Usage

Requirements

  • Obsidian 1.4.0 or newer.
  • The Bases core feature enabled.

Installation

  1. In Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins.
  2. Disable Restricted mode if it’s enabled.
  3. Select Browse, search for Bookshelf, install it, then enable it.

You can also browse the catalog on the Obsidian Community website.

Manual installation

If the plugin isn’t listed in the community catalog yet (or you want a specific version):

  1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
  2. Copy them into <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/bookshelf-base/.
  3. Reload Obsidian and enable Bookshelf in Settings → Community plugins.

BRAT (bleeding edge)

BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-update Tool) installs plugins straight from a GitHub repo and keeps them updated automatically. Use this if you want the latest commits — things might break.

  1. Install Obsidian42 - BRAT from Settings → Community plugins → Browse and enable it.
  2. Run BRAT: Add a beta plugin for testing from the command palette.
  3. Paste https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-bookshelf.
  4. Select the latest version and confirm.
  5. Enable Bookshelf in Settings → Community plugins.

Creating a bookshelf

  1. Create or open a .base file.
  2. Add a view.
  3. Set the view type to Bookshelf.
  4. Open the view’s options and configure at least an Image property (see Configuration).

Adding books

Any note matching the Base’s filters becomes a book. A typical book note looks like this:

---
title: The Pragmatic Programmer
author: '[[David Thomas]]'
cover: https://example.com/pragmatic.jpg
rating: 5
status: read
---

Cover images

The cover property may contain:

  • An external URL: https://example.com/cover.jpg
  • A data: URI
  • A vault-relative path: assets/covers/book.jpg (resolved via Obsidian’s resource path)

If the cover property is missing or empty for a note, Bookshelf renders a colored spine with a vertical title instead. Spine colors are derived deterministically from the title, so the same note always gets the same color.

Grouping books across shelves

Set groupBy on the Base to split books onto multiple shelves. Each group becomes a separate shelf with a header showing the group label and the number of books. Without a grouping, all books appear on a single shelf labeled “All Books”.

Displaying properties under books

Any property added to the Base view’s display order is shown under each book. The cover property itself is skipped to avoid duplication.

Properties whose id or display name contains “rating” are styled with a dedicated rating class.

Wikilinks ([[Note]] or [[Note|Display]]) inside displayed property values are rendered as clickable internal links and routed through Obsidian’s standard link handling — Ctrl/Cmd+click opens them in a new tab.

Interactions

Action Result
Click cover Open the note in the current tab
Ctrl/Cmd+click cover Open the note in a new tab
Right-click cover Context menu (open, new tab, reveal)
Click a wikilink Open the linked note

Commands

The plugin does not currently register any slash commands. All configuration happens through the Base view’s options panel.

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