Show Whitespace Obsidian Plugin

A plugin for Obsidian which shows whitespace in the editor.

Utilizes code from cm-show-invisibles by coderaiser

Compatibility

Custom plugins are only available for Obsidian v0.9.7+.

The current API of this repo targets Obsidian v0.10.0.

Notes

This is all very expermental at the moment, so parts might not work, etc.
There are certain css classes, etc that can interfere with it and make the whitespace characters stand out more.
Check out the styles.css in the release to see what styles are added to be customized.

You can override the following CSS variables in your custom CSS to use different characters if you wish.

• --spaceChar
• --trailingSpaceChar
• --singleSpaceChar
• --tabChar
• --newlineChar
• --strictLineBreakChar

Installation

From within Obsidian

From Obsidian v0.9.8, you can activate this plugin within Obsidian by doing the following:

• Open Settings > Third-party plugin
• Make sure Safe mode is off
• Click Browse community plugins
• Search for "Show Whitespace"
• Click Install
• Once installed, close the community plugins window and activate the newly installed plugin

Updates

You can follow the same procedure to update the plugin

From GitHub

• Download the Latest release
• Extract the cm-show-whitespace-obsidian folder from the zip to your vault's plugins folder: <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/
  Note: On some machines the .obsidian folder may be hidden. On MacOS you should be able to press Command+Shift+Dot to show the folder in Finder.
• Reload Obsidian
• If prompted about Safe Mode, you can disable safe mode and enable the plugin. Otherwise head to Settings, third-party plugins, make sure safe mode is off and enable the plugin from there.

Development

This project uses Typescript to provide type checking and documentation.
The repo depends on the latest plugin API in Typescript Definition format, which contains TSDoc comments describing what it does.

Note: The Obsidian API is still in early alpha and is subject to change at any time!

If you want to contribute to development and/or just customize it with your own tweaks, you can do the following:

• Clone this repo.
• npm i or yarn to install dependencies
• npm run build to compile.
• Copy manifest.json, main.js and styles.css to a subfolder of your plugins folder (e.g, <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/cm-show-whitespace-obsidian/)
• Reload obsidian to see changes

Alternately, you can clone the repo directly into your plugins folder and once dependencies are installed use npm run dev to start compilation in watch mode.
You may have to reload obsidian (ctrl+R) to see changes.

Pricing

Huh? This is an open-source plugin I made for fun. It's completely free. However, if you absolutely have to send me money because you like it that much, feel free to throw some coins in my hat via PayPal or sponsor me via GitHub Sponsors

Version History

0.3.1

• Fix to prevent throwing an error when toggling off

0.3.0

• Fixed the issue of being unable to toggle the plugin
• Added a bunch of new settings (thanks to jjspace for providing these!)
  • Show/hide space characters
  • Show/hide single space characters
  • Show/hide trailing space characters
  • Show/hide newline characters
  • Show/hide tab characters
• Also added a setting for show/hide "strict" line break characters (two spaces followed by a newline)

v0.2.0

• Added ability to toggle the setting via a command You can bind your own hotkey to this if you wish.

0.1.0

• Added a global body class so that styling is not applied when the plugin is off
• More minor fixes to make space dots in the middle
• Overridable CSS variables for --spaceChar, --tab-char and --newlineChar

v0.0.3

• Fixed end of line spaces to be on the same level as others
• Added a screenshot to the readme

This is my first real release utilizing automation 🤞

v0.0.2

styling fixes to center space dots and adjust colours

v0.0.1

Initial Release!
No fancy settings or anything, just turn it on or off through the third party plugin settings