+1 to this. For daily writing, where notes are always longer than a screenful, it’s a literal ‘pain in the neck’ ergonomically for the cursor to sink to the bottom of my external monitor and stay there without regular manual adjustment.
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I find it doesn’t make much difference on a laptop, but I wouldn’t write anything long form in a program that didn’t have this feature. As you say, the pain in the neck becomes literally true for writers without it. Ergonomics of monitors aren’t great at the best of times.
It isn’t just about where you’re looking or pointing your neck. It’s also about being able to see content below where you are writing, and having some surrounding contect. On a small screen like a laptop it’s even worse for going out of view more quickly.
If I’m writing, there’s no content below.
Reviewing or revising is another matter, but that works better without typewriter mode anyway.
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Reviewing or revising is another matter, but that works better without typewriter mode
Above, I talked about the difference between snapping-style typewriter mode, and the margin-style of the “scrolloff” feature in Vim. I don’t want my view snapping around when I’m editing. But scrolloff is a much gentler way of making sure your cursor never reaches the absolute top or bottom of the screen. This is something I always want turned on. Always.
Most implementations of typewriter mode just hard-lock your cursor to a specific location. In that case you’re right. That is annoying when trying to edit.
I’ve never used vim, but I think scrolloff is one of the systems which give a minimum level of context above and below?
I can see it being useful for some purposes - and may suit some people all of the time, but it would rarely be relevant for me. Either I don’t need to see the immediate context, or I want to scan considerable portions of text.
I’d see scrolloff, assuming I understand what you mean, as a separate and additional feature request to typewriter mode.
I would also like to +1 a request for typewriter mode.
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also +1 for this feature.
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+1 for sure. I’m deep in Nanowrimo and yet again I find myself constantly scrolling to keep up with my own writing.
Additionally, I also do a lot of non-revision insertion writing, in my work at least. Insert an example of rules between two rules. Insert a pullquote in a lore section. Insert a new type of text passage between existing text sections in multiple articles. And I would want typewriter scrolling probably 75% of the time in each of these cases.
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+1 I think using a feature like this with my mechanical keyboard would feel amazing.
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This would be perfect for taking notes quickly! Great idea
I finally figured out what this is, honestly it seems like a wonderful idea!
I do a lot of writing for a blog I run, and this would be perfect for that
As @Dor mentioned, there is an existing CodeMirror add-on for typewriter scrolling that might be used to build typewriter mode for Obsidian:
Also, this improvement by another developer:
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@death.au released a typewriter scrolling addon very recently
It has a neat option called zen-mode which darkens non-active lines in the editor.
Thank you @death.au !
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You can also find and install it right in the Obsidian app under Third-party plugins directory.
I just registered just to thank you all for requesting this very useful feature (I am a grad student and teacher, so notes in my database can be quite long), and especially to @death.au who created the plugin. My neck appreciates the relief!
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As alternative to current “Zen mode”, we can increase contrast of current line to attract attention while maintaining usability/readability of the rest of screen.
Having absolute black background under current line, dark grey background of active pane and ligher grey on other panes works well for me (with Andy mode).
CSS is here: Improving visibility of caret(cursor) position in editor mode
@death.au Issue with Typewriter Scroll plugin: clicking in text has often side-effect in selecting text between previous and current caret position. Is there a way to eliminate that?
I experience that with both TrackPoint left button and with Wacom Tablet connected to the Thinkpad laptop. With tablet it might be caused by cursor position change between press and release.
The scrolling should be executed only after release of left button unless we want to select text by dragging while approaching edge of window/pane for autro-scroll but that is normal scrolling. The centering (typewriter) scrolling always after button release.
Windows 7, Obsidian v0.10.1, Typewriter Scroll v0.1.0
Does anyone else experience this bug that bugs me a bit too much in my otherwise so distraction free writing environment?
Yes. That happens to me too. it moves around and it is distracting.
macosxguru