Review & Critic

Review & Critic helps you edit and review notes collaboratively inside Obsidian without leaving Markdown. Use quick commands to mark additions, deletions, replacements, highlights, and inline comments, then review everything with clear visual rendering in Reading View and Live Preview. It is designed for drafting, peer review, and content polishing workflows where you want tracked-style edits while keeping your notes plain-text and portable.

Features

• Insert standalone and anchored comments
• Mark additions, deletions, highlights, and substitutions
• Toggle Track Changes Mode for automatic add/delete/replace markup
• Toggle Accepted Text View to read edits as accepted output while keeping comments visible
• Resolve tracked changes (accept/reject single change), accept all changes, and resolve comments
• Use a unified Changes pane with quick action buttons (Add, Delete, Highlight, Replace, Comment) plus Track Changes toggle
• Resolve/remove comments directly from the comments pane
• Save, activate, overwrite, and delete named color theme presets
• Render review tokens in Reading View
• Highlight review tokens in Live Preview
• Open a comments pane for the active note and jump to comment locations
• Customize token colors and default author name in plugin settings
• Guard review actions against duplicate clicks (accept/reject/resolve run as single in-flight commands)
• Prevent accidental markup corruption in Track Changes mode by blocking edits to token delimiters
• Protect syntax-sensitive markdown edits (tables/headings/lists/callouts/code fences/links/footnotes) with safe bypass in Track Changes mode
• Show one non-blocking bypass notice per session (review.trackChanges.protectedBypass)
• Block quick actions on protected syntax-sensitive selections with explicit notice (review.quickAction.protectedSelection)
• Preserve substitution old/new visual split with strike-through limited to original text

How Features Work

• Comment: Inserts a standalone comment token at the cursor.
  Example: {>> [author=Daniel] Needs citation here <<}
• Comment Selection: Wraps the selected text in an anchored comment/highlight token so the comment is tied to that text.
• Add: Wraps selected text as an addition token.
  Example: {++new text++}
• Delete: Wraps selected text as a deletion token.
  Example: {--old text--}
• Highlight: Wraps selected text as a highlight token.
  Example: {==important sentence==}
• Replace: Converts selected text into a substitution token and lets you fill in replacement text.
  Example: {~~old text~>new text~~}
• Comments Pane: Opens a side pane that lists comments for the active note; clicking an item jumps to that location in the note.
• Changes Pane: Lists tracked changes, provides Accept/Reject per entry, Accept All, quick action buttons, and a Track Changes toggle in one place.
• Track Changes editing rules:
  • Typing/deleting inside {++addition++} edits the addition text directly (no nested deletion tokens).
  • Typing inside {--deletion--} splits the deletion and inserts a separate addition token.
  • Comment bodies ({>> ... <<}) are edited as normal text, not wrapped as additions.
  • Edits that touch markup delimiters ({++, ++}, {--, --}, {~~, ~>, ~~}, {>>, <<}) are blocked to protect token integrity.
• Reading View rendering: tokens are rendered with clear visual styling (for review readability).
• Live Preview rendering: tokens remain editable while still being visually distinct.
• Structural markdown safety in Track Changes mode:
  • If a change touches syntax-sensitive markdown, the plugin preserves content and bypasses unsafe tracked-token injection.
  • Bypassed syntax-sensitive edits are intentionally excluded from the Changes pane.
  • Quick actions (Add, Delete, Highlight, Replace) are protected no-op on syntax-sensitive selections and show a non-blocking notice.
  • The first protected bypass in a session shows one notice; repeated bypasses stay non-blocking and silent.

Commands

• Comment
• Comment Selection
• Add
• Delete
• Highlight
• Replace
• Comments Pane
• Changes Pane
• Quick Actions Pane (opens the unified Changes/Quick Actions pane)
• Toggle Track Changes Mode
• Toggle Accepted Text View
• Accept All Tracked Changes
• Accept Tracked Change At Cursor
• Reject Tracked Change At Cursor

Privacy and Data Handling

• No telemetry or analytics
• No network/API calls
• All parsing and rendering happens locally inside your vault
• Uses Obsidian plugin data storage only for plugin settings

Compatibility

• minAppVersion: 1.5.0
• isDesktopOnly: false (desktop and mobile supported)

Installation

After acceptance into Obsidian Community Plugins:

1. Open Settings -> Community plugins -> Browse.
2. Search for Review & Critic.
3. Install and enable.

Before acceptance (manual install from a GitHub release):

1. Open the plugin releases page:
   https://github.com/rohrbachd/obsidian-review-critics/releases
2. Click the latest version (or a specific version like 0.1.0).
3. In the release Assets section, download exactly these files:
   • manifest.json
   • main.js
   • styles.css
4. Open your vault folder on disk.
5. Go to .obsidian/plugins/ inside the vault.
6. Create this folder: .obsidian/plugins/review-critic
7. Copy the three downloaded files into that folder.
8. In Obsidian, open Settings -> Community plugins.
9. If needed, turn off Restricted mode.
10. Find Review & Critic in the installed plugins list and enable it.
11. Reload Obsidian if the plugin does not appear immediately.

Example Windows path:

D:\YourVault\.obsidian\plugins\review-critic

Screenshots

Commands Palette

Shows the plugin commands available in Obsidian's command palette (Comment, Add, Delete, Highlight, Replace, and Comments Pane).

Settings Tab

Shows configurable options for default author name, reading/live rendering toggles, and token color customization.

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm run dev
npm run deploy -- "D:\\Path\\To\\Your\\Vault"

Release Checklist

npm run build
npm run lint
npm test
npm run release:check -- 0.1.0

• Tag must exactly match manifest.json version (example: 0.1.0, not v0.1.0)
• GitHub release must include manifest.json, main.js, styles.css as assets

Automated Release Publish

Prerequisites:

• gh CLI installed
• gh auth login completed
• clean git working tree (all changes committed)

Full setup + repeatable release steps: docs/release-workflow.md

One-command end-to-end release:

.\scripts\release.ps1 -Type patch

What it does:

1. Uses latest published GitHub release as version base
2. Bumps version files (manifest.json, versions.json, package.json)
3. Commits release bump (if needed)
4. Builds + validates release assets
5. Pushes main
6. Tags and publishes GitHub release
7. Uploads manifest.json, main.js, styles.css

Alternative npm command:

npm run release:auto -- patch

Project Docs

• PRD: docs/obsidian-review-plugin-prd.md
• Track Changes behavior contract (as-built rules/invariants): docs/track-changes-behavior-contract.md
• Obsidian integration/testing: docs/obsidian-integration-testing.md
• Feature usage: docs/obsidian-feature-usage.md
• Publication prep: [docs/Obsidian Publication Guide.md](docs/Obsidian Publication Guide.md)
• Release workflow: docs/release-workflow.md
• Screenshot capture guide: docs/screenshots/README.md