12.11.8 : Bug “New Action re-entrancy” fix, plus a quieter default for priority lane caps

What's new in v12.11.8

This release covers everything since v12.11.5.

Kanban board

• Fixed: the "+ New Action" button could occasionally create two notes
  from a single interaction instead of one, each with its own name prompt
  stacked on top of the other. Root cause was a timing gap between the
  click and the note-creation flow with no protection against a second
  click landing in that gap — the button now disables itself for the
  duration of the flow and re-enables once it's done, so a second click
  during that window is simply ignored.
• Hardened the fix above with a 30-second safety-net fallback, in case a
  future Obsidian update ever changes how modal-close events are
  delivered — the button is now guaranteed to re-enable either way, not
  just under normal conditions.
• Max visible cards per priority lane now defaults to off
  (unlimited) instead of 12. The setting itself only ever did anything
  while "Group cards by priority" was on, so leaving it at a nonzero
  default surprised people who never touched it and didn't have grouping
  in mind. Existing configured values are untouched by this change.
• The Max visible cards per priority lane setting is now hidden
  entirely while "Group cards by priority" is off, since it has no effect
  in that mode — it reappears automatically as soon as grouping is turned
  back on, with your previous value intact.

---

Full details on every setting and feature above are in the
README.

12.11.5 : Now on Community Plugins, plus priority swim lanes & lane collapse

What's new in v12.11.5

This release covers everything since v12.8.0.

Availability

• Action Kanban is now on Obsidian's official Community Plugins
  directory. Install it directly from Settings → Community Plugins →
  Browse — no BRAT required anymore, though BRAT is still supported if you
  want to track pre-release builds ahead of the directory.
• Plugin description now states independence from Bases as well as
  Dataview — Action Kanban has never depended on either, but the manifest
  and README previously only called out Dataview by name.

Kanban board

• Priority swim lanes: when "Group cards by priority" is on, each
  priority tier (High/Medium/Low) now lines up at the same row height
  across every column on the board, even in columns where that tier has
  no cards. A tier with zero cards anywhere is omitted from the board
  entirely, in every column — not just hidden per-column as before.
• Lane collapse: click any priority separator to collapse or expand
  that tier board-wide, all columns at once, keeping the swim lanes
  aligned. Collapse state is remembered across restarts, the same as
  column collapse. Each separator now also shows a card-count badge,
  visible whether the lane is expanded or collapsed.
• New setting — Max visible cards per priority lane: caps how tall a
  lane can grow before it scrolls internally, instead of always
  stretching to fit every card. Off (unlimited) by default behavior is
  unchanged if you don't touch this.
• Readability pass: filter buttons, column headings, and priority
  lane titles are larger and now use the interface's standard sans-serif
  font — previously a mix of sizes and a monospace font that didn't match
  the "New action" button's own style.
• Fixed: the standalone board view (opened via the ribbon icon or
  "Open board") now debounces its auto-refresh and only reacts to changes
  inside your configured Actions folder — previously it re-rendered on
  any file change anywhere in the vault, with no debounce. Embedded
  boards already behaved this way; the standalone view now matches.
• Fixed: status_changed and your due-date field are now read
  correctly even if either is ever written as a single-item YAML list
  (e.g. by a template or another plugin) — previously only Type,
  status, and priority tolerated this, and a list-valued
  status_changed in particular would get silently overwritten with
  today's date on the next board load.

Settings panel

• Settings screen is now responsive down to narrow window widths — tabs
  stack full-width instead of overflowing, and the Remove button in list
  rows collapses to icon-only on smaller screens.
• Daily Bing background image: Settings now shows its title, photo
  credit, and a direct "View source" link to the exact fetched photo
  (previously only a small on-board attribution line, and the link
  sometimes pointed at a generic search result instead of that day's
  specific image).
• New setting — Bing region: choose which of 13 regional editions of
  Bing's daily image to fetch, instead of always using the US edition.
• Fixed a display bug where switching Bing regions could leave a stale
  cached image showing on the board even after Settings had already
  updated correctly.

Under the hood

• File scanning for Actions is now strictly scoped to your configured
  folder at the API level too (not just by filtering after the fact) —
  a corrective fix from Obsidian's plugin-submission review, with no
  behavior change for a correctly-configured vault.
• Two CSS patterns flagged by that same review (a broad :has()
  selector, and redundant non-webkit scrollbar properties) were replaced
  with equivalent, more targeted styling — no visual change.

---

Full details on every setting and feature above are in the
README.

12.8.0 : Board visual refresh, Settings redesign & Bing background

What's new in v12.8.0

Kanban board

• Days-in-status indicator: replaced the old row of individual dots with a compact segmented ring showing how long a card has sat in its current status, color-tiered by age
• Due-date display: replaced the filling progress bar with a countdown rail and a marker chip that sweeps toward the due date; overdue cards now pulse with a red glow
• Background image support: the board can now show an image behind the whole board (toolbar and columns), with an adjustable overlay opacity so buttons and text stay readable over it
• Daily Bing background: optional auto-updating background pulled from Bing's "image of the day," fetched once per day, with attribution shown on the board; off by default since it makes an outbound network request
• Toolbar redesign: the "New action" button is larger, uses the plugin's accent color instead of Obsidian's default, and now has a "+" icon; buttons pick up a semi-transparent treatment automatically when a background image is active
• Card meta chips: custom frontmatter fields (configured in Settings as "pill fields") now display as compact chips directly on each card

Settings panel

• Statuses table: the "Done" checkbox is now a toggle switch, with an explanation added of what marking a status "Done" actually does (drives the Done-column cutoff filter and priority-group collapsing); fixed a bug where editing a status's color didn't update its appearance in the Columns table until something else forced a refresh
• Columns table: status selection is now a row of pills instead of checkboxes — selected pills fill solid with the status's own color (with automatic light/dark text for readability); unselected pills no longer carry a background tint that made them look partially selected
• Buttons: "Add status," "Add column," "Add pill field," and "Remove" restyled as consistent pill-shaped buttons, replacing Obsidian's default flat button look
• Tab navigation: Structure / Behaviour / Appearance / Debugging are now underlined, larger tabs with a clear active-state indicator, replacing a rounded segmented-control look that gave no reliable way to tell which tab was active
• Section headings: redesigned with a larger serif title, replacing a plain bordered-underline look
• Accent colours: section now shows only the Primary accent color, the only one currently used anywhere in the plugin (the other six were saved settings with no visible effect and have been hidden, not deleted); added a "Reset to defaults" button

12.1.4

First public release of Action Kanban.

Action Kanban turns a folder of notes into a Kanban board, embeddable directly in a daily note or opened as its own view. Cards are Actions (full notes, not checkboxes ) driven entirely by YAML frontmatter: status decides the column, priority groups cards within it, and a due-date bar plus a days-in-status dot row help catch anything that's quietly stuck. No Dataview, no Bases, no external dependency.

This is versioned 12.1.4 because it went through a lot of iteration before being made public, not because there were eleven prior public releases. This is genuinely the first build available to install.

Tested on desktop; mobile is untested so far, feedback welcome.
Full feature list, frontmatter reference, and setup instructions are in the README.