Use case or problem
I’m a devoted Git user and a proud advocate of non-English text (and yes, I enjoy my minimalistic markdown just the way it is). However, ever since the Obsidian Team “graciously” implemented Auto-format tables (add padding to cells) for easy plain-text reading to make tables “easier to read” by auto-formatting them, my tables have become bloated beasts of whitespace. This “improvement” turns even a single long word into an epic saga of padding, leading to version control nightmares and Git diffs that resemble a ream of unintentional prose. Apparently, if you don’t read plain text in English, you might as well watch your precious data expand like a balloon at a birthday party.
Proposed solution
Introduce a simple toggle so users can choose between a “readable” (if that’s what you fancy) and a “minimalist” table mode. By giving us the option to disable auto-padding, we can keep our files lean and our Git histories sane—without forcing all of us into a one-size-fits-all solution that only works for a particular language or workflow.
We hope that this time, the solution will fix one problem without inadvertently giving birth to another.
Current workaround
For the time being, I just need to manually revert the unnecessary changes.
I can add a custom regex script to scrub the extra padding out of my tables for git config diff and git config filter, or use the “Advanced Tables” or “Linter” extensions. It’s really just a band-aid on a problem that, frankly, shouldn’t exist at all.