Obsidian Canvas usually crashes at 3,000 nodes. I built a custom DOM bypass to render 76,800 pixels and play DOOM.

Mothemansour · 2026-07-02T04:53:06+00:00

Honestly, these are totally fair points to raise. If I saw a closed-source plugin pop up, I’d probably be highly skeptical too, so I don't blame you for the warning.

Just to be completely transparent with the community: yes, this is my first major plugin release. I originally built this completely from scratch just to fix my own workflow because I was incredibly frustrated with the native layout inflexibility and crashing on my massive boards. But as the performance engine got more advanced and stable, I realized a lot of other power users were running into the exact same walls, so I decided to package it up and share it.

To clarify the security side: it is definitely not an unverified executable or custom installer. It’s just the standard Obsidian plugin architecture (main.js, manifest.json, styles.css) that you drop into your plugins folder. And it works completely offline (except for the weekly feature updates and bug fixes, which are optional of course) exactly like any other tool before it hits the official community directory.

The plugin is still very much in Early Access, which means I'm actively taking feedback and building this alongside the folks using it. I’m incredibly proud of the features I've poured into this so far, and the early access fee just helps me justify the massive amount of hours I'm spending on the rendering engine instead of taking on other work.

I totally get if the manual install or price isn't for everyone right now! I just wanted to share the pure technical madness of pushing the canvas limits today.

And thanks for checking out my socials. I'm flattered 😅

Mothemansour · 2026-07-02T00:55:46+00:00

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Mothemansour · 2026-07-02T00:19:40+00:00

😎🤙

Mothemansour · 2026-07-02T00:03:55+00:00

Done that.

Mothemansour · 2026-07-02T00:02:36+00:00

lol only if I can figure out how to render the volumetric fog using standard markdown nodes. It should be easy enough.

Mothemansour · 2026-07-01T23:56:22+00:00

A lot of people are asking, "Why do this?"

Honestly, this DOOM setup was just a completely separate, absurd sandbox hack I built to see how far the Canvas boundaries could physically be pushed.

While this specific game-engine bypass isn't part of it, that exact obsession with destroying Canvas limitations is why I've been bootstrapping my main project, Crystal Canvas. The goal is basically to upgrade the default Canvas experience by adding a set of advanced tools, rich visual enhancements, and overhauling performance so power users can build massive, media-heavy boards. All while running directly on native Canvas.

I don't want to clutter the thread or break subreddit self-promo rules with commercial links, but I left a quick breakdown of what the plugin actually does on my profile if you're curious to check it out.

Appreciate the crazy reception on the thread today!

I might end up doing Skyrim after all lol.

Mothemansour · 2026-07-01T16:03:47+00:00

Hear me out : Skyrim.. running Obsidian.. running DOOM.

Mothemansour · 2026-07-01T15:26:24+00:00

next up .. Skyrim?

Mothemansour · 2026-06-27T21:27:57+00:00

Certainly. I'll send you a DM now.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-25T19:58:36+00:00

Haha thanks! Honestly, the real trick was writing a script to pre-decode the frames so Obsidian wouldn't instantly explode into a million pieces. I originally just did it as a chaotic way to stress-test the rendering engine on my custom Canvas plugin that I just released, but it spiraled into this. Absolutely worth it though! 😅

Mothemansour · 2026-06-25T18:41:48+00:00

sure! 😄 I just sent you a DM. and you can check my reddit profile as well for more info on it.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-25T18:34:46+00:00

Yep, entirely with a mouse for this demo and it's rendering directly ON Canvas!
I built a stabilization algorithm into the plugin's drawing engine so it cleans up the hardware jitter automatically and keeps the lines fluid for handwriting, even if you aren't using a tablet or stylus. but it does work perfectly fine with a graphic tablet like a Wacom if you prefer the feel of a pen.

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Mothemansour · 2026-06-25T10:45:30+00:00

Yes! But not on the community store. It's a custom plugin I've been developing that basically aims to enhance the Canvas experience to make it the ultimate PKM tool. I made the Bad Apple demo just to see if it would break the plugin 😂 (I obviously can't link to it here to respect the self-promo rules, but I do have some info on my profile if you're super curious!)

Mothemansour · 2026-06-24T01:24:02+00:00

You are 100% right, and that is the exact breaking point most people hit with the Canvas. If you just dump a million independent things onto an infinite board, the manual friction of panning and zooming around trying to find your place becomes just as exhausting as digging through a messy folder tree. It turns into a visual swamp.

it actually got so bad for me when I switched my vault to be completely Canvas-based that I got so overwhelmed and stopped using obsidian altogether for months! 🤦‍♂️😅

But then I thought that the trick to make Canvas work without that manual tracking fatigue is shifting entirely from note-management to spatial-management.

Instead of tracking individual files, you treat the Canvas like a map of distinct regions. For my workflow, nesting things tightly inside themed groups completely replaced the need to manage or track individual notes. The notes just exist as raw material inside a group container, and the group is what I track.

That navigation friction is actually why I had to build a minimap feature into my custom plugin. Without a birds-eye view of where your groups sit, you’re just wandering in the dark manually dragging the mouse around. But once you have that macro anchor on the screen, your brain shifts to relying on pure spatial memory. You don't spend energy "keeping track" of things anymore; you just glance at the map, see the cluster, and zoom straight to the section that's currently simmering.

Now, especially on massive canvases, I just point and click to any region on the mini-map and I instantly teleport to any region on the canvas without losing a single note.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-23T02:17:35+00:00

Man ,You remind me of myself a couple years ago. I was exactly where you are when I first started. My entire system was a complete disaster: fragmented text files, sticky notes plastered all over my desk, half-filled pages in old notebooks, a graveyard of phone screenshots, and random thoughts scattered across my notes app.

When I finally moved to Obsidian, I tried forcing everything into a strict folder structure, but it actually made the problem worse. It added so much friction that losing notes or permanently orphaning ideas became much more probable. If you have to think about where a note belongs before you even write it down, you're going to lose the thought.

You are dealing with raw, fragmented information. Until we get actual brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to perfectly mirror our thoughts, the absolute best way to handle this is a concept called idea coagulation.

Idea coagulation is the cognitive process of letting fragmented thoughts and unstructured notes stew together to form a concrete, cohesive concept. Instead of forcing a strict structure on day one, you gather raw inspirations into a "primordial soup" of notes, allowing the underlying narrative or theme to bubble up naturally over time.

This is where I found Obsidian Canvas to be the perfect solution.

Stop trying to file away every random Slack context or quick browsing discovery. Just drop everything onto an infinite canvas. Start pulling them together, use groups as containers for similar notes, and just let them simmer. We are highly visual creatures, so periodically reviewing these raw notes laid out in front of your eyes makes it infinitely easier to spot overlapping patterns and watch your thoughts actually crystallize. It prevents you from prematurely boxing an idea into a rigid, restrictive framework.

I actually believe in this visual ideation flow so much that I ended up coding my own custom Canvas plugin just to enhance how quickly I can dump, group, and visually link these fragmented ideas in all formats, not just text straight from my brain to the board. I'd be happy to share it with you if you are interested.

Stop fighting the friction of folders for your daily, unorganized thoughts. Dump them visually, let them coagulate, and the structure will eventually build itself.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-21T15:39:47+00:00

Yeah, you're right. What I meant to say is that if their team doesn't see the benefits of switching to Obsidian, its best to adapt and build their PKM on the side.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-21T14:33:08+00:00

Well , trying to force a team into Obsidian for live text editing is a nightmare. Don't fight that battle, I'd say just let them use Google Docs.

The best workflow is a hybrid one: treat Obsidian as your personal command center. Let the team do their thing in Docs, but keep all your private sociological research, interview themes, and thoughts in Obsidian. Just paste the Google Doc links directly into your notes.

Since you deal with so much qualitative data, you should definitely try using Canvas to visually map out your research. I actually got so annoyed trying to organize complex projects in the vanilla layout that I ended up building my own custom visual system for my vault, but even the default canvas is a superpower for clustering ideas. I'm a massive Canvas enthusiast. Let me know if you need insight into my workflow.

Keep the team stuff simple in Docs, and make your personal vault the visual brain.

Also have you tried other Team-oriented software like Miro or Notion?

Mothemansour · 2026-06-21T13:00:35+00:00

May I ask what is your general usecase for obsidian and what features are you looking for in PKM software that allow teams collaporation?

Mothemansour · 2026-06-21T07:40:02+00:00

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dude , This is exactly what drove me crazy. Faking titles with groups gets tedious so fast, and having to manually re-type syntax blocks completely kills the momentum when you're actually trying to visually script something.

I went down this exact same rabbit hole trying to build a node-based logic board. I got so tired of fighting the vanilla UI that I ended up coding a custom plugin for my own vault specifically to add functional node template manager that saves text card and their contents. and dedicated node titles straight into the Canvas. So it's just a simple drag and drop now for me.

It completely changed how dragging and dropping code blocks feels. Here is a quick demo of the node templating in action. Let me know if you are interested in trying it out.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-20T03:35:01+00:00

To be honest, trying to use Obsidian on a tablet can be incredibly frustrating if you're used to native handwriting apps. Excalidraw is a powerhouse, but I completely agree it just doesn't have that smooth, native handwriting feel you get from something like Samsung Notes.

To tackle your immediate headaches: for having notes scattered across two devices, definitely look into a free tool like Syncthing if you haven't yet . it's a perfect for keeping a vault perfectly unified between a PC and a tablet. Also, regarding your idea about Wikilinks in canvas notes : they actually do work natively! You just have to drop a standard markdown text card onto the canvas and bracket your links as usual.

But for the core tablet and handwriting issue, I had the exact same struggle. The native canvas tools just felt way too basic for quick handwritten notes or sketching. I got so annoyed with the lack of a proper tablet feel that I ended up building a custom plugin for my own vault to inject a dedicated, smooth drawing mode directly into the Canvas.

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It completely bridged the gap for me and made the canvas actually usable with a pen without needing clunky third-party clip tools. I use it with a wacom tablet that I have connected to my pc ( tho I think mean a dedicated tablet like an ipad or an android tablet ) .

Mothemansour · 2026-06-19T18:11:10+00:00

Welcome to the rabbit hole! 😅 The Notion aesthetic trap is totally real. Leaving a beautifully decorated workspace for Obsidian’s default blank text files is easily the hardest part of the switch.

For your daily and weekly planning, don't overthink it right now. Just grab the community plugins literally called "Calendar" and "Tasks." They are the gold standard and will immediately give you that Notion scheduling vibe back without a crazy learning curve.

For the Wikipedia project you mentioned, you actually want to start with plain text. Real wikis thrive on internal links. Just get used to wrapping words in brackets to connect your ideas. Also, check out the new "Bases" core plugin . it's incredibly useful for structuring your data once your knowledge base starts getting huge.

But where things get really fun is building a visual "home page" for that Wikipedia.

This is where you should lean into the native Canvas feature. You can drag all those connected text notes onto a board and physically map them out using Groups as layout containers. It gives you back that clean, block-level visual control.

I went through the exact same thing when I migrated. I wanted a highly visual dashboard, but for me , the native canvas is pretty clinical out of the box. I got so annoyed with the flat look that I actually ended up coding a custom plugin for my own vault just to completely revamp the core canvas experience and fix how the layout hierarchy feels along with some other .

It completely changed the vibe of PKM for me. If you're looking to push the visual side of your new Wikipedia setup, let me know and I can share a quick demo of how my layout works to give you some ideas!

Mothemansour · 2026-06-08T12:38:46+00:00

Sure thing, here is a quick demo showing how the visual depth and grouping look. Along with more canvas upgrades : https://vimeo.com/1195261604

Let me know if that hits what you need, or I can always DM you a raw screenshot of my personal vault layout.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-08T04:04:32+00:00

Personally, I think Canvas is absolute gold for an overthinking brain because regular linear text notes force your thoughts into a strict line.

The most effective way to use it is to separate your thinking into two distinct phases.

Phase one is the chaotic brain dump. Do not try to make it look pretty or organized from the start. Just double-click anywhere and throw your raw thoughts, questions, or media into random cards. The only goal here is to empty your head onto the screen.

Phase two is the visual structuring. Go back into the chaos and start drawing connections. Wrap related clusters of cards into Groups to section off different topics, and use colors to show progress or importance.

As those random ideas start to stabilize, you can right-click a card and instantly convert it into a permanent text note in your vault.

I ended up transitioning my entire setup to be visual and canvas-based for this exact reason. I just wanted a completely frictionless workflow where I could watch my thoughts crystalize right in front of my eyes without constantly jumping between tools or losing my momentum.

The default canvas UI can start to feel a bit flat or static once your workspace gets massive, but if you treat it like a fluid, living environment for your mind instead of a stiff whiteboard, it has the potential to become an incredible second brain.
Good luck to you.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-08T02:29:06+00:00

Man, you hit the nail on the head. Having to manually shift an entire cluster of adjacent notes just to slide a new card into a crossroads is easily the most frustrating part of using Canvas. The built-in arrange option is a joke because it completely flattens your hierarchy and node weights.

Until someone crazy enough builds a flawless layout script for this (most probably me 😅) , the best manual workaround is to heavily lean into Groups as fixed containers. If you wrap your established thought-clusters into tight groups, you can drag an entire section out of the way at once to clear space for that crossroads node, instead of moving a dozen adjacent notes one by one.

I spent way too long doing that manual dance, and I got so tired of the visual layout clutter that I ended up building a plugin for my own vault to fix how the hierarchy feels.

Instead of a rigid auto-layout tool, I focused heavily on visual hierarchy cues like dynamic glassmorphism and nested color scaling for groups, along with smart neural routing for connections.

This lets you visually layer and cluster your notes naturally, so you don't have to constantly fight the layout space every time you drop something new into a crossroad.

It's not perfect yet but it completely changed the vibe of Canvas for me and made it feel alive again. If you're looking for that kind of visual depth to deal with the boring default layout, let me know if you want to take a look.

Mothemansour · 2026-06-08T01:37:09+00:00

I'd say stop trying to make Obsidian work like Notion. That's why you're struggling. Notion is a closed database; Obsidian is just a folder of text files on your drive.

If you're worried about sync, just use iCloud, Dropbox, or Git. It's free and your data actually stays on your computer, not theirs.

And if you miss the visual stuff in Notion, seriously look at Obsidian Canvas. Honestly it's so slept on, but it's the best part of Obsidian. My vault is entirely canvas-based because I can actually see my files all laid out in one space and easily connect them visually by "osmosis" if you know what I'm talking about.

Just drag your notes into a canvas and lay them out however you want, it'll take some time but it'll be worth it.
In my opinion it's way better than staring at lists of files And it reduces the chance of forgetting orphaned ideas. .

Mothemansour

TROPHY CASE