A minimalistic Obsidian theme focused on readability and condensed information display.

• Features
  • Hiding/Showing UI Elements
  • Annotation Tags
  • Max View & Focus View
  • Image-related Features
  • Multi-Color-Highlighting & Spoiler Syntax
  • Well-Suited for Academic Work
  • Fine-tuned Spellcheck (deprecated)
  • Further Features
• Design Principles
  • Extreme Minimalism
  • Condensed Display of Information
  • High Readability
• Customization
  • Style Settings
  • Further Customization Options
• Compatibility
  • List of Compatible Plugins
  • Custom Checkboxes
  • Instructions for specific Plugins
• Installation
• Contribute
  • Translation of Style Settings
  • Plugins & Features
• Related Work
• Credits
  • About the Developer
  • Donations
  • Thanks

• By default, many UI elements are hidden, directing your focus to what matters – your notes.
• You can re-enable individual hidden UI elements by using the Style Settings Plugin.
• The status bar, header bar, graph controls, resize handles, and collapse arrows but become visible upon hovering or being active.
• Obsidian 0.13+: in Source Mode, URLs on non-active lines are folded.

💡 The settings can be accessed without a need for a button via cmd + , (Mac) or ctrl + , (Windows/Linux).

Type one of the following eight tags (e.g. #definition) to get a colored annotation tag. Also works in Edit Mode. Intended for Annotations when reading academic papers.

💡 You can add your own Annotation Tags by adding a snippet using this template.

• Max View (disabled by default): When the left sidebar is hidden, line length is extended to full length, and images & PDFs are expanded to full width. Readable line length and smaller images/PDFs are re-applied when the left sidebar is shown again.¹ This is useful when dealing with big tables or many images. To enable Max View or adjust the size of images & PDFs, use the Style Settings Plugin.
• Focus View (disabled by default): Hiding the left side bar will also hide the right sidebar, with the right side bar staying hidden until the left one is shown again. This synergizes with Max View, but also works independently. To enable Focus View, use the Style Settings Plugin.

💡 For both features, it is useful to set a hotkey for the built-in command Toggle left sidebar.

• Click & hold an image to zoom (Preview Mode).
• Alt-text is automatically used as image caption (Preview Mode).
• Set a default image size with the Style Settings Plugin.
• You can also use Max View to toggle between reduced and full image sizes.

• Surround highlights with * or ** for alternative highlight colors (*==cyan==* and **==yellow==**).
• You can use the Extra Markdown Commands Plugin to get hotkeys for them.
• Spoiler Syntax: Emphasized Strikethroughs (*~~spoiler~~*) will selectively hide text, except when hovered or the active line.

• Pandoc Citations ([@citekey]) and footnotes are visually emphasized
• The alt-text of images is used as caption text, in line with Pandoc's conversion behavior
• Extensive Styling specifically for the Longform Plugin, among other things justified & hyphenated text, and Crimson Pro as an easy-to-read serif font
• The Max View is useful for displaying wide markdown tables.
• You can also fine-tune the spell checking, e.g. to turn it off in blockquotes when you are regularly citing material where spellcheck creates false positives (e.g. historical sources with old language).
• Multi-Color-Highlighting and Annotation Tags have specifically been developed for academic reading.

Using the Style Settings Plugin, you can deactivate the spellcheck in specific areas like YAML or blockquotes.

⚠️ Note that this feature only works with the Legacy Editor of Obsidian 0.13+, so it will unfortunately be discontinued.

• Relationship lines in lists & File Explorer
• Indicates trailing white spaces when there is more than one space. This is useful for the Markdown Two Space Rule. (Obsidian 0.13+ / new Editor only).
• Active line highlighting
• Customizable Brightness of the Theme
• Dark Mode for PDFs (when using the theme in dark mode)
• Styled progress bars (<progress>)
• Resizable Graph View Controls (resize at the bottom-right)
• Compatible with SlRvb's Checkboxes.

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• This theme is mainly intended for experienced users using mainly the keyboard for navigation.
• As much clutter as possible is removed, letting you focus on content & information that matters.
• You can re-enable all hidden elements by using the Style Settings Plugin.
• 💡 The settings can still be accessed via cmd + , or ctrl + ,.

• Screen real estate used much more efficiently to display more information.
• Useful for smaller screens, split screens, bigger font sizes, or simply to see more information without having to scroll.
• Smaller images/PDFs. (Click-and-Hold or use the Max View Feature to enlarge them again.)
• Wider input boxes

• Theme Brightness is adjustable via Style Settings Plugin.
• Increased contrast throughout, especially with the annoying gray font on light-gray background.
• Decreased font size variation to increase readability & information density
• At the same time increased distinctiveness of different classes through subtle variation in typeface, font style, or backgrounds.
• Alternating row colors in tables, Command Palette, and Quick Switchers
• Easy-to-read fonts for every use case:
  • iA Writer Quattro as proportional yet clear font for regular text
  • Input Mono as monospace font for code
  • Optima as humanist font for heading
  • Crimson Pro as serif font for Longform notes
• Underlining of bold in dark mode to make it more readable, since in dark mode bold is harder to distinguish form normal text than in light mode. Can be turned off via Style Settings Plugin.
• Slightly thicker lines (icons, hr, tables, etc.)
• Plugin names in the Command Palette are moved to the right and more visually distinct

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This themes supports dozens of customization options via the Style Settings Plugin.

• To add your own annotation tags, use this template.
• To switch to Outlined Material Icons, add this CSS snippet.

Shimmering Focus is compatible with and has includes styling for all core plugins, the most common community plugins, as well as about a dozen more community plugins.

➡️ Full list of compatible plugins.

This theme has been adjusted to be compatible with SlRvb's Checkboxes.

In accordance with the minimalistic philosophy of the theme, unnecessary UI elements of some plugins have also been removed. However, you can still access the full plugin functionality.

• Kanban: Right-click cards to edit them.
• Sliding Panes: Enable Swap Rotated Header Direction in the Sliding Pane Settings.
• Breadcrumbs: Even with buttons removed, you can refresh the index via Command Palette
• Quick Explorer: Re-enable the title bar with the Style Settings Plugin for the breadcrumbs
• Ozan's Image in Editor: Image Sizes are affected by the Image Settings & by the Max View Feature.
• Starred (Core Plugin): To be able to star searches, re-enable the Starred pane buttons with the Style Settings Plugin

You can find Shimmering Focus in Obsidian's community themes browser under Obsidian Settings ➞ Appearance ➞ Themes ➞ Manage.

Very welcome are localizations of Style Settings Plugins, so the theme is more accessible to non-English speakers. This requires no knowledge of CSS. Please get in touch if you are interested in translating!

Pull requests for plugins or features I haven't implemented are also welcome. If they are bigger changes, be sure to check with me before.

• Try to follow the design philosophy of the theme.
• All sections have a < as prefix for quicker navigation. This means you can for example search for < font to navigate to the font section.
• For consistency and code quality, use stylelint with the provided configuration (the .stylelintrc.json file). If you are not familiar with stylelint, check out my guide in the Obsidian Hub.

git clone [email protected]:chrisgrieser/shimmering-focus.git
cd ./shimmering-focus
npm install stylelint postcss stylelint-config-recommended stylelint-order stylelint-declaration-block-no-ignored-properties

If you use Alfred, be sure to check out my themes for Alfred.

In my day job, I am a researcher in Sociology who also codes some small utilities in his free time. In my PhD project, I investigate the governance of the app economy and how the tension between innovation and compatibility is managed in software ecosystems. If you are interested in this subject, feel free to visit my academic homepage and get in touch!

• Discord: @pseudometa#9546
• Twitter: @pseudo_meta

Donations are welcome via PayPal or Ko-Fi. 🙏

Thanks for help and/or CSS snippets:

• @SlRvb
• @javalent
• @kepano
• @Mara
• @Chetachie
• @Atlas
• @jdaniel
• @NothingIsLost

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