Obsidian Canvas

Flowershow supports rendering Obsidian Canvas files (.canvas). Canvas files follow the open JSON Canvas specification and are displayed as SVG diagrams showing your nodes, connections, and colors.

Demo

Here's a simple canvas embedded inline in this page:

You can also view it as a standalone page.

How It Works

Canvas files (.canvas) are JSON files created by Obsidian's Canvas feature. When you sync your Obsidian vault to Flowershow, canvas files are automatically detected and rendered as visual diagrams – no configuration needed.

Standalone Canvas Pages

Any .canvas file in your content is automatically rendered as its own page. The URL preserves the .canvas extension to avoid conflicts with markdown files of the same name:

• Roadmap.canvas renders at /@user/project/Roadmap.canvas
• notes/architecture.canvas renders at /@user/project/notes/architecture.canvas

Canvas files also appear in the sidebar navigation alongside your markdown pages.

Inline Canvas Embeds

You can embed a canvas inside any markdown page using either Obsidian wiki-link or standard markdown image syntax:

![[my-diagram.canvas]]

![](my-diagram.canvas)

The canvas renders as an inline SVG diagram within the page content.

Supported Features

• Rich text nodes – text nodes render full markdown including GFM tables, wiki-links, callouts, math (KaTeX), and syntax-highlighted code
• Image embeds – file nodes referencing images (.png, .jpg, .gif, .svg, .webp, .bmp, .ico) display the actual image inside the node
• Note embeds – file nodes referencing .md files render the note's content with full markdown formatting and a title heading
• Colored nodes – all 6 Obsidian color presets plus custom hex colors (e.g. #ff6600)
• Edges – connections between nodes render as bezier curves with support for edge colors, labels, and arrow markers on both ends
• Node labels – optional labels displayed above node content

Limitations

• Canvas rendering is static – no zoom, pan, or interactivity
• Nested canvas (canvas within canvas) is not yet supported

These limitations may be addressed in future updates based on user feedback.