Heading View

Heading View

An Obsidian plugin that shows the first heading of a Markdown note instead of its file name in the file explorer.

Neither the file name nor the heading is ever changed on disk. Only the way the note is labelled in Obsidian's sidebar is affected.

Why

If you name your files by timestamp or by ID — 202408191342.md, zk-0421.md — the file explorer stops telling you anything about what is in a note. This plugin puts the first heading in that spot, so you keep the stable file name and still read the sidebar at a glance. Zettlr behaves this way by default; this brings the same reading comfort to Obsidian.

How it works

• The first heading of a note is read from Obsidian's metadata cache, at any heading level, and the sidebar label is set to it.
• Notes without a heading keep their file name.
• Non-Markdown files are left alone.
• Disabling the plugin restores every file name immediately.

Installation

From the community plugins directory

Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for "Heading View", install and enable it.

Manually

Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release and place them in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/heading-view/. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin under Settings → Community plugins.

Development

npm install
npm run dev    # rebuild on change
npm run build  # type-check and produce a production main.js

License

Apache License 2.0