Vim Motions

Features

Vim Motions adds Markdown-aware editing capabilities to Obsidian’s Vim mode. Each feature can be toggled independently in Settings.

Markdown editing

  • Text objects — 13 Markdown-aware text objects for bold, italic, code, math, strikethrough, highlight, links, blockquotes, callouts, code blocks, tags, table rows, and table cells, plus general-purpose objects for subwords (iS), numbers (in), quotes (iq), wikilinks (iD), URLs (gL), and arguments (i,). Supports custom text objects via Lua.
  • Structural navigation — jump between headings (]h/[h), list items (]l/[l), links (]n/[n), and open buffers (]b/[b), plus subword motions (w/b/e/ge) for camelCase/snake_case navigation. Works with counts and operators.
  • Tables — cell navigation (]c/[c), row navigation (]r/[r), cell text objects (i|/a|), row text objects (ir/ar), table manipulation (<Leader>t prefix), format-on-exit auto-alignment, cursor-aware table widget for Live Preview, and embedded per-cell editing with vim modality (two-Escape pattern, entry modes, register sharing).
  • Hard-wrap formatting — gq/gw operators with Markdown-aware line wrapping. Preserves blockquote, list, and nested structural prefixes on continuation lines.

Jump navigation

  • Cross-note jump list — <C-o> and <C-i> navigate backward/forward through jump history across notes. Jumps recorded on gd, picker selection, harpoon, oil, EasyMotion, and all cross-note navigation. Persists across sessions. :jumps displays the list. Configurable via set jumplist/set jumplistsize.
  • Undo tree — branching undo history with g-/g+ navigation, sidebar view, persistence. :earlier/:later by count, time, or save point. :undolist modal. vim.fn.undotree() Lua API.
  • Animated cursor — canvas-based smooth cursor movement and smear-cursor.nvim-style spring-damper smear trail. Per-mode cursor shapes, configurable stiffness/damping/smoothness, prefers-reduced-motion support.
  • Flash motions — enhanced f/F/t/T with labels on all visible matches, incremental s jump mode (multi-char search with live label updates), post-commit //? search labels, label conflict skipping, [3/15] search match counter. Inspired by flash.nvim.
  • EasyMotion / Hop — jump to any visible position with two keystrokes. Find, word, line, and search motions. Works in operator-pending mode (d + easymotion) and visual mode. Live Preview aware.
  • Harpoon — pin files to numbered slots for instant switching (<leader>1–<leader>9). Cursor position tracked and restored. Pins persist across sessions; file renames update automatically.
  • Hint mode — Vimium-style keyboard navigation for the entire Obsidian UI. Multiple actions: f activates, F opens in new pane, yf yanks, df closes. Works in editor, sidebar, tab bar, settings, and popout windows.

Workspace & commands

  • Workspace navigation — Neovim-style window management: <C-w> splits, gt/gT tabs, gd go-to-definition, gO outline, gf file switcher. Global key handler for non-editor views (PDF, graph, canvas).
  • Picker / Fuzzy finder — telescope.nvim-inspired fuzzy picker with 14 built-in sources, preview pane, live grep, frecency scoring, meta-picker (:Picker), bundled integrations for Omnisearch, Tasks, and Dataview, ripgrep integration for high-performance vault search, and a provider API for external plugin integration.
  • Surround — vim-surround implementation: ds/cs/ys/S with Markdown delimiter support. Count-prefix repeats delimiters (2ysiw* → **word**). Dot-repeatable.
  • Ex commands — 100+ ex commands for file management (:e, :w, :saveas), buffer navigation (:bn, :bp, :b), window management (:sp, :vs, :tabnew), table manipulation, and Obsidian integration (:ob, :sidebar, :grep).
  • Oil explorer — oil.nvim-inspired file explorer: edit vault directories as buffers, create/rename/delete files with standard vim commands (dd, o, cw, :w).
  • Snippets — VS Code-compatible snippet expansion with tabstop navigation, linked mirrors, variable resolution, choice nodes, context-aware filtering. Ships 60+ Obsidian-adapted snippets. User-defined snippets via JSON files or Lua DSL.

Quality of life

  • Marks — Visual mark indicators in the gutter, global mark persistence across files and sessions, and a grouped marks picker with cross-file navigation.
  • Quality of life — Neovim defaults (Y → y$, Q → @@), yank highlight, smart list continuation on o/O, enhanced increment/decrement (<C-a>/<C-x>) for cycling colors, dates, and booleans, scrolloff, configurable insert escape sequences, vim mode status bar with optional powerline styling, which-key hints, chord display, and input method switching for CJK users (per-view across all editors).

Configuration

All features are configurable via the Settings UI, .obsidian.init.lua, or .obsidian.vimrc. See the keybinding cheat sheet for a complete reference of all motions and commands.

17 items under this folder.