I have been an Obsidian user for several years and found there is always something interesting to share with others. So, I started a weekly newsletter called This Week in Obsidianhttps://thisweekinobsidian.substack.com on Substack to collect and share the interesting things I find in the Obsidian community.
I know the Obsidian Roundup newsletter existed before, but it doesn’t seem to be active anymore. I want to fill that gap. I know it’s easy to start a project but hard to maintain it long-term. However, I started this newsletter almost two months ago and have published 7 issues so far. My workflow is now very efficient, taking only 1-2 hours per issue, so I believe I can sustain it.
This week’s plugin gem is HiNote GitHub - CatMuse/HiNote: Add comments to highlighted notes, use AI for thinking, and flashcards for memory., which allows you to add comments to highlighted notes and use AI for thinking and flashcards for memory. It has some cool features like one-click exports to shareable knowledge-card images or new linked notes. If you annotate heavily or turn highlights into study material, this one is worth a spin.
In this issue, you will find many YouTube tutorials about how to use AI capabilities in Obsidian to make better notes or automate your workflow. I have also adjusted the plugin recommendation section to make it more attractive.
I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. If you have any feedback, please let me know.
This week’s plugin gem is Codeblock Customizer GitHub - mugiwara85/CodeblockCustomizer: Codeblock Customizer plugin for Obsidian · GitHub, which allows you to turn plain code blocks into themed blocks with headers, filenames, line numbers, folding, tabs, inline highlights, and even terminal-style prompts. It’s a great way to make your technical notes easier to read and present. You can try it out if your vault includes code-heavy notes, tutorials, or docs.
There is one discussion that I found interesting this week: Where Obsidian Markdown differs from the CommonMark spec. It is a detailed discussion about the differences between Obsidian’s Markdown implementation and the CommonMark specification. Previously, I saw many users complain about the incompatibility between Obsidian Markdown and CommonMark. Maybe this discussion can help you understand the reasons behind it and how to work with it better.
This week highlights the Various Complements plugin, which brings IDE-style autocomplete to Obsidian. That’s what I’ve been finding in the Obsidian community for a while, and it’s great to see that someone has built such a well-thought-through plugin. If you write quickly in large vaults and want linking plus metadata entry to feel less manual, this one is worth checking out.
The weekly plugins highlight is the Official Readwise Plugin, which can automatically sync your Readwise highlights into Obsidian. If you are a heavy reader and want to build a knowledge base from your reading highlights, this plugin is a must-have for you.
Two things worth highlighting this week: the Iconic plugin adds flexible icon management across notes, folders, and UI elements—small on the surface, but it noticeably improves navigation and scanability in larger vaults; and Updates to the Obsidian Web Clipper now let you manage clipped content directly from the extension, reducing the usual “clip now, organize later” friction and making the capture workflow much more practical for daily use.
The gem of the week is Chronology GitHub - Canna71/obsidian-chronology · GitHub, a plugin that adds a sidebar calendar and timeline for browsing notes by creation or modification date. The idea behind it is really awesome and it can be a practical note-review tool. You can see daily and weekly ranges as a timeline, month views to reveal activity patterns. Hope you enjoy it.