Zheng Tally

A native-feeling 正 tally counter for Obsidian. Count stroke by stroke, keep it inline, and resume anytime.

Press Alt+Z, tap Space to count, Enter to commit. The tally renders as a real inline 正 built from canonical stroke vectors, and it stays that way: committed tallies remain vector chips you can click to resume.

Why Zheng Tally

Counting with 正 tallies in Markdown usually means typing characters by hand and losing count halfway. Zheng Tally turns it into a tight loop: start anywhere in a note, watch each stroke appear, commit a portable plain-text tally, and pick it back up later without retyping. The editor shows vectors; the file stays readable text.

How it works

1. Alt+Z drops an inline counter at the cursor.
2. Each Space adds one canonical stroke (一 → … → 正), grouped in fives.
3. Enter writes 正正正·3<!--zt:18--> — visible text plus a count marker.
4. The note keeps showing a vector chip, derived from that text on every load.
5. Click the chip (or caret + Alt+Z) to resume from 18. Esc never writes.

Features

• Canonical 5-stroke 正 vectors at every step — never a substituted character
• True inline widget with font-matched size and baseline
• Persistent, resumable tally objects with restart-safe recovery
• Readable storage: notes stay meaningful with the plugin off
• Compact large-count preview that never drops the in-progress group
• Conservative hover/count badge for legacy tallies, zero layout shift

Installation

From a release:

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from Releases.
2. Place both in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/zheng-tally/.
3. Enable the plugin under Settings → Community plugins.

From source:

git clone https://github.com/yunmin311/zheng-tally-obsidian.git
cd zheng-tally-obsidian
npm install
npm run build

Copy dist/main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into your vault's plugin folder. (styles.css carries the chip and hover-badge styling.)

Usage

1. Open a Markdown note (Obsidian desktop).
2. Alt+Z to start tally mode at the cursor.
3. Space / + to count up, Backspace / - to count down.
4. Enter to commit a persistent vector chip.
5. Click the chip (or caret + Alt+Z) to resume; Esc cancels cleanly.

One session at a time; switching leaves ends it without writing.

Keyboard shortcuts

Ctrl/Alt/Meta chords pass through untouched.

Persistent & resumable tallies

Committed tallies keep rendering as vector chips — same strokes, same metrics, quieter chrome — across note reopens, plugin reloads, and restarts, derived purely from the note text. This holds in reading view too (src/reading-tally.ts): a registerMarkdownPostProcessor pass renders the chip there, because the editor's CodeMirror decorations never reach Obsidian's MarkdownRenderer. Reading-view chips are read-only; counting stays an editor action.

• Resume from the stored total (18 → 19), never from zero.
• Resume + Enter rewrites text + marker in one edit (正正正正·3<!--zt:23-->).
• Resume + Esc changes nothing; the original chip returns.
• Resume to 0 + Enter removes the tally and its marker.
• Ambiguous caret between two adjacent tallies resumes neither.
• The persisted total stays hidden until hover or caret reaches the chip, reserving its space so nothing shifts.

Storage format

The <!--zt:N--> comment is the integer source of truth and ownership marker. A marker counts only when it re-serializes to exactly the visible text; mismatches fail closed. Unmarked legacy tallies (正正正·3) still get a conservative hover badge and can be resumed once, upgrading on next Enter. A lone 正 never auto-resumes.

Large-count behavior

Up to four group slots render in full; beyond that the preview compacts while always keeping the most-recent finished group and the live partial slot:

18 -> 正 正 正 [state3]
20 -> 正 正 正 正
21 -> 正 正 … 正 [state1]
83 -> 正 正 … 正 [state3]

The right-hand total is always exact. Active and persisted chips share one grouping algorithm, so committing never jumps visually.

Architecture

• src/zheng-strokes.ts — vendored canonical 5-stroke vectors (Arphic data)
• src/renderer.ts — native-measured glyph cells + tally chips
• src/cm6-widget.ts — live inline Decoration.widget
• src/persistent-tally.ts — marker replace decorations + resume lookup
• src/editor-session.ts — keyboard capture, lifecycle, single-edit commits
• src/tally-hover.ts — legacy parser + transient count badge
• src/tally-state.ts — counts plus stable/marked serialization
• src/editor-host.ts — the single CodeMirror access point

Compatibility / limitations

• Obsidian desktop only; no mobile support.
• One active session at a time; no history or statistics.
• Detection stays conservative by design: in-word matches and lone 正 never badge or resume.

Development

npm install       # install dependencies
npm run dev       # watch mode build
npm run build     # production build (dist/main.js + dist/manifest.json)
npm test          # 143 passing
npm run lint      # eslint
npm run typecheck # tsc --noEmit

License & data attribution

• Plugin source code: MIT — see LICENSE.
• Canonical 正 stroke vectors: Arphic Public License, not MIT — via Hanzi Writer Data / Make Me a Hanzi, extracted from Arphic Technology fonts. Full text: vendor/ARPHICPL.txt, notes: vendor/README.md.