Merlay 0.4.0

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Merlay 0.4.0 — Mindmaps, 4 Diagram Types, and Universal Themes

Mermaid, your way. A native visual overlay editor for Mermaid diagrams in Obsidian.

Merlay 0.4.0 is a major milestone expanding visual interactive editing to 4 diagram types, introducing native Mindmap editing, and bringing universal diagram themes with 100% portability.

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🚀 What's New in 0.4.0

🧠 1. Mindmap Diagram Support

• Interactive Tree Editing: Full visual editing for hierarchical Mermaid mindmaps (mindmap).
• Subtopic Sprouting: Select any topic and click + Subtopic to sprout a child branch instantly.
• Drag-to-Reparent: Drag any topic and release onto another topic to move branches across the tree.
• Node Shapes & Icons: Customize mindmap shapes (circle, rounded, rectangle, cloud, bang/burst, hexagon) and preserve FontAwesome icons (::icon(...)) verbatim.
• Sequential DOM Resolution: Resolves Mermaid's runtime SVG sequential IDs (node_0, node_1) cleanly back to authored topics.

🎨 2. Universal Global Diagram Themes (Zero Lock-In)

• Official Themes Across All Diagrams: Easily switch between Auto (System), Default, Neutral, Forest, Dark, and Base directly from the top bar.
• 100% Standard YAML Frontmatter: Emits standard Mermaid v10+ configuration (--- config: { theme: ... } ---).
• Zero Lock-In: Pure native syntax that renders identically in GitHub, GitLab, Notion, and Mermaid Live Editor without proprietary metadata.
• Obsidian Auto Theme: Selecting Auto (System) removes the theme override, automatically adapting to your active Obsidian dark/light mode.

📊 3. Four Fully Supported Diagram Types

Merlay now supports visual interactive editing across 4 diagram families:

1. Flowcharts (flowchart, graph): nodes, shapes, arrows, labels, subgraphs, direction.
2. State Diagrams (stateDiagram-v2): states, choices, forks, joins, composites, start/end anchors.
3. Sequence Diagrams (sequenceDiagram): participants, actors, messages, boxes, autonumber.
4. Mindmaps (mindmap): central root, subtopics, branching hierarchy, shapes, icons.

(Other diagram kinds open in high-performance view-only mode with pan, zoom, and SVG element inspection).

⚡ 4. Unified Frontmatter Architecture & Reliability

• 100% Centralized Frontmatter: Fully unified frontmatter splitting and serialization across all diagram engines with zero duplicated parsing code.
• Preserve User Code: Unknown statements, comments, classes, and directives survive all visual edits verbatim.
• On-The-Fly Style Inheritance: Newly sprouted steps automatically inherit diagram default styles.

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📦 Installation

BRAT (Beta): Add https://github.com/dev-hashemi/merlay in BRAT → Add Beta plugin.

Manual: Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the assets below into your vault under .obsidian/plugins/merlay/, then enable Merlay under Settings → Community plugins.

Requires Obsidian 1.4.0 or newer. Desktop and mobile supported.

Full Changelog: 0.3.2...0.4.0

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This discussion was created from the release Merlay 0.4.0.