HiLighter

HiLighter - Obsidian 高亮笔记管理工具

HiLighter is an Obsidian plugin focused on highlight note management. It transforms highlighted content into manageable note cards with support for multiple color annotations, AI-powered analysis, and intelligent search features, making your note organization more efficient. Works across Markdown, PDF, and EPUB.

🌐 Languages / 语言: English | 简体中文 | 日本語 | 한국어 | Français | Deutsch | Español | Português | Русский

✨ Core Features

🎨 Highlight Note Cards Management

• Sidebar Management: Aggregates <mark> highlighted content from current document or entire library, supporting instant navigation to original text via card click.
• Multi-Dimensional Filtering:
  • Color Filter: Quick categorization by four highlight colors: yellow, pink, blue, and green.
  • Keyword Search: Real-time filtering of note content via top search bar.
• AI-Powered Intelligence:
  • AI Translation (Languages): One-click precise translation of highlighted sentences.
  • Sidebar AI Chat: Connect a configured model, select one or more cards as context, and ask a question or choose a built-in or custom research prompt. Save a reply as a new idea card linked to the cards used for that request. Send with the arrow or Enter; use Shift+Enter for a new line.
• Flexible Interaction:
  • Quick Edit: Click a card's note area to edit it; the detail editor saves changes automatically and renders Markdown when editing ends.
  • Tag System: Support for custom tags with built-in intelligent recommendation algorithm.
  • Card Collection Navigation: One-click switch to full-screen "Card Studio" mode for centralized inspiration management.
• Note Card Management:
  • Locate Original Text: Click a card to instantly jump to the highlighted position in the source note for quick context recovery.
  • Classification Tags: Add tags to each card for organized categorization, with support for batch tag operations.
  • Batch Deletion: Enter batch mode to multi-select cards and delete them in one click for efficient cleanup.
  • Card Hierarchy: Drag a card onto the upper area of another card to nest it, or onto its lower edge to place it immediately after that card at the same level. Move several selected cards together; same-document hierarchies support up to three levels. Drop into empty list space to move back to the top level.
  • Live Card References: Drag a sidebar card into a Markdown note to insert a reference that displays the latest card content. The embedded card can open its editor or remove the reference.
• Dictionary and Translation: Select text and use the lookup icon to see dictionary definitions above the translation. Chinese entries use Wiktionary and English entries use Free Dictionary API; pronunciation uses an available local system voice.

📄 PDF Annotation (New in 2.5)

• Highlight inside PDFs: Select text in any PDF and pick a color — a translucent highlighter mark appears on the page and a note card is created instantly, with your notes, tags, flashcard review and mind maps working exactly like markdown highlights.
• Persistent marks: Every highlight is anchored to page geometry, so marks survive page turns, closing and reopening the file, zooming, and vault syncs across devices.
• Two-way sync with cards: Delete a card and its PDF mark disappears immediately; recolor a card and the mark updates instantly.
• Jump to the exact sentence: Click a card to scroll straight to the highlighted sentence in the PDF, with a brief locate flash.
• Capture a region: In the PDF reader, use the selection toolbar or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+9 to select a region and create an image note card. For scanned PDFs, Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+H opens the toolbar without selecting text. Both shortcuts can be changed in Obsidian's hotkey settings.

📖 EPUB Reading & Highlights (New in 2.6)

• Read epubs in your vault: Click any .epub file to open it in the HiLighter reader (turn on "Detect all file extensions" under Settings → Files & Links so epubs appear in the explorer, or use the Open EPUB book command). Your reading position is remembered per book.
• Highlight & take notes: Select text and highlight in four colors with the same menu — AI translation and research included. Marks are CFI-anchored, so they survive reopens, page turns, and vault sync; deleting or recoloring a card updates the book page instantly.
• Cards locate the source: Every highlight becomes a note card; click it to jump back to the exact sentence with a locate flash.
• Reader toolbar: outline dropdown for chapter jumps, page jump with auto-generated page numbers, and bookmarks (add the current page, jump back from the list, remove anytime).
• Two reading modes: horizontal page turns (buttons or left/right swipe) or continuous vertical scrolling — switch anytime; your position is preserved.

🧠 Mind Maps (New in 2.4)

• One-Click Generation: Import all highlights from any file as a mind map — grouped by document headings, highlight color, tag, or flat order.
• Card Layout and Hierarchy: Nodes use card-style layouts with rendered Markdown. Collapse card details in one click, switch between selection and hand tools, and jump from a linked card to its source. When source cards have a hierarchy, imports use that hierarchy.
• Xmind-Style Editing: Drag topics to re-parent or reorder, Tab/Enter/Delete shortcuts, double-click inline editing, collapse/expand branches, undo/redo, and associative lines between any two topics.
• 9 Structures: Balanced mind map, logic diagram (right/left), organization chart, horizontal/vertical timelines, fishbone, and catalog organization — switchable at any time.
• 6 Style Themes × 8 Color Palettes: Line shapes and widths (curves, straight, rainbow branch lines) combined with full color schemes (background, node fill/border with per-level fading borders, plus a colorful card-colored option).
• Summaries & Notes: Box topics with summary nodes, attach your notes to any topic, and jump straight back to the source highlight.
• Import & Export: Open .xmind files directly; export to PNG, .xmind (re-openable in Xmind), a Markdown outline, or an Obsidian .canvas board.

⚡ Flashcard Review (FSRS)

• Spaced Repetition: Built-in FSRS scheduling turns highlight cards into flashcards with a due queue and per-card review status.
• Focused Review Session: Flip cards with Space, rate recall 1–4 (Again/Hard/Good/Easy), skip or archive — all keyboard-driven.
• Review Insights: Due/new counts on the studio toolbar, plus review statistics in the stats dashboard.

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

1. Manual Installation (Recommended):
   • Obtain the latest version's three main files: main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.
   • Place them in your vault folder: .obsidian/plugins/hilighter/.
   • Enable the plugin in Settings > Third-party plugins.
2. Community Plugins: Search for HiLighter in Obsidian's Community Plugins browser and install it directly.

Basic Configuration

1. AI model configuration: Configure a model in plugin settings to use AI translation and sidebar chat. Providers include DeepSeek, Google Gemini, and Volcano Engine (Ark); research prompts can also be customized there.
2. Ribbon Icon: You can control whether to display the sidebar highlight notes icon in settings.

🤖 Agent Skill: Highlight a Whole Document with One Prompt

The optional pandora-hilight skill lets an AI agent (ZCode, Claude Code, …) process a note for you: it picks the highlight-worthy sentences, assigns colors by semantics (yellow = key idea, blue = concept, green = method, pink = quote), writes a study note for every highlight, and saves everything straight into HiLighter. The skill interacts in your language — ask about it in German and it guides (and annotates) in German.

Install — copy the block below and paste it to your agent:

Please install the pandora-hilight skill from https://github.com/PandoraReads/HiLighter:
1. Sparse-clone the repo: git clone --depth 1 --filter=blob:none --sparse https://github.com/PandoraReads/HiLighter /tmp/hilighter-repo && cd /tmp/hilighter-repo && git sparse-checkout set skills/pandora-hilight
2. Copy the skills/pandora-hilight folder into your own skills directory so the skill loads in future sessions.
3. Verify that SKILL.md exists with a valid frontmatter, clean up /tmp/hilighter-repo, and tell me how to trigger the skill.

After installing, just tell your agent "highlight this note" or run /pandora-hilight. Requires the HiLighter plugin installed in your vault; the skill writes highlights into the plugin's sync file (.hilighter/sync-data.json) and triggers the import automatically.

Prefer manual? One line:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PandoraReads/HiLighter /tmp/hl && mkdir -p ~/.zcode/skills && cp -r /tmp/hl/skills/pandora-hilight ~/.zcode/skills/ && rm -rf /tmp/hl

🔄 Data Sync

HiLighter stores highlights in a per-device IndexedDB, but it can sync them across devices through a vault file (default .hilighter/sync-data.json). Enable Sync in settings and let iCloud or Obsidian Sync sync that file.

• Auto-import: the plugin watches the sync file and merges changes from other devices automatically (~30s poll + on window focus).
• Auto-export: local changes are exported back (debounced ~20s), merging the remote file first so you don't clobber other devices.
• Deletes propagate via lightweight tombstones (pruned after 30 days).
• Add/update only: sync merges rows but never deletes rows that were not explicitly tombstoned; it does not read Obsidian Sync's *-conflicted-* copies.

You can still trigger sync manually with the Export to Vault / Import from Vault commands.

Deep links

obsidian://hilighter?op=... supports:

Useful from iOS Shortcuts and other apps. Without a vault= parameter the URL targets the last-active vault.

🛠 Development & Build

Developers are welcome to contribute to improving this project!

• Requirements: NodeJS (v16+)
• Install Dependencies: npm install
• Development Mode: npm run dev
• Production Build: npm run build

❤️ Support & Feedback

If you enjoy this plugin, you can show your support through:

• Follow Official Account: 潘多拉的数字花园 (Pandora's Digital Garden)
• Bilibili: Follow 潘多拉的数字花园 on Bilibili for video walkthroughs
• Multi-Platform Support: Also available on Weibo, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), and Knowledge Planet under the same name
• Contact & Feedback: Feel free to add VX: PandoraReads

☕ Buy Me a Coffee

If HiLighter saves you time, you can treat the developer to a coffee (scan with Alipay / WeChat):

Changelog

v2.7.0 (2026-10-30)

• Added sidebar AI chat with model switching, selectable card context, research prompt presets, and the ability to save answers as linked idea cards.
• Added card references in Markdown, card-to-card links, and drag-and-drop hierarchy for individual or multiple selected cards. Sidebar batch actions support tag changes and deletion.
• Added PDF region capture to image cards and a selection lookup popup with Chinese and English dictionary definitions, translation, and system pronunciation.
• Updated the card detail editor with automatic saving, Markdown preview, compact two-column layout, and linked-card controls; refined sidebar filtering and card presentation.
• Updated mind map nodes to card layouts with Markdown rendering, card-detail collapse, pointer/hand tools, source navigation, and imports that respect saved card hierarchy.
• Improved long-list scroll restoration, quote-card word wrapping, and EPUB error messaging.

v2.6.3 (2026-10-28)

• Card methods and links: add Cornell, one-page synthesis, and Luhmann-style idea card layouts with named cards, structured method fields, and links between related cards. Sidebar and Card Studio cards now render method content in dedicated layouts.
• Card Studio polish: refine card headers, metadata, editing, and floating actions; add compact icon-only controls and improve card grouping and sorting.
• Mind map editing: add free-positioned cards, multi-node selection, alignment and appearance controls, and a persistent floating action rail. Improve imported-map style switching and preserve map contents when changing palettes.
• Mind map toolbar: group the fit-to-canvas action with the compact-layout control for easier access.
• Data compatibility: extend local database and vault-sync merging for card methods, titles, and relations while retaining existing highlight cards.

v2.6.0 (2026-10-26)

• Bookmarks & reading modes: the reader toolbar gains bookmarks (bookmark the current page, jump back from the list, remove with one click) replacing the old resume button, and a page ⇄ scroll mode toggle — horizontal page turns (buttons or left/right swipe) or continuous vertical scrolling, with your position preserved across the switch and scroll updating the saved progress.
• EPUB reader toolbar: an outline dropdown (jump to any chapter), page jump (auto-generated page numbers with a slider and exact-page input, cached per book), and a "resume last reading position" button. Outline/page/card jumps never overwrite your saved reading spot, so resume always points where you actually left off.
• Card order: highlight cards for the current epub now follow the book's reading order (CFI position) instead of creation order; the studio's source-order sort uses the same comparator.
• EPUB reading & highlights (fixed): EPUB files in the vault now open in the HiLighter reader — the view previously stayed blank because it was not registered as a file view and never received the file. Select text to highlight in four colors, cards jump back to the exact sentence with a locate flash, and deleting or recoloring a card updates the book page instantly. A broken book now shows a readable in-view error with a retry button.

v2.5.1 (2026-10-25)

• AI model setup: Presets now prefill the whole form (only the API key is left to enter). A "Fetch model list" button pulls the live model IDs your key can actually use, and common product names (e.g. deepseek-v3) are auto-corrected to real API model IDs. On a 400/404, the error message now lists the models available to your key.
• Kimi fix: New Kimi keys only serve kimi-* models (preset default is now kimi-latest), and k2.6+ only accepts temperature 1 — each model can now set its own temperature in the editor.
• AI explain: The text-selection toolbar gains an "AI explain" button that writes a short annotation straight into the note box. The full-text AI analysis panel was removed.
• Fixes: The preset picker is now scrollable, and the settings page keeps your scroll position after edits.

v2.5.0 (2026-10-25)

• PDF highlighting: Select text in any PDF, pick a color, and a translucent mark appears on the page while a note card is created. Marks are anchored to page-relative selection geometry, so they survive page turns, reopens, zooming, and vault syncs — independent of the PDF renderer's internals.
• Jump to the exact sentence: Clicking a PDF card scrolls to the highlighted sentence and flashes it for ~1.2s (previously page-level only).
• Two-way sync: Deleting a card removes its PDF mark immediately; recoloring a card updates the mark instantly.
• Fixes: Repaired a long-standing crash in PDF highlight capture (page anchors were never saved), an overlay repaint feedback loop, and custom highlight colors not tinting sidebar card stripes.

v2.4.1 (2026-10-24)

• Plugin directory fix: Reverted the manifest name to ASCII-only "HiLighter" (the community directory rejects non-ASCII names and hid the entry). The bilingual description is unchanged.

v2.4.0 (2026-10-24)

• Mind maps (new): A "Mind Map" entry in the card studio imports all highlights from a file as a mind map — grouped by document headings, color, tag, or flat — with Xmind-style editing: drag to re-parent, Tab/Enter/Delete shortcuts, collapse/expand, undo/redo, and associative lines between topics.
• Mind map structures & themes: Balanced/right/left logic layouts plus org chart, horizontal/vertical timelines, fishbone, and catalog structures; six style themes (line shapes, widths, rainbow branch lines, node shapes) and eight color palettes (background/line/border schemes with per-level fading borders, plus a colorful card-colored option).
• Mind map integration: Highlight cards stay linked to their nodes (edits re-sync, deleted cards are flagged), nodes can jump back to the source text, and maps auto-save with debounced persistence.
• Mind map import/export: Import .xmind files (modern and legacy formats, first sheet); export to PNG, .xmind, a Markdown outline, or an Obsidian .canvas board.
• Markdown notes: Gallery cards and the enlarged card dialog now render note Markdown (with a write/preview toggle in the dialog).
• UI languages: Added Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian (partial translations with English fallback), plus a "Follow Obsidian language" option.
• UI polish: Unified studio topbar typography and heights, palette icon on the theme selector, transparent scrollbars in the sidebar and studio, and a back-to-top button in the sidebar highlight list.
• Data: Mind map documents persist in IndexedDB (schema v5, additive — no migration needed).

v2.3.0 (2026-10-23)

• Card Studio: Added source-order sorting as the default, responsive card layout, consistent excerpt height, direct editing in the enlarged card dialog, and Markdown export for individual cards or full groups to a configurable vault folder.
• Themes and cards: Refined theme and light/dark styling; Ocean, Forest, Galaxy, Sunset, and Rose use color-dot accents instead of left color rails. Removed the “My Note” card label and refined color aliases, pin placement, and review status placement.
• Flashcard review: Improved card dimensions and text scale, with clearer review flow and rating states.
• Highlight notes: Added a note entry point to the selection toolbar, Cmd/Ctrl-click and double-click triggers, and note previews on highlight hover.
• Images and settings: Fixed image rendering while editing notes; added paste/drop image support and a configurable image folder.
• Studio tools: Added group export and a back-to-top control, and improved grouping/filter layout behavior.

"Let highlighted notes become the catalyst for inspiration." — HiLighter