I don’t think that is true. You can use a community plugin called Settings profiles to sync settings between your vaults. It may sound ridiculous to use two plugins and one CSS snippet to restore the original settings button location but using Settings profiles is not only limited to reverting the changes introduced by Obsidian 1.6.2 but to reverting any changes introduced by any future versions of Obsidian. So very big thanks 4Source who is the developer of Settings profiles.
As promising as this plugin looks, it doesn‘t solve the problem that we need to install a community plugin or learn a shortcut or type in a command. I think OP and the comments in this thread are asking a different question:
How should Obsidian display Vault Switcher and Settings and Help by default?
At this time I‘d like to see:
The Ribbon should be restored to 1.5 layout. It has been Obsidian‘s default for a long time. It is referenced in documentation, tutorials and many videos.
The Ribbon should be visible by default, even if it creates a „cockpit effect“. - But there should be a setting to toggle the Ribbon on/off (as in 1.6 Desktop).
The Vault Switcher in the left Sidebar (as introduced in 1.6) should also be visible by default. This new feature makes sense for many users and many use cases. It‘s more compatible with mobile. - But Obisdian should provide a new setting with three options: Show in left Sidebar (default) - Show in right Sidebar - Hidden.
The Sidebar Vault Switcher should only show the name of the vault and the Settings button. - The Help button feels out of place in the Vault Switcher.
How can Obsidian evolve if the existent support material can prevent any GUI changes? We should take account the frequency of these GUI changes. I agree that the ribbon was essential part of using Obsidian and now they make it gone for newcomers. That may not be unbearable but we shouldn’t receive these kind of updates too often so that the existent support material stays consistent.
It shouldn’t prevent changes. But it should be taken into account, when making changes. The question is: are the changes worth it?
I see a huge benefit in adding the Vault Switcher to the sidebar. It provides context. it makes vault switching easier. And vault switching with mouse becomes possible, even when the Ribbon is hidden.
But what is the benefit of removing Settings, Help and Vault Switcher from the Ribbon’s default settings? A change that breaks well established and well documented workflows, without adding any benefit, doesn’t make sense.
I think it makes sense to hide settings and vault switcher from the ribbon if they are displayed on the side bar at least. Are you saying that by default you should see settings on the ribbon and side bar simultaneously? This is an interesting idea since the ribbon itself is thought to be a custom thing that users can enable manually. Considering that the ribbon is made optional, having few duplicate buttons at the bottom is not going to make Obsidian looking ugly or bad. What others think about this? Obviously since ribbon is made gone you need to instruct people how to re-enable it and this makes support documentation inconsistent. If the ribbon is shown by default with duplicate buttons, then it will look really strange to newcomers.
Basic configuration of basic UI elements should not require community plugins.
Newcomers are overwhelmed by the complexity of Obsidian’s pane layout, not by individual icons. It’s really hard to explain, how the various panes are called, why some tabs can be moved or split and others cannot, why some tabs have two rows of icons, how to reopen closed tabs from plugins, and how the Ribbon is not the same as the Sidebars.
Most newcomers quickly start to tinker with settings. (So many posts in the Forum and on Discord start with “I’m new to Obsidian and want to …”.)
It’s easier to identify something visible than something hidden. And it’s much easier to answer support questions like “how can I get rid of …” instead of “is there another way to …”
If somebody doesn’t like all those buttons, I’d say: a) disable the Ribbon in Settings, b) learn a few shortcuts like Cmd-O, Cmd-P and Cmd-, and c) commands are your friend.
for anybody who is not on a regular basis switching between vaults this is a terrible change. I´m wondering how many people even use multiple vaults AND switch between them often… probably not many people I guess?
For all other people this wastes a lot of space AND agree that the settings are now less easy to reach because the left sidebar is closed more often than not.
TLTR: Layout before was way better
Why not let people choose what they want? Move around the buttons like most buttons are moveable, or include a short checkboxable question in the settings/appearance which asks “use the old settings button/help/vault layout?”
It is understandable that they cannot make every new change with corresponding “revert to old” options. That would scatter and overload settings. They have early access which is supposed to gather user feedback before publishing features.
In the case of reverting settings icon to its original place, you can do it as demonstrated in this thread. Accordingly we could expect future new feature changes to be reversible in a similar way.
the truth is someone like me only use folders to manage my md documents, , so I had to install a ‘hider’ plugin to block the vaults switcher button, and use two hands to open the Settings menu,
I should mention that though I am very comfortable with my Commander + css solution for my main vault, it’s very annoying to set it up for every new vault I create.
It’s taken me until now to actually FIND where the settings and vault switcher moved to after much frustration and having to go via the command palette … so thanks for the screenshots which helped me finally locate it!
I’d +1 on this proposal: Please restore the location of the Settings and Help buttons - #23 by dmantisk - personally I used that settings button more than I realised and it’s multiple more clicks for me to find it now, given I always have the sidebar collapsed (which is why it took me so long to find where it had been moved)
When the settings button used to sit vertically in a clearly visible, and easily accessible way, it was very easy to learn and use.
Now, as that small bar has been moved to the bottom in a horizontal way, the visibility of it has been significantly obscured. The settings button is now almost halfway into the work window making it stand in a very “unplaced” way and requiring extra attention to locate it.
This new organization of the settings button and bar is not only inconvenient but also annoying as it defies the objective of “bars” and “ribbons” in windows, which is for more user-friendly interface, making it “categorically confusing”.
I’m sure there is another option than adding yet another plugin which is not desirable by many users and not contributing to the stability and security aspects of the program.
This is good point i.e. optionality doesn’t necessarily mean using community plugins. In this topic that optionality that you are talking about is using Cmd/Ctrl + ,default keyboard shortcut. In conclusion users that don’t like the new GUI placement of the settings icon are given two “another options”: (1) using Commanderlink + CSS snippetlink or (2) using the default keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl + , to access the settings—that is existing users are not forced to use community plugins to revert the new feature.
I"m happy you brought further clarification on this.
It’s nice to have at least 2 options for different levels of users. But when I checked the 1st option, I understood that the “commander” is another plugin, right? I got confused here.
Anyhow, I still hope that they place the settings button + bar on the left and vertically.
I understand many people have no problems with using hotkeys but, I mean, if there’s any reason for having any bars or ribbons, I think that would apply to this case too; rather easily I’d say.
May be in the next update, they can kindly place it as an option in the general settings.
None of those reasons really justify removing the settings button from an easy to find and obvious place. It’s two awkward clicks now. Sure there’s keyboard shortcuts and plugins but I think you, brilliant, excellent devs should rethink this particular design choice. It’s a step back from where it was. At least build in an option to restore it. Thanks for all the other great work!
When your file explorer is closed, which in my case is most of the time. In this layout if i want to open settings or switch to a different vault, i will first need to open the File explorer (left-side panel) and then move my cursor all the way up to bottom, to click on the either Settings or to switch to a different vault. This is not a good UX design.
