Treat .markdown files as .md?

[alev]

What I’m trying to do

I’d like to tell Obsidian to tread files with a .markdown extension as if they were .md
(I’m on a Mac, btw).

Longer story: I’ve been trying to perfect my PDF workflow. I’m using an app called Highlights, which automatically saves all of my highlights (including highlighted images) in a .textbundle format ; within the .textbundle (essentially a folder) there’s a .markdown file with the highlights themselves in markdown version. However, Obsidian doesn’t open it because of the .markdown extension. If I change the extension to .md (no other edits), the file works perfectly within Obsidian.

I’ve looked at “textbundle support”, which is listed both as a feature request and as a plugin idea. Obsidian is already displaying textbundle as folders, and I’m not looking for any more “textbundle support” than that. It’s only the .markdown file extension that is breaking my workflow.

I’ve also looked at scripts to automatically rename .markdown into .md ; however, Highlights keeps updating the .markdown file with new highlights, so I wouldn’t want to keep changing its extension (Highlights will just create another one), but rather having Obsidian treating the .markdown file as .md

Thanks!

[rigmarole]

I’ve never used Highlights, but I see in their changelog that in the iOS version it was set to use .md as an extension for compatability.

Cmd-F: .md

Exporting plaintext files now uses .md instead of .txt for their file extension for improved compatibility with Markdown apps

Which makes me suspect, either a) there is an option in the Highlights MacOS app. Or b) they would be open to a feature request to support exporting .md files.

(And sorry if my answer is irrelevant. I haven’t tried the app, and I don’t know what a textbundle file looks like.)

[Dor]

@rigmarole

sorry if my answer is irrelevant

Given

Handle (edit) other plain text file formats ( rmarkdown, tex, txt, code, etc )

What: I’d like Obsidian to be able to read and save files as .txt as well as .md, with the same file contents. Why: Interoperability that would blow my mind! I’ve been using Dokuwiki for years for one of the same reasons that I’m excited about Obsidian: it runs on a directory of simple text files. This makes it trivial to keep and sync a local copy of the pages, refactor things wildly, and pull text out to other systems. I have a plugin running on Dokuwiki that lets it read Markdown, so the …

and

Please support plain text files in txt and taskpaper format

The taskpaper format belongs to https://www.taskpaper.com/ , but it is plain text. I use it for task lists, etc. It is in the same library as my notes and has a relationship with some notes. I hope to support it. Thank you!

I’d say that any way of avoiding the need for Obsidian to fully accommodate formats other than .md is extremely relevant

[alev]

Thanks @rigmarole ! That’s awesome that you went and looked at their changelog!
I’ve actually asked the Highlights developers too if they could change the file extension on the MacOS app.
The iOS app doesn’t save sidecar files in real time, you actually need to “export”. The MacOS app instead creates the markdown in real time, while you’re highlighting the PDF.

There’s an Obsidian plugin called txt as md that could be forked and made to work with .markdown … but I don’t even know where to start

[alev]

Thanks @Dor ! Those requests are different: they’re asking for Obsidian to edit those file types as if they were markdown.
Instead what I’m asking if to be able to edit actual markdown files within Obsidian, even if their extension is not .md but .markdown

[Dor]

But you can do that already.
There’s the deathau plugin and at least one other.

[Dor]

@alev

There’s an Obsidian plugin called txt as md that could be forked and made to work with .markdown … but I don’t even know where to start

Doesn’t need to be forked. Just change the filetypes list.

[alev]

Thanks @Dor! Would you know how to do that? I have no clue where to start…I’ve not written a single line of code in 20+ years

[Dor]

Install the txt as md plugin and activate it.
Close Obsidian.

Then open the .obsidian folder, then open the plugins folder within, and then the txtasmd folder.
Open the main.js file in any text editor.
Add markdown to the list of extensions. I attach image on one I’ve just done. It’s line 84.
Then save, then reopen Obsidian.
But remember this does not mean .markdown files are treated as .md, it simply means that you can read and edit them.

[alev]

OMG @Dor! You’re awesome, thanks so much! I’m going to try this as soon as I’m in front of my laptop.