Hover Preview for footnotes

Feature requests
21

Obsidian is Mind Processor! Hover Preivew for footnote is very excited feature. Please make more comfortable thinking room with it in Obsidian.

2 Likes
22

Hey, A new plugin for preview coming soon: GitHub - alx-plugins/better-fn

7 Likes
23

+1, and especially, please, make it work in Publish!

24

+1 for me too

25

Obsidian does not generate popover previews for footnote references, eg. [^name]
:scream:

Footnotes belong to the footer and are ideal for Paper Books, ( and digital books) but digital technology should offer some advantages in addition to normal footnotes and show some preview

2 Likes
26

Would love to see this feature!

1 Like
27

Would love it!

28

There was a plugin for this, but it hasnt been maintained and i dont think it works very well anymore
Would love this to become an official featire

29

Yes, the plugin (Better Footnote) hasn’t been updated in 2+ years and the ‘preview’ only works in reading mode.

30

Any update on this? It would be useful.

31

+1 for a preview when hovering over a footnote

32

+1 here too

34

Proposed solution

Feature Details:

  1. Footnote Preview: When a user presses Ctrl and clicks on a footnote within a note in the Obsidian desktop app, a small, non-intrusive pop-up preview window should appear, just as it appears when one previews a linked note. This window would display the content of the selected footnote, allowing users to quickly preview the footnote’s content without scrolling or navigating away from the main text.
  2. Interactive Preview: Users should be able to interact with the previewed footnote, such as scrolling through lengthy footnotes or clicking links within the footnote content. This would provide a seamless and intuitive way to access and understand the referenced information.
  3. Easy Dismissal: Users should have the option to easily dismiss the footnote preview and return to their original note, preserving their place within the text.

Use case

The addition of the “Footnote Preview” feature in the Obsidian desktop app would significantly improve the reading and reference experience. It would make it easier for users to access and understand the content of footnotes without disrupting their reading flow. This feature would be particularly beneficial for researchers, writers, and students who rely on footnotes for additional context and references.

Implementing this feature would make the Obsidian desktop app even more user-friendly and efficient for working with footnotes in longer texts.

Thank you for considering this feature request.

6 Likes
35

I like this. I use a third-party plugin that automatically scrolls me from the text to the footnote and vice versa, but that is disorienting, in my opinion.

(Side note: This plugin truly helps when I’m creating footnotes; with one hotkey it adds the correct Markdown and scrolls me to the footnote so I can start adding the source right away, then the same hotkey brings me back to where I left off in the text. When I add a footnote I almost always want to go back to where I left off, so the hotkey really is convenient. So maybe this will help your workflow in the meantime.)

Is there a chance for footnotes to also be a tab in the sidebar? This could be very similar to the Backlinks core plugin, which gives you a sidebar tab that lists all the backlinks as well as the option to view them at the bottom of each note — where footnotes also happen to be found. This can be a way to have interactive previews of the footnotes and even manage them, without losing your place (and ability to edit) in the text.

2 Likes
36

Better footnote plugin gives preview popovers for footnotes

1 Like
37

Better Footnotes by Aidenlx works very well but is already a bit dated. Lets hope it does not break at some point…

IMO, footnote preview should be a core feature - footnote are kind of links and should have a popup preview.

3 Likes
38

Agreed! We also don’t have popup previews for footnotes in callouts and tables. No community plugin does that. Support for better manipulation with footnotes should have been a core feature.

39

Hover preview of footnotes will be implemented in v1.6.0.

40

It’s great that we finally have this feature in live preview!
However in 1.6.0, this feature seems to be absent from the reading view. It would be also valuable to have it in the reading view especially for long notes.

41

Hover preview in reading mode will be added in the next release.

1 Like