Breadcrumbs

Welcome to the Breadcrumbs docs 🍞 Here you can find more detailed explanations of the various functions of the Obsidian Breadcrumbs plugin.

[!INFO] Breadcrumbs lets you add typed links to your notes. You supply the structure, Breadcrumbs helps you leverage it.

Use-cases

Auto-generated Table of Contents

Speedy navigation between related notes

Visualise Complex Hierarchies

Quick Start

To quickly see one way Breadcrumbs works, you can do the following:

• Install & enable Breadcrumbs
• Open a new note
• Add up: [[note]] as a metadata Properties field
  • Dataview inline fields work too up:: [[note]]
• Run the “Breadcrumbs: Rebuild Graph” command to refresh the Breadcrumbs graph
• Then run the “Breadcrumbs: Open Matrix View” command
  • See how the Matrix View shows a link pointing “up” to [[note]]

In the terminology of Breadcrumbs, you’ve just used the “typed-link” edge builder to add an explicit edge from one note to another, using the up edge field.

Practical Value

Breadcrumbs gives the following benefits:

• Automatic linking via Explicit Edge Builders and Implied Edge Builders
• Convenient navigation using the Views and some Commands
• Visualing paths of links, also using the Views

Overview

Setup

• Setup your Edge Fields so that Breadcrumbs know metadata properties you use
  • Breadcrumbs comes with 5 generic edge fields, but you can customise these as needed
• Add structure to your notes using the various Explicit Edge Builders
  • Some builders are manual, while others can automatically use your existing structure (including your tags, folders, links, etc.)
• Fill in the gaps with the Implied Edge Builders
  • Breadcrumbs can infer more complex relationships from the initial edges
  • You have full control over the rules for adding implied edges
• Use the Views to see your fields in action
  • These general run a graph traversal and present the results in some way
• Try out the Commands to do other useful stuff
  • Quickly jump to neighbouring notes, summarise your graph, “freeze” implied edges to your notes for future-proofing