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Frontmatter Overview

by Meisenburger13
viewer
Install Plugin
Screenshot: Example 1

Description

Create dynamic tables based on frontmatter in your notes.

Additional Information

Links:
Maintainers: meisenburger13
Version:1.1.0
Minimum app version:2.13
Downloads: This version:17
Last updated:2025-04-19T01:27:11Z

Joplin Plugin — Frontmatter Overview

Create dynamic tables based on frontmatter in your notes. Works on both desktop and mobile.

Quick Example

Given these two notes in a notebook called Books 2025:

Note 1 Note 2 
---
title: Book 1
rating: 5

---
Thoughts about book...
 
---
title: Book 2
author: Author 2
rating: 2

---

Using the following code block in a note:

```frontmatter-overview
from: notebook:"Books 2025"
properties:
  - NOTE_LINK AS Title
  - title AS Book
  - author
  - rating AS ⭐
sort: rating DESC
```

Will generate this table:

Title Book author ⭐
Note 1 Book 1 5
Note 2 Book 2 Author 2 2

Usage

To create a frontmatter-based table:

  1. Use a fenced code block with the language set to frontmatter-overview.
  2. Inside, define:
    • from: a Joplin search query to select notes, each note will become a row in the table.
    • properties: list of frontmatter fields to include as table columns.
      • Use AS to rename columns (author AS Author).
    • sort: (optional) sort the table by any property.

You can place multiple of these blocks in one note.

❗Does not work in Rich Text (WYSIWYG) editor. ❗

What is Frontmatter?

Frontmatter is a block of YAML metadata at the top of a note, enclosed in triple dashes: Since Joplin doesn't natively support frontmatter, it's best to leave a new line after the last property, so that it's not rendered as a header.

---
title: Example
rating: 5

---

This plugin supports Markdown links and images in the frontmatter, although they are not valid YAML. Images need to be Joplin resources in order to be rendered correctly.
A note with invalid YAML syntax will be shown with empty values in the custom properties. Tip: Add the NOTE_LINK column to easily find the problematic notes and fix the syntax.

Overview Block Options

Key Description
from Joplin search filter based on this syntax — all matching notes become a row in the table.
properties List of frontmatter fields or special properties — each will be a column in the table.
Use AS to rename the property in the table header.
sort (Optional) Sort the table by a property (add DESC for descending).
Value needs to match one of the original property names.
excludeEmpty (Optional) Exclude notes without frontmatter from overview.
Value is a boolean, default False.

Special Properties

  • NOTE_LINK: A clickable link to the note using its title.

Features

  • Embed multiple tables per note.
  • Create permanent tables via Tools → Frontmatter Overview → Make tables in current note permanent (desktop only).
  • Notes missing a property will have an empty cell.
  • Notes with invalid frontmatter are included with empty custom property values (special properties like NOTE_LINK still work).
  • The note containing the code block is excluded from the search.
  • Set the maximum width and height of images in the settings.

Source Code

Find the source code here: https://github.com/Meisenburger13/joplin-frontmatter-overview

Please create an issue if you find a bug or are missing a feature and I will take look!