Timestamp Notes

NOTE: 1/21/24: Thank you everyone for using this plugin! Seeing the small community that has grown around this project, and the diverse ways in which you have all utilized it, is truly the highest reward I could have hoped for. I initially created this plugin while I was between jobs and heavily using Obsidian. Now that neither of those things are true, I haven’t really had the time or motivation to actively maintain and improve this project. That being said, I am also thrilled to share some exciting news regarding the future of ObsidianTimestampNotes. @mattcoleanderson has kindly offered to contribute and will being taking over as an active maintainer of this project. I'm excited to pass on the baton and looking forward to seeing where he takes this plugin!

Obsidian Timestamp Notes

Use Case

Hello Obsidian users! Like all of you, I love using Obsidian for taking notes. My usual workflow is a video in my browser on one side of my screen while I jot down notes in Obsidian on the other side. While Obsidian itself is a great notetaking tool, I found this setup quite lacking. When reviewing my notes, it would often take me a long time to find the section of the video the note came from and I found it annoying constantly having to switch between my browser and Obsidian.

Solution

This plugin solves this issue by allowing you to:

• Open up a video player in Obsidian's sidebar
• Insert timestamps with a hotkey
• Select timestamps to navigate to that place in the video

Setup

• Download and enable the plugin
• Set the hotkeys for
  • Opening the video player (my default is cmnd-shift-y)
  • Opening a local video (my defauly is cmnd-shift-l)
  • Inserting timestamps (my default is cmnd-y)
  • Playing/pausing video (my default is cntrl-space)
  • Seeking forward/back (my default is cntrl-arrows)
• Set options for
  • Colors of the url, url text, timestamp button, and timestamp text
  • Title that is pasted when 'Open Video Player' hotkey is used
  • How far you want to seek forward/back

Usage

• Highlight a video url and use the 'Open Video Player' hotkey or press your designated hotkey to select a local video to play (no need to highlight text for local videos)
• Jot down notes and anytime you want to insert a timestamp, press the registered hotkey
• Toggle pausing/playing the video by using hotkey (my default is option space)
• Open videos at the timestamp you left off on (this is reset if plugin is disabled)
• Close the player by right-clicking the icon above the video player and selecting close

Valid Video Players

This plugin should work with:

• youtube
• vimeo
• facebook
• soundcloud
• wistia
• mixcloud
• dailymotion
• twitch
• local videos

Demo

Known Issues

1. Inserting timestamps into a bulleted section does not work. Unfortunately, code-blocks cannot be in-line with text. Make sure to press enter/insert the timestamp on a new line.
2. If you decide to change the colors of your buttons/text, any old buttons/text will not update with the new colors until you reload the app. You can also click the '<>' when hovering over the code-block and it will refresh with the new colors.
3. If your timestamp/video button dont work, simply switch between live-editing and viewing modes.
4. Local videos currently cannot generate buttons. It's probably doable, but I couldn't find a way to make it work without glitching.

Other Authors

This plugin uses the react-player npm package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-player.