Augmented View
megatron211 downloadsColour each sentence of a note by the role it plays using machine intelligence. The note itself is never changed.
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Colours the paragraphs of a note for skim reading, with local models running on your own computer.
Each sentence takes the colour of the role it plays (a claim, a finding, a limitation, a signpost …) and key phrases take theirs (terms, definitions, citations, methods). It works in Live Preview, Source mode and Reading view. The note is never changed: the colours are drawn over the text.
The colours come from a colour code: a list of colours you can edit, each with a name, a hex colour and a description of what it marks, which the models read. Two codes come with the plugin (one for reading the literature, one for a study's methods). You link a note or a folder to a code from the floating key; a note with no code is never sent anywhere.
Disclosures (Obsidian's developer policies)
What Augmented View sends over the network, stores outside the vault and runs, as Obsidian's Developer policies ask, is set out item by item in docs/disclosures.md. In short: it is free, needs no account, shows no ads and collects no telemetry. The plugin talks only to its own model server on your computer and never downloads or installs anything; you download the server and its models yourself. The server is a separate program because the models need the GPU, which a plugin inside Obsidian cannot use.
Contents
Features
- Sentence colours: a local instruct model (Qwen3-4B-Instruct, 4-bit) gives each sentence one colour of the note's code, chosen from the colours' descriptions.
- Phrase colours: key terms (an embedding model ranking the paragraph's noun phrases), definitions, quotations, citations, and phrases such as methods or datasets found by GLiNER2 from each colour's description.
- Your own rules: words or patterns that force or forbid a colour, applied at once and always winning over the models.
- Sensitivity slider: from only the surest colours to everything the models found, without asking the server again.
- Light and dark themes, each colour with its own opacity.
- Fast and private: paragraphs on screen go first; results are cached per paragraph, so an unchanged paragraph is never sent again; nothing leaves your computer.
Requirements
- Desktop Obsidian (Windows; macOS and Linux builds are written for but not yet tested). Mobile Obsidian cannot start the server, but can use one running on another computer.
- An NVIDIA GPU with about 4 GB of free memory is recommended. Without one the server runs on the CPU, using about 5 GB of the computer's memory, and is much slower.
- About 8.5 GB to download once (about 2.9 GB kept on disk; 0.84 GB more for phrase colours).
Installation
- Install the plugin from Obsidian's community plugins, or copy
main.js,manifest.jsonandstyles.cssfrom a release into<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/augmented-view/. - Download the model server for your computer from its own server release and put it in the plugin's folder, with its two licence files.
- Download the models by running the server's download command in a terminal (Settings → Augmented View → Models shows it, with a Copy button). Or start the server yourself in a terminal: it lists the missing models and asks whether to download them.
Step by step, with the file names for each computer: Installation.
Quick start
- Click AugView in the status bar and choose Start the server (or turn on Start with Obsidian).
- Open a note. In the floating key, choose a colour code for the note, or for its whole folder.
- Read. Move the sensitivity slider (status bar menu, or the settings) for more or fewer colours, and tick a colour off in the key to hide it.
Documentation
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Disclosures and compliance | Network use, files outside the vault, the separate server, telemetry, ads, payment, licences, and each of Obsidian's rules |
| Installation | The plugin, the server program, downloading the models, using a server on another computer, removing it all |
| Using Augmented View | The status bar, commands, the floating key, Always mark, the sensitivity slider |
| Colour codes and rules | Colour codes and their colours, themes, linking codes to notes, the Rules section |
| Settings | Every setting and what it does |
| The server | Why it exists, how the plugin runs it, its command-line options and the terminal question, its endpoints |
| Models | What each model finds, its size, source and licence, and how the choice was measured |
| GPU, memory and fallbacks | Where the models run, the GPU load limit, readings and warnings, what happens when memory is short |
| Performance and cache | What runs where, what is sent when, and the per-note cache |
| Privacy and security | What leaves the plugin, and how the server and the plugin are protected |
| Troubleshooting | Common problems, and the known limits |
| Building from source | Building the plugin and the server, build profiles, the code's layout |
| Licences | The plugin's licence, third-party licences, and the models' licences |
Licence
MIT (LICENSE). The models keep their own licences; one of them (the UDPipe English parser model) is for personal and non-commercial use only. Details: Licences.