obsidian-footnotes
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MichaBrugger
Split-screen footnotes
Suggestion from Obsidian Forum by TheInquisitiveOne
Hello,
Is there a way that we can create a plugin that would split the note in half vertically where the left side is the main content of the note and the right side is dedicated to all of the footnotes (with both sides being scrollable if there’s enough content on either side)?
The main idea is that when you input the command to place a new footnote marker, the footnote that it creates appears on the right side of the note rather than at the bottom of the note.
:point_down:Here’s a perfect example of what I’m thinking of:
This screenshot was taken from NETBible.org 1. Notice how the main text is on the left and has lots of footnote number markers that correspond with the footnotes/annotations on the right. Clicking on the footnote number marker goes to the relevant footnote/annotation on the right. Also notice how both sides are able to scroll up and down. You can visit that site and see how it functions. @Joschua’s Obsidian Bible Kit 1 is the original motivation for wanting such a plugin since the Bible has lots of content and I have tons of notes from multiple sources. It would be awesome to add those notes to my Obsidian Bible as NETBible.org 1 style annotations.
This also can be useful for other purposes other than annotating Bibles. This can also be useful for any other huge note/document that you have tons of footnotes/annotations/comments for.
The advantage of having the footnotes/annotations on the right side of the screen opposed to at the bottom is that you’re able to view both the main material and the footnotes/annotations side by side without having to jump back and forth from the top/middle of the main content all the way down to the bottom of the note where the footnotes are.
I am aware that there is the better footnote plugin which allows a popup window with the footnote to appear when you hover your cursor over the footnote number. It has it’s valuable uses. However, that’s not conducive to viewing many footnotes together. When you have tons of footnotes/annotations to read through, that can get rather tedious. Also, if there are larger elements in the footnotes/annotations, like maps of a decent size, that little popup window is going to make such elements smaller; even if the popup window could be made larger, that could become obstructive.
Essentially, OP wants to be able to split-screen a document and jump between footnote markers on one side and details on the other. Currently, the plugin jumps back and forth in the same window. To add this feature, we would add an option that, when a document is split-screened, the plugin jumps back and forth between the windows.
Better(?) solution: Instead of split-screening, add a sidebar list of all footnotes like Obsidian Pandoc Reference List, Reference Map, or the native backlinks sidebar pane.
Try to also add the following functionality:
- when clicking on a footnote marker, highlight the corresponding footnote detail in the sidebar list
- edit footnote details directly from the sidebar list
- show a count of how many times each footnote detail is referenced
I write a lot of my references first before linking. For flashtype articles found on the web, its much easier to just scape the one or two links i've found on. But I usually have several links to draw from. It's easier just to refer to the article without quoting anything when the article is fairly small.
Another request for a footnotes sidebar pane: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/a-dedicated-footnotes-pane-similar-to-tags-properties-links-etc/81651
This request for footnotes to be side-by-side with the writing is somewhat similar to Tufte's sidenotes. While footnotes place all footnote details at the bottom of the document regardless of the position of the footnote marker, sidenotes place their details in the document margin, on the same line as their corresponding marker.
More info about them here: https://tfthacker.substack.com/p/tufte-style-sidenotes-in-obsidian