Entity Profile View - banisterious/obsidian-charted-roots GitHub Wiki

Entity Profile View

The Entity Profile View is a dockable sidebar panel that gives you a comprehensive, focused view of any entity (person, place, event, source, or organization). It automatically syncs to whichever note you're viewing, showing all related data in collapsible sections — no more jumping between tabs to see a person's events, sources, and relationships.

Opening the Profile View
How Auto-sync Works
Identity Header
Pin and Unpin
Collapsible Sections
Sections by Entity Type
Inline Editing
Navigating Between Entities
Multiple Profile Views
State Persistence
Profile View vs Browser Views

Opening the Profile View

Method 1: Command palette

Press Ctrl/Cmd + P
Type "Charted Roots: Open entity profile"
The profile opens in the right sidebar, synced to the currently active note

Method 2: Context menu

Right-click any entity note (person, place, event, source, or organization) in the file explorer or editor
In the Charted Roots submenu, click Open profile
The profile opens showing that entity

Method 3: From dockable sidebar Once opened, the Profile View stays docked in your sidebar and automatically follows whichever entity note you navigate to.

How Auto-sync Works

When the Profile View is unpinned (the default), it automatically updates to show the profile for whichever entity note is currently active in the editor. As you click between notes:

Entity notes (person, place, event, source, organization): The profile updates to show that entity's data
Non-entity notes (plain markdown, canvas, etc.): The profile stays on the last entity it was showing, with a subtle "Not following" indicator

This means you can dock the Profile View once and it follows your work — similar to how Obsidian's Outline and Backlinks panels follow the active note.

Identity Header

The top of the profile is a sticky header that stays visible as you scroll through sections:

Entity type badge: Color-coded label (Person, Place, Event, Source, Organization)
Entity name: The primary name from the note
Key metadata: Varies by entity type (see Inline Editing for editable fields):
- Person: birth/death dates, birth place, occupation, sex
- Place: category, coordinates
- Event: type, date, place
- Source: type, date, repository
- Organization: type, founded/dissolved dates, seat
Avatar: For person entities with linked media, shows the first image as a thumbnail
Pin toggle: Pin/unpin the profile to freeze it on this entity
Open note: Button to jump to the underlying markdown file

All identity header fields support inline editing — click any value to edit it directly.

Pin and Unpin

Click the pin icon in the header to toggle between:

Unpinned (default): The profile follows the active note
Pinned: The profile stays on the current entity, even as you navigate to other notes

Pinning is useful when you want to keep a reference entity visible while working on another note.

Collapsible Sections

Below the header, the profile shows entity-specific data in collapsible sections. Each section has:

Section header: Click to expand or collapse
Summary text: When collapsed, shows a brief summary (e.g., "12 events", "4 sources", "Level 3 · 45% sourced")
Section content: The full data, shown when expanded

Keyboard navigation: You can navigate between sections using the keyboard:

Arrow Up/Down: Move focus between section headers
Enter or Space: Toggle a section open or closed
Home/End: Jump to the first or last section

Section expand/collapse states are remembered across sessions and between entities.

Sections by Entity Type

Person Profiles

Section	What it shows
Relationships	Family members (parents, spouses, children, siblings) and other relationships (godparents, witnesses, mentors, etc.)
Events	Timeline of events associated with this person
Sources	Sources cited in the person note
Citations	Citation notes grouped by source, with fact labels, page references, and quality badges. Hidden when no citations exist. See Citation Notes
Media	Thumbnail grid of linked photos and documents
Data Quality	Research level (0-6), source coverage percentage, research questions, proof summaries
Research Activity	Cross-project research entries (IRNs, log entries, journals, reports) grouped by project

The Relationships section is split into two subsections:

Family (expanded by default): Biological parents, step/adoptive/foster parents, spouses with marriage dates, children, siblings. Populated from the PersonNode's family graph properties. Children entries are labeled by their most specific relationship type — biological children render as Child, adopted children as Adopted child, and stepchildren as Stepchild — so the relationship type is never lost on the parent's side.
Other (collapsed by default, hidden if empty): Religious, professional, social, legal, and other relationship types. Excludes relationships already shown in Family (those with a familyGraphMapping). When both sides of a relationship are defined (A→B and B→A), duplicates are automatically removed.

The Research Activity section (collapsed by default, hidden if no research exists) scans the vault for all research entities that reference this person — IRNs by subject, log entries by subject/person, and journals/reports/projects by wikilink. Entries are grouped by research project with counts, date ranges, type badges, and result indicators. This surfaces cross-project research connections without leaving the profile. See also the Find related research command for an on-demand modal with the same view.

Place Profiles

Section	What it shows
Events at location	Events that occurred at this place
Sources	Sources referencing this place
Media	Linked photos and documents
Map	Embedded interactive map with marker and button to open the full Geo Map view

The Map section shows an embedded Leaflet map centered on the place's coordinates with a marker. Click "Open in Geo Map" to open the full interactive map focused on this place. If no coordinates are set, the section shows a prompt to add them.

Event Profiles

Section	What it shows
Participants	People involved in the event (principal person highlighted)
Sources	Sources documenting the event
Media	Linked photos and documents

Source Profiles

Section	What it shows
Referenced facts	Which entities cite this source and for which facts. Grouped by entity — for example, "John Smith: birth_date, death_date"
Media	Linked documents and images

The Referenced Facts section answers the question: "What claims does this source support?" It scans your vault for entities that reference this source via sourced_* properties.

Organization Profiles

Section	What it shows
Members	People linked to this organization, with roles, dates, and current/former status
Events	Events associated with the organization
Sources	Sources referencing the organization
Media	Linked photos and documents

Inline Editing

Identity header fields can be edited directly in the profile view — no need to open the note and modify frontmatter manually.

How it works

Click any field value in the identity header (name, dates, metadata)
The value transforms into a text input, number input, or dropdown
Enter or click away to save — changes write immediately to frontmatter
Escape to cancel without saving

Only one field can be edited at a time. Clicking a second field saves the first automatically.

Editable fields by entity type

Entity	Fields
Person	Name, birth date, death date, birth place, occupation, sex (dropdown)
Place	Name, category (dropdown), latitude, longitude
Event	Title, event type, date, place
Source	Title, source type, date, repository
Organization	Name, organization type, founded, dissolved, seat

Empty fields

When a field has no value, it shows faint placeholder text (e.g., "Birth place...", "Occupation..."). Click the placeholder to add a value.

Dropdowns

Some fields use dropdown selectors instead of free text:

Sex (person): Male, Female, Non-binary, Unknown
Category (place): Real, Historical, Disputed, Legendary, Mythological, Fictional

Property aliases

If you've configured property aliases (custom frontmatter property names), inline edits respect those aliases — values are written to the correct aliased property.

Navigating Between Entities

When you click an entity name within a section (such as a person's name in the Participants section, or a source title in Sources), the profile navigates in-place to that entity. A breadcrumb bar appears below the header showing your navigation path:

John Smith > Birth Event > Springfield

Click any breadcrumb to jump back to that entity. The breadcrumb history is remembered for each profile instance.

Multiple Profile Views

Unlike other dockable views (which enforce a single instance), you can open multiple Profile Views:

Open a profile and pin it to freeze it on an entity
Open the command again — a new unpinned profile opens alongside
The pinned profile stays on its entity while the new one follows the active note

This enables side-by-side comparison of two entities.

State Persistence

The Profile View remembers the following across Obsidian sessions:

Whether the profile is pinned, and which entity it's pinned to
Which sections are expanded or collapsed
Breadcrumb navigation history

Profile View vs Browser Views

The Profile View and Browser Views (People, Events, Sources, etc.) serve different purposes:

Aspect	Browser Views	Profile View
Shows	A filterable list of all entities of one type	All data for a single entity
Use case	Browsing, searching, filtering across many entities	Deep work on one entity — seeing its relationships, events, sources, and media together
Sync	Manual refresh when vault changes	Auto-syncs to the active note
Instances	One per type	Multiple (via pinning)

Both are complementary — use Browser Views to find entities, and the Profile View to work with them in depth.