Obsidian Vimrc Support Plugin

This plugin loads a file of Vim commands from VAULT_ROOT/.obsidian.vimrc. For users of the Obsidian.md Vim mode, this is very useful for making various settings (most notably keymaps) persist.

Usage

First and foremost, make sure you have the Obsidian Vim key bindings turned on -- see Editor -> Vim key bindings.

Now to keep some of your Vim settings permanent, install this plugin and put a file named .obsidian.vimrc in your vault root. If you're using multiple vaults, you'll need this file on each one.

Here's a simple & useful .obsidian.vimrc that I'm using:

" Have j and k navigate visual lines rather than logical ones
nmap j gj
nmap k gk
" I like using H and L for beginning/end of line
nmap H ^
nmap L $
" Quickly remove search highlights
nmap <F9> :nohl

" Yank to system clipboard
set clipboard=unnamed

Supported Commands

The commands that can be used are whatever CodeMirror supports. I couldn't find a formal list anywhere but you can look for defaultExCommandMap in the source code, or play around with trying commands in Obsidian's Vim mode.

In addition to that:

• The plugin skips blank lines and lines starting with Vimscript comments (" ...).
• Special support for yanking to system clipboard can be activated by set clipboard=unnamed (unnamedplus will do the same thing).
• Support for the tabstop Vim option (e.g. set tabstop=4).

Commands that fail don't generate any visible error for now.

Installation

In the Obsidian.md settings under "Third-party plugin", turn off Safe mode, then browse to this plugin.

Alternatively (and less recommended), you can install it manually: just copy main.js and manifest.json to your vault VaultFolder/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-vimrc-support/.

Wishlist

There are many things that I wish the CodeMirror implementation would allow. Many of these can be added using the CodeMirror API for extending its Vim mode and maybe I'll work on these at some point.

Things I'd love to add:

• Implement some standard vim-markdown motions for Obsidian, e.g. [[, or implement for CodeMirror the 1-2 missing Ex commands required to define these keymaps in the Vimrc.
• Relative line numbers.

Changelog

0.2.1

• Fixed this issue: setting clipboard=unnamed also works for pasting now (it monitors the system clipboard and updates the yank buffer if a change is detected).
• Support for the tabstop Vim option as asked here.

0.2.0

Added support for yanking to system clipboard (see above), comments and blank lines.

0.1.1

Fixed an issue caused by the plugin injecting the Vimrc on every file load. The plugin now injects the Vimrc just once for the CodeMirror class (for the class -- not object instance, because that's where CodeMirror keeps the Vim settings.)

This seems to work well, but in theory there could be Vimrc settings that are CodeMirror-object bound and not class-bound, and in that case we'll be in trouble (these settings will be lost when Obsidian replaces CodeMirror objects).