Backspace Deletes All Indent in One Go – Can I Make It Step Back Gradually?

Help
1

Hi everyone,

I’m new to Obsidian and still learning my way around its editor features. I’ve run into a small but annoying behavior, and I’m wondering if there’s a setting or workaround to change it.

Here’s an example:

Hello World
  Huhu World

  • If my cursor is at the end of the second line and I press Enter, the new line starts under the H in “Huhu” (keeping indentation). That’s perfect.

  • But if I press Backspace, all the indentation is removed at once and the cursor jumps to the very start of the line.

What I’d prefer — similar to how it works in Notepad++ — is:

  • First Backspace removes part of the indentation.

  • Second Backspace removes the remaining indentation.

Basically, I’d like to press Backspace twice to reach the start of the line, instead of losing all indentation in a single step.

Is there a setting in Obsidian, or maybe a CSS/snippet tweak that can make Backspace work this way? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

3

I couldn’t find the “Edit” button. My text was changed automatically.

The following lines are meant to illustrate the issue:

Hello World
__Huhu World

4

I’m not sure if there is a way to delete those spaces individually aside from selecting them first.

How are you using this indentation, and what is it for? Markdown (the formatting language used by Obsidian) doesn’t really support freeform indentation. A tab or 4 spaces marks a paragraph as a code block, or a list item as a sublist item. Fewer than 4 spaces has no meaning but can be used as an editing convenience, and will be removed when rendered (for example in Reading View).

For your forum post example: You need to mark your examples as code to prevent the forum software from rendering them. It works the same as in Obsidian: https://help.obsidian.md/syntax#Code.

I edited the post for you. (You’ll be able to edit if you’re around the forum a bit longer. New accounts are restricted to foil spammers.)

5

In my case, the indentation is just for visual alignment while I’m editing — it’s not meant to be a code block or a sublist in Markdown. I just like to line things up neatly for readability.
My main question is about the editor behavior: even with spaces, Backspace removes all the leading spaces at once. I’d like it to step back one space at a time, like in Notepad++. Is there a way to change that in Obsidian or CodeMirror?

6

I don’t know of a way, sorry. You could try searching the plugin gallery.