Ultra Zen Mode

A lightweight Obsidian plugin that clears the screen so you can read and write without distractions. One tap hides everything you don't need; a floating button brings it all back the moment you want it.

Works on desktop, tablet, and mobile.

What it does

When you activate Zen Mode, Ultra Zen Mode hides the parts of the Obsidian interface that aren't your content:

A small floating exit button appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen. It stays out of your way (very transparent) until you hover or tap it, then it comes forward so you can exit Zen Mode with one click.

How to activate

Three ways — use whichever feels natural:

1. Ribbon button — click the glasses icon (🕶) in the left icon bar.
2. Command palette — open it with Ctrl/Cmd + P, search for Toggle Zen Mode.
3. Hotkey — assign a keyboard shortcut in Settings → Hotkeys → Ultra Zen Mode: Toggle Zen Mode.

To exit, click the floating button that appears in the bottom-right corner, or use any of the three methods above again.

Settings

Open Settings → Ultra Zen Mode to set up zen mode. Changes apply immediately, even while zen mode is on, except Full screen on activation, which applies the next time you enter zen mode.

Appearance

• Zen theme — switches to another installed theme in zen mode and back to your own theme on exit.
• Limit line length — keeps lines at a readable width. When off, text uses the full width of the window.
• Line width — maximum line length in characters. 0 uses your theme's width.
• Font size — text size in zen mode only. 0 keeps your normal size.
• Header bar padding — height of the top bar left behind after the action buttons are hidden: Small, Medium (default) or Original.

Focus

• Fade other lines — while you type, dims every line except the one with the cursor. Works in Live Preview and Source mode. Faded line opacity sets how visible the dimmed lines stay.
• Darken screen edges — darkens the left and right edges of the window to frame the text, which helps on wide screens. Edge width and Edge darkness set how far in the edges reach and how dark they are.

Hide

• Hide sidebars and command palette — hides both sidebars and the ribbon, and blocks the swipe gestures that open them.
• Hide note properties — hides the properties (YAML frontmatter) block.
• Hide note title — hides the large inline title above the note.
• Hide status bar — hides the bar at the bottom of the window.
• Hide tab bar — hides the row of tabs above the editor.
• Hide other open documents — hides every other pane and split, so only the note you are in is visible.
• Hide Bases toolbar, Hide header bar, Hide PDF toolbar — hide those toolbars.

Behaviour

• Switch to reading mode — opens the note in reading view and returns to the previous mode on exit. Turn this off to write in zen mode.
• Lock note (prevent editing) — blocks double-click and other gestures that would switch the note into edit mode. Only works together with Switch to reading mode. On by default.
• Exit zen mode on note close — leaves zen mode when you close the note or move to another one.
• Full screen on activation — enters full screen with zen mode and leaves it on exit.

Writing setup

For a distraction-free writing setup, turn off Switch to reading mode, then turn on Hide other open documents, Fade other lines and Darken screen edges, and pick a Zen theme.

If Obsidian closes while zen mode is on, your own theme, line length and sidebar layout are restored the next time it starts.

Installation

From the Community Plugin store (once published)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins and disable Safe Mode if asked.
2. Click Browse, search for Ultra Zen Mode, and install it.
3. Enable the plugin with the toggle.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json from the latest release.
2. Create the folder .obsidian/plugins/ultra-zen-mode/ inside your vault.
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. Restart Obsidian (or reload plugins via Settings → Community plugins → Reload plugins).
5. Enable Ultra Zen Mode in Settings → Community plugins.

Development

Requirements: Node.js ≥ 18 and npm.

# Clone and install dependencies
git clone https://github.com/MarckFp/ultra-zen-mode
cd ultra-zen-mode
npm install

# Watch mode — rebuilds on every file save
npm run dev

# Production build (minified, no sourcemap)
npm run build

The plugin is written 100% in TypeScript — no JavaScript source files. The build pipeline is:

src/main.ts  →  esbuild (via esbuild.config.ts + tsx)  →  main.js

Copy main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json into your vault's plugin folder to test locally.

How it works (technical overview)

Ultra Zen Mode is intentionally simple and fast. The entire logic lives in a single file, src/main.ts, and works in three steps:

1. Activate — adds CSS classes (e.g. uzm-hide-sidebars) and a few CSS variables (line width, font size, fade and vignette values) to document.body, and adds the floating button and the vignette overlay.
2. Style — styles.css contains scoped rules that apply only while those classes are present. Nothing leaks outside of Zen Mode.
3. Deactivate — removes the classes, variables and overlays, and puts back the app settings zen mode changed.

Most of the work is CSS class toggling. A few things need app settings instead: the zen theme, readable line length and the sidebar swipe gestures. Before changing them, the plugin saves the original values in the vault's local storage on this device. If Obsidian quits while zen mode is on, those values are restored on the next start.

Obsidian has no public API for themes or app config, so src/main.ts reaches those internals through one small wrapper, ObsidianInternals.