Shimmering Focus ships with hand-crafted CSS for more than thirty Obsidian plugins — both core plugins bundled with Obsidian and community plugins from the plugin store. The built-in styling keeps each plugin consistent with the theme’s minimalist aesthetic: alternating row colors, reduced chrome, condensed spacing, and sensible defaults that can be further adjusted through the Style Settings plugin. You do not need to install any of these plugins to use the theme. The CSS rules are simply inactive when the corresponding plugin is absent.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/chrisgrieser/shimmering-focus/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Core plugins
These plugins come bundled with Obsidian. Shimmering Focus includes custom styling for each of them.File Explorer
The file explorer receives alternating row colors for easier scanning. Root-level folder names are displayed in bold to create a clear hierarchy. Navigation buttons (new file, new folder, sort) are hidden by default and can be restored with the File explorer: Show buttons Style Settings toggle. Folders named exactly
attachments (case-insensitive) can be hidden via the File explorer: Hide attachments folders toggle.Bookmarks
Bookmark entries receive alternating row colors. The sidebar header buttons (new bookmark, new folder, collapse all) are hidden by default; enable Bookmarks: Show buttons in sidebar to restore them. Bookmark-type icons (file, heading, block) are also hidden by default and can be shown again with Bookmarks: Show icons in sidebar. Bookmarks use a filled bookmark icon for visual clarity.
Backlinks
The sidebar backlinks panel is trimmed to linked mentions only by default, hiding the section headings (“Links”, “Unlinked mentions”). Enable Normal outgoing links and backlinks to restore the original full display. Inline backlinks (shown at the bottom of notes) are rendered in a compact, link-list style. Enable Use normal inline backlinks to restore Obsidian’s original inline backlink appearance.
Outgoing Links
The outgoing links panel follows the same trimmed layout as Backlinks — section headings are hidden and unresolved outgoing links are displayed in the theme’s unresolved-link color. The Normal outgoing links and backlinks Style Settings toggle restores full display for both panels simultaneously. Alternating row colors are applied to outgoing link entries.
Outline
The Outline panel hides its action buttons (collapse, expand, search headings) by default. Enable Outline: Show buttons in sidebar to display a compact version of these controls. Folded headings appear bold to distinguish them from expanded sections. The collapse icon is repositioned to the right side of each row. Alternating row colors are applied throughout.
Bases
Bases tables receive themed header styling (
--bases-table-header-background, --bases-table-header-weight). The view header bar is hidden when using the theme’s compact header mode. Column header icons can be hidden with the Bases: Hide column header icons Style Settings toggle.Canvas
Canvas view controls are repositioned to avoid overlap with the compact header bar. The card menu is moved to the right side. The
canvas-sketch-mode.css standalone snippet (also a theme command) centers card content and reduces label sizes for sketch-only canvases.Search
When close buttons are hidden (the default), the case-sensitivity button in the search input is repositioned to avoid overlapping the clear button, ensuring both remain accessible.
Quick Switcher & Command Palette
Keyboard hint instructions shown at the bottom of suggesters are hidden by default for a cleaner look. Re-enable them with Re-enable suggester hints in the Style Settings.
Footnotes View
The footnotes view (a newer core plugin for inline footnote management) receives alternating row colors, consistent with the rest of the sidebar panel styling in the theme.
Community plugins
These community plugins are available through the Obsidian community plugin store. Shimmering Focus includes styling for each one; the plugins remain fully functional without the theme.Style Settings
The Style Settings plugin itself receives minor tweaks: the theme’s own info-text sections render cleanly, and Link Favicon icons are hidden within Style Settings descriptions to avoid visual clutter. The Pandoc Reference List’s own Style Settings section is hidden since those settings are superseded by the theme’s built-in Pandoc styling.
Longform
The Longform plugin receives extensive dedicated styling (see also the
longform-plugin.css standalone snippet). Scene-list fold arrows are repositioned for correct alignment. Notes in Longform projects automatically switch to the prose typography defined in the ✍️ Longform & writing Style Settings section. Inline backlinks inside Longform notes adapt their font size to the longform font scale. The Status bar: Hide longform wordcount toggle hides Longform’s own word-count indicator.Hover Editor
Popovers created by the Hover Editor plugin receive consistent padding in both Reading Mode and the editor. A font-size fix prevents the popover editor from inheriting an oversized font, and the metadata container padding is normalized.
Another Quick Switcher (AQS)
AQS receives a comprehensive set of style overrides: directory paths, icons, and description blocks are compacted; frontmatter meta values are displayed one per line; unresolved (phantom) items use the theme’s unresolved-link color; starred items display a
★ prefix instead of an icon; and numbered hotkey guides are styled as small badges. The floating window variant is enlarged to 80 % viewport height for better usability.Pane Relief
The Pane Relief focus-lock status-bar indicator can be hidden independently via the Hide Pane Relief focus lock Style Settings toggle without disabling the plugin itself.
Language Tool
The Language Tool status-bar icon can be independently hidden via the Hide Language Tools icon Style Settings toggle.
Harper
The Harper grammar-checker status-bar toggle icon can be independently hidden via the Hide Harper toggle icon Style Settings toggle.
Better Word Count
The Better Word Count status-bar item is repositioned toward the left of the status bar, next to the Cursor Location plugin if present. The Status bar: Show word count only when longform/writing note is open Style Settings toggle applies to Better Word Count as well as to the Word Count core plugin.
Various Complements
Suggestion items in the Various Complements autocomplete dropdown receive tighter padding. The completion-source icon is hidden by default; enable Various complements: Show completion source icon in Style Settings to restore it.
Pandoc Reference List
Resolved Pandoc citations (
[@key]) are styled in the theme’s secondary accent color; unresolved citations are shown in the error color with an underline. Citation formatting markers are rendered in a faint color. The reference-list sidebar uses consistent border and padding styling. Tooltips showing citation previews receive the theme’s panel background and a colored border. The Pandoc Reference List status-bar icon can be hidden via Hide Pandoc Reference List icon in Style Settings.Related Notes by Tag
The Related Notes sidebar panel gets normalized padding (increased from the globally reduced sidebar padding), a hidden separator on the last tag group, and minor spacing tweaks for the list and header elements.
Dataview
Dataview tables adopt the same border and font-size variables as native Obsidian tables for a consistent look. Task lists in Dataview blocks use reduced indentation. Result-count badges are styled as small bordered chips. Table hover effects are disabled since the theme’s own row highlighting is sufficient.
Kanban
Kanban boards receive a full visual treatment: a dotted background, distinct lane and card borders, themed header backgrounds, a compact new-item button, and proper markup rendering (lists, checkboxes, images) inside cards. Unresolved links in cards use the theme’s unresolved-link color.
Dynamic Highlights
The current word under the cursor is marked with a dashed underline. Current search-match selections use an outline instead of a background fill. Several layout fixes are applied to the Dynamic Highlights settings panel to make the rule list more compact and the save button reliably clickable.
Strange New Worlds
The reference-count badge injected by Strange New Worlds into the header area is repositioned and styled to match the theme’s header layout, including correct offset for the compact header mode.
Obsidian Git
The Git status-bar indicator receives a material icon prefix (
update) and its internal spacing is normalized.Highlighted Yank
The yank-highlight overlay (shown briefly after a vim
y copy operation) is colored using the theme’s unresolved-link color, giving it a distinct, non-distracting highlight. A matching keyframe animation is provided for the fade-out effect.Editing Toolbar
When the theme’s compact header bar is active, the Editing Toolbar modal bar receives a right margin so it does not overlap the repositioned breadcrumbs.
Plugin Update Tracker
The Plugin Update Tracker status-bar item is moved to the far right of the status bar and desaturated slightly to reduce visual weight without hiding it.
Cursor Location
The Cursor Location status-bar item is repositioned to the left side of the status bar and given a minimum width and right-aligned text to prevent layout shifts as the displayed position changes.
Jump-to-Link
The Jump-to-Link popover receives the theme’s interface font and compact padding to match the rest of the theme’s UI styling.
Link Favicon
External-link favicons receive no border and no border-radius to match inline text. GitHub favicons are slightly inverted in light mode for better contrast. Favicons are hidden inside Style Settings info-text descriptions to avoid visual noise.
Custom Frames
When the compact header bar is active, Custom Frames views receive additional top padding so the embedded frame does not overlap the repositioned controls.
Recent Files
The Recent Files sidebar panel inherits the file-explorer’s alternating row colors. The currently active file is hidden from the list (since navigating to the already-open file is a no-op), and the delete button receives a small right margin.
Hider
The Hider plugin’s ribbon-hiding CSS conflicts with this theme’s ribbon handling. Shimmering Focus overrides that conflict so the ribbon remains accessible when the theme manages it.
Plugin styling is loaded automatically — there is no opt-in required. If you install a supported plugin after installing Shimmering Focus, the dedicated styles activate immediately.