I understand that a gallery view displaying note thumbnails has been requested many times, going back to at least 2019, but I would like to raise the request again because I believe it is an important feature for a notes application.
Being able to quickly browse an index of notes is essential. I also recognize that there are very good plugins, such as “Preview,” that display note thumbnails. However, limiting those thumbnails to a single column significantly reduces the amount of information that can be viewed at a glance.
Many users of notes applications such as Joplin are visual thinkers. Being able to see images together with snippets of text can convey far more information than text titles or icons alone. In some cases, a note may even consist primarily or entirely of images, making a visual gallery especially useful.
Obsidian, using the Note Explorer plugin, has done an excellent job implementing this type of thumbnail gallery view. I noticed that the plugin was built in part on code available on GitHub, which the developer has acknowledged, so this may provide a useful starting point for implementing a similar feature.
Ideally, users could simply toggle between the standard single-column note list and a thumbnail gallery view, allowing each person to choose the presentation that best suits their workflow.
I believe this would be a very valuable addition for users who rely heavily on visual organization and image-rich notes.