Obsidian Footnotes Plugin

This hotkey lets you:

• Insert a new footnote marker (e.g. [^1]) with auto-incremented index in your text
  • Adds the footnote detail (e.g. [^1]: ) at the bottom of your text
  • Places your cursor so you can fill in the details quickly
• Jump from your footnote TO the footnote detail
• Jump from your footnote detail BACK to the footnote
• New in January 2022: Automatic re-indexing of footnotes

IMPORTANT: You must to set up your footnote hotkey

After installing and activating this plugin, you still have to SET UP your hotkey. This is easy and quick:

Settings -> Hotkeys -> Search for "Footnote" -> Customize Command -> Your preferred hotkey

I personally use Command+Shift+6 because "6" on a US keyboard is where the uptick/footnote character "^" is.

Default Feature Details

Scenario: No previous numeric (e.g. "[^1]") footnotes exist:

• Given my cursor is where I want a footnote to exist (e.g. Foo bar baz▊)
• When I hit my footnote hotkey
• Then a new footnote marker (e.g. [^1]) is inserted where my cursor was (e.g. Foo bar baz[^1])
• And a new footnote details marker (e.g. [^1]: ) is inserted on the last line of the document
• And my cursor is now placed at the end of the detail marker (e.g. [^1]: ▊)

Scenario: Previous numeric (e.g. "[^1]") footnotes exist:

• Given there is one or more numeric footnotes in my text
• And my cursor is where I want a footnote to exist (e.g. Foo bar[^1] baz▊)
• When I hit my footnote hotkey
• Then a new footnote marker with the next numeric index (e.g. [^2]) is inserted where my cursor was (e.g. Foo bar[^1] baz[^2])
• And a new footnote details marker (e.g. [^2]: ) is inserted on the last line of the document
• And my cursor is now placed at the end of the detail marker (e.g. [^2]: ▊)

Scenario: Footnote is inserted in between existing footnotes

• All existing footnotes get updated and the new one inserted as in the previous Scenarios

Scenario: Jumping TO a footnote detail

• Given I'm on a footnote detail line (e.g. [^1]: ▊)
• When I hit my footnote hotkey
• Then my cursor is placed right after the first occurence of this footnote in my text (e.g. [^1]▊)

Scenario: Jumping BACK to a footnote

• Given I'm on - or next to - a footnote (e.g. [^1]▊) in my text
• When I hit my footnote hotkey
• Then my cursor is placed to the right of the footnote (e.g. [^1]: ▊)

Known Limitations or Untested Scenarios

Manually Deleting Footnotes or Copy-Pasting Text Chunks

Because the plugin only gets triggered when it is manually invoked for example by pressing the hotkey, this is an unsolved issue.

Background

This plugin is based on the great idea by jacob.4ristotle posted in the "Footnote Shortcut" thread.

Use case or problem:

I use Obsidian to take school notes, write essays and so on, and I find myself needing to add frequent footnotes. Currently, to add a new footnote, I need to:

• scroll to the bottom to check how many footnotes I already have
• type [^n] in the body of the note, where n is the next number
• move to the end of the note, type [^n] again, and then add my citation.

Proposed solution:

It would be convenient to have a shortcut to automate these steps. In particular, I envision that the shortcut would: Using the smallest natural number n that has not yet been used for a footnote

• add [^n] at the insertion point
• add [^n]: to the end of the note, and move the insertion point there.