the commands Go to previous article / Go to next article (assignable to hotkeys).

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Settings reference

Display

Floating button behaviour

Tap navigation

Auto reverse linking

Property keys

Override the frontmatter key names. Changes apply only to new links — existing notes using old keys are not migrated automatically.

Display labels

Leave blank to use the default label for Obsidian's current language.

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Commands

All three commands can be assigned to custom hotkeys in Settings → Hotkeys.

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Development

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 18 (LTS recommended)
• npm

Setup

git clone https://github.com/IvanHanloth/obsidian-article-navigator
cd obsidian-article-navigator
npm install

Scripts

Tip: You can also set the target vault via an environment variable:

VAULT_PATH=/path/to/my-vault npm run deploy

Project layout

src/
├── main.ts                 Plugin lifecycle — event wiring, onload / onunload
├── types.ts                Shared TypeScript types
├── constants.ts            CSS class names, timer durations
├── settings.ts             Settings interface, defaults, migration
├── settings-tab.ts         Settings UI
├── commands.ts             Command registration
├── i18n/
│   ├── index.ts            I18n class, locale detection
│   └── locales/
│       ├── en.ts           English
│       └── zh.ts           Chinese
├── nav/
│   ├── link-resolver.ts    Frontmatter link parsing and resolution
│   ├── frontmatter.ts      Frontmatter read / write helpers
│   └── auto-backlink.ts    Reciprocal link automation
└── ui/
    ├── view-manager.ts     Per-view refresh orchestration
    ├── floating-buttons.ts Floating prev / next buttons
    ├── inline-injections.ts Inline nav bar + See Also block
    ├── edge-handlers.ts    Edge / mobile tap handlers
    └── confirm-modal.ts    Confirmation dialog

Adding a locale

1. Create src/i18n/locales/<code>.ts implementing the Translation interface from src/i18n/index.ts.
2. Import and register it in the BUNDLES map in src/i18n/index.ts.
3. Add the locale code to the LocaleCode union type.

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Releasing

1. Update minAppVersion in manifest.json if needed (see the Obsidian version reference).
2. Run npm version patch|minor|major — this bumps manifest.json, package.json, and versions.json.
3. Push the tag and create a GitHub release with main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css as release assets.

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Compatibility

• Minimum Obsidian version: 1.4.0
• Mobile: ✓ fully supported (isDesktopOnly: false)
• No external network requests, no telemetry.

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License

MIT License