Bullet Depth Markers

Child bullets get a different marker. In the file. Not just on screen.

- Framing
    * Layout
        + Gridlines
            - Column A      ← depth 4, cycle repeats
    * Inspection

Depth 1 is -. Depth 2 is *. Depth 3 is +. Then it repeats. Shows as ● ○ ▪ in both Live Preview and Reading view.

Why not a CSS snippet

CSS only changes the look. Your file stays - all the way down. This changes the file. So export, grep and diffs see the structure too.

Install

Do one of these. Then in Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Reload → enable Bullet Depth Markers.

Mac

git clone https://github.com/MichaelNguyen5653/Bullet-Depth-Markers.git
cd Bullet-Depth-Markers
./install.sh ~/Documents/YourVault

Windows (Git Bash)

git clone https://github.com/MichaelNguyen5653/Bullet-Depth-Markers.git
cd Bullet-Depth-Markers
./install.sh "/c/Users/YOU/Documents/YourVault"

Manual (any OS)

Copy these 3 files:

main.js
styles.css
manifest.json

Into this folder (make it if missing):

YourVault/.obsidian/plugins/bullet-depth-markers/

How it works

Takes no hotkeys. Obsidian indents like normal. The plugin fixes the marker right after. So it works with Tab, drag, paste — anything.

• Undo is one step.
• Cursor never jumps. One character swaps for one character.

Leaves alone

• Numbered lists. Keep their numbers. Still count as a level.
• Code blocks, frontmatter, ---.
• Old notes. A list is only fixed when you edit it.

Checkboxes do change. - [ ] becomes * [ ]. Still a checkbox.

Settings

Marker sequence. Default - * +. Only -, * and + are allowed — nothing else is a real Markdown list marker.

Dev

No build step. Obsidian loads main.js as-is.

./run-tests.sh

Uses node's built-in test runner. No node? It falls back to VS Code's Electron binary. The core of main.js is pure functions, so tests run outside Obsidian. See DESIGN.md for the reasoning.