Murmuration Reports: A New Plugin and a Faster Writing Companion
We've released a standalone reporting plugin for Obsidian, while the next version of Murmuration Writing Companion brings substantial performance improvements.
At Murmuration Press, we build software to support the way we write and publish our books. What began as a set of tools for managing the PRIME trilogy has developed into a collection of Obsidian plugins for organising manuscripts, maintaining story worlds and preparing books for publication.
This week marks another step in that development.
Introducing Murmuration Reports
Murmuration Reports v0.1.0 is now available.
Originally developed as part of Murmuration Writing Companion (MWC), the reporting functionality has been extracted into its own independent Obsidian plugin.
Murmuration Reports turns structured Markdown data into visual reports. It can generate SVG line charts and Markdown state tables from properties recorded in ordinary Obsidian notes.
For example, a collection of dated observations can become a chart showing how measurements change over time, or a table comparing the latest observation with the preceding one.
The source notes remain authoritative. Reports are generated from that data and can be regenerated when required, without changing the underlying observations.
The new plugin includes a report manager for creating and editing definitions, previewing saved outputs and explicitly generating or regenerating reports.
Importantly, it doesn't require Murmuration Writing Companion or a manuscript structure. You can install it in any suitable desktop Obsidian vault.
That opens up uses beyond writing fiction: research notes, environmental observations, project records and any other collection of structured Markdown data.
Download Murmuration Reports v0.1.0 on GitHub
Why separate the plugins?
Murmuration Writing Companion has grown considerably as we've developed and published the PRIME trilogy.
It handles manuscript structure, scene navigation, annotations, continuity checking, Story World information and a range of manuscript-specific operations.
But not everything belongs in a writing plugin.
Reporting against structured data is useful in its own right. Moving that functionality into Murmuration Reports gives it a clearer purpose and allows it to evolve independently.
It also makes MWC smaller.
The extraction removed approximately 14.6 KB of JavaScript from the Writing Companion's production bundle, while preserving compatibility with existing reporting commands for one transition release.
Existing reports remain ordinary files. No automatic migration or regeneration is required.
Now available: Murmuration Writing Companion v0.19.0
Alongside the release of Murmuration Reports, we've published Murmuration Writing Companion v0.19.0, a substantial maintenance release focused on performance, responsiveness and reliability.
MWC has grown considerably during the development of the PRIME trilogy. Managing hundreds of scenes, research notes and Story World entities has exposed performance challenges that are less apparent in smaller Obsidian vaults.
This release addresses several of them.
Faster navigation and less unnecessary work
We've significantly improved how MWC processes manuscript structure and updates its interface.
- Faster Companion rendering. In controlled large-vault benchmarks, median rendering time fell from 348 ms to 148 ms—an improvement of about 57%.
- Faster Navigator rendering. Median rendering time fell from 958 ms to 320 ms — approximately 67% less rendering time.
- More efficient scene numbering. Processing that previously required eleven passes now requires just two in controlled tests. Ordinary editing operations no longer trigger automatic numbering passes or metadata writes.
- More reliable interaction. We've corrected an irritating issue where saving changes could refresh the interface before a mouse click completed, sometimes requiring users to click twice.
For authors working with substantial manuscripts, these changes should make everyday navigation and editing noticeably more responsive.
A smaller, more focused plugin
Moving dataset chart and state-table generation into Murmuration Reports has reduced MWC's production JavaScript bundle by approximately 14.6 KB.
MWC retains the functionality specific to manuscript development, including scene numbering, annotation tracking, continuity checking, and Story World entity reporting.
The two original dataset reporting commands remain available temporarily, allowing existing keyboard shortcuts to continue working with Murmuration Reports installed. Users should move their shortcuts to the new plugin before these compatibility commands are removed in a subsequent release, provisionally v0.20.0.
Tested and released
Version 0.19.0 passed 986 TypeScript tests, 15 script tests, production build and packaging checks, and automated Ubuntu and Windows CI.
Additional native Linux testing covered manuscript preparation, editing interactions, keyboard handling, reporting and document exports. Broader compatibility testing, including native Windows interaction, remains planned.
Performance work also continues, particularly around initial loading and rendering in very large Obsidian vaults. Version 0.19.0 delivers the improvements already validated while leaving room for further optimisation.
Download Murmuration Writing Companion v0.19.0 on GitHub
Two tools, clearer responsibilities
The distinction between the plugins is now straightforward.
Murmuration Writing Companion remains focused on books: manuscripts, scenes, story worlds, annotations and editorial workflows.
Murmuration Reports handles charts and tables generated from structured Markdown data.
They can work together, but neither needs the other to do its core job.
For existing MWC users, the next release temporarily retains the old reporting keyboard commands, giving you an opportunity to move shortcuts to the new plugin. We plan to remove those compatibility commands in the next MWC release.
Building in the open
Both plugins are developed openly on GitHub.
Murmuration Reports v0.1.0 has passed its initial automated validation, including 107 tests and Ubuntu and Windows build checks. MWC's forthcoming release has also passed its current automated test and build checks, with broader native acceptance testing still to be completed.
The objective remains the same: tools that support the writing process without getting in its way.
Separating reporting from manuscript management, reducing unnecessary processing and making ordinary interactions more dependable are all part of that work.
Explore the projects:
Developed by Murmuration Press, the independent publisher of the PRIME series.
