Two colums in live preview - Possible?

[pewu]

I’ve used the multi columns plugin and it’s awesome. My only painpont is that it only renders until I change it to reading mode. Is there a way to do two columns while in editing mode?

[Denna]

I think you should contact the developer of this plugin.

There is already an open issue for this topic on GitHub: Multi-columns not displaying in Live Preview · Issue #19 · ckRobinson/multi-column-markdown · GitHub

[efemkay]

multi column in live preview is tricky for now. AFAIK, there are only two ways you can have multi column rendered in live preview

1. using code block – tnichols217/obsidian-columns (github.com) plugin works on that premise
2. using callout with custom css – i use personal snippet for that ( efemkay/obsidian-modular-css-layout (github.com))

there’s also many other rendition using css, shared mostly in discord.

using code block to render multi column will sacrifice certain obsidian features like backlinking (the link in the multi column page will work, but if you go to the other note, no backlinking, thus not showing in graph as well (the linking that is)

[scholarInTraining]

Thank you for sharing - and documenting - your snippet! First time I have seen multicolumn without some extra theme or plugin. Major kudos!!

[efemkay]

Thanks. I started as a personal use, but as i shared in discord, few ppl likes it so i just make it theme agnostic. I’ve always wanted to try create github pages, so i guess that give me a reason.

[scholarInTraining]

Just spent some time playing around with your snippet, thanks again for making, sharing, and documenting it!
Quick feedback: it was not at all obvious until I read all the CSS that blank-container was supposed to replace the note/warning/lower-level callout, not be an alternative to multi-column. Could you maybe change your code example in the documentation to have a blank-container instead of warning or summary?

And a question: I ended up in a two-column situation where one column had significantly more rows of content than the other, so I didn’t want them to be equal width. I ended up defining a “blank-container-wide” with all the same properties as blank-container plus a flex: 4 1 var(--callout-min-width) !important; to override the default multi-column. I know very little CSS - first time encountering flex attribute - but I have the sense that using !important is not so great and this didn’t work otherwise. Can you think of a better way to do a wider column? Thanks!

[efemkay]

Thanks for that feedback. I always wonder is my example clear (3rd party perspective is important.

Yeah ive got few request via discord to have some flexibility in width. In my next update i guess. Also, agreed on the use of !important. I avoid it at all cost unless the theme im overriding used it. Even so i would reach out to the theme dev to try remove it.