u/DavidHurt

Adding quality-of-life improvements to the plugin, check it here Visual Card Writer - Obsidian Plugin

I write long-form pieces in Obsidian - articles, talks, scripts - and I've never been able to think in a straight line. I write in chunks and then work out where they go. In a normal note that means scrolling up and down, cutting and pasting paragraphs, and losing my place every time.

I spent a good while looking for a plugin that would let me see and edit a note as a tree of cards. I couldn't find one. Gingko Writer and Branch Writing do this well, but they're separate apps with their own files, and my notes are already here. Eventually I gave up looking and made my own.

The Canvas detour

My first attempt was built on Canvas, because it was already there and it draws boxes for you. It generated a `.canvas` snapshot from a note: one card per heading, edges from parent to child, widths calculated for a comfortable reading measure.

It looked right and it was useless. The snapshot and the note were two unrelated documents from the second it was created. Editing the note didn't update the canvas; moving cards around the canvas didn't touch the note. To make it two-way I'd have had to invent a mapping between free-floating coordinates and heading structure, and at that point Canvas stops helping and starts getting in the way. I dropped it and started over with a proper file view.

In the end, I've come to the conclusion that using the Canvas is not a good solution, since the Canvas is more designed as a free positioning, no-rules, mouse driven canvas, and the plugin is more or less the opposite: fixed positioning, quick keyboard handling

What I ended up with

You open a Markdown note, run Visual Card Writer: Open current note in card editor, and the note shows up as a tree of cards in columns. One card per heading: `#` is a root card, the `##` below it are its children, and so on down to H6. Select a card and its children open to the right. Branches you're not working on stay visible but dimmed, or collapse with a click.

The part that mattered most to me: there is no new format. Underneath it's still your `.md` file with ordinary headings. No HTML comments, no plugin metadata, no second copy of your text. Each card edits its own slice of the same file. Uninstall the plugin tomorrow and your notes are exactly as they were.

It's at Visual Card Writer - Obsidian Plugin

I'm the author, so I'm the worst person to judge it. If you try it and something breaks, or the interaction feels wrong somewhere, I'd rather hear it than not.