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Hop-Link Viewer

by sk-obsidian
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Description

Suggest indirectly linked notes up to N-hops from an anchor note (current note), prioritizing nodes not already directly linked to the anchor. Show a sidebar of clickable suggestions with hop numbers to explore nearby but unconnected notes and uncover missing links in your vault.

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Latest Version

1.1.1
11 days ago

Changelog

What’s new

  • Each Obsidian window can now have its own sidebar viewer and workspace pane viewer.
  • Opening the viewer below or beside the active note now happens in the current window.
  • Unlinked viewers follow the active markdown note in the same window. Linked workspace viewers still follow their linked Markdown tab.
  • Increased line spacing in the suggestion list.
See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

Hop-Link Viewer — Obsidian Plugin

Suggest notes up to N hops from an anchor note, skipping notes already linked to it by default. Built for serendipitous discovery of missing links in your vault.

What it does

Hop-Link Viewer walks your vault’s link graph outward from an anchor and lists nearby notes that are not yet connected to it. It opens in the right sidebar by default, with commands for opening it below or beside the active note.

A link counts in either direction: notes the anchor points to, and notes that point back. By default the sidebar skips those already-connected notes, so you see missing links instead of the same neighbors Obsidian already shows.

Example

Anchor: Project Alpha, which links to Jane Smith and Budget 2024.

Distance Meaning Shown by default?
1-hop Direct neighbors — Jane, Budget (either direction) No
2-hop Linked from Jane or Budget, but not from Project Alpha — e.g. Conference talk, Prior grant Yes
3-hop One step further — e.g. a paper cited on Conference talk Yes, up to your hop depth

Each suggestion is a clickable link with a hop number (2, 3, …). Turn on Include direct links to also list 1-hop neighbors; those show a linked badge instead of a hop number.

Viewer

Open it in the sidebar from the ribbon (Open Hop-Link Viewer) or the command palette (Hop-Link Viewer: Open viewer in sidebar). Each Obsidian window can have its own sidebar viewer and workspace pane viewer.

Use Open viewer below active note or Open viewer to right of active note to open the plugin in a workspace pane in the current window. When that pane is linked to a Markdown tab with Obsidian’s Link with tab, its active-file anchor follows the linked tab. Unlinked viewers follow the active markdown note in the same window.

The viewer shows a hop-depth stepper (synced with Settings), the current anchor and its last-modified time, and up to your display cap of suggestions (default 10).

Click or tap a suggestion to open it. On desktop, Ctrl/Cmd-click or middle-click opens a new tab. The list refreshes when you switch notes, open files, edit, or when link metadata updates. No query language or templates.

Typical uses: spotting related notes while writing, finding “obvious in hindsight” links between clusters, or raising hop depth / shuffling sort order to wander nearby ideas.

Install

Requires Obsidian 1.13.0 or newer.

  1. Open Settings → Community plugins.
  2. Turn off Restricted mode if it is on.
  3. Click Browse, search for Hop-Link Viewer, then install and enable it.

Settings

Setting Default Description
Hop depth 3 How far to walk from the anchor. Hop 1 appears only with Include direct links.
Display cap 10 Maximum suggestions after sorting
Excluded folder paths (empty) One prefix per line. Hidden from the list only; those notes can still be the anchor, and the walk can still pass through them.
Anchor mode active-file Which note is “you are here”
List order walk-order Sort before applying the display cap
Include direct links off Show 1-hop neighbors with a linked badge
Auto-open sidebar on startup off Open the viewer in the sidebar when Obsidian starts

Anchor mode

The anchor must be a markdown note. If none can be resolved, the viewer shows “No anchor note found.” (Updates to support other file types are planned.)

Mode Behavior
active-file Linked Markdown tab for a linked workspace viewer; otherwise, the active markdown note in the same window
last-edited Most recently modified markdown file tracked while the plugin was enabled; before the first tracked edit, same fallback as last-viewed
last-viewed Active markdown file if there is one; otherwise the first markdown file in recently opened files

List order

Option Behavior
walk-order Breadth-first discovery order (default)
mtime-desc Most recently modified first
mtime-asc Oldest modified first
link-count-desc Most vault links first
alphabetical Title A–Z
random Shuffled on each refresh

How it works

  1. Resolve the anchor from the selected mode.
  2. Walk an undirected graph of resolved inlinks and outlinks (broken or unresolved links are ignored), up to N hops.
  3. Keep markdown notes and PDFs as suggestions. Images, canvases, and other attachments are skipped even if they are linked.
  4. Sort the full candidate set, then apply the display cap. There is no other ranking.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and pull requests.

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