Cursor Position History

Cursor Position History Plugin

Effortlessly navigate your notes with enhanced cursor memory and history tracking.

This free & open-source plugin for Obsidian provides two powerful functionalities to improve your workflow when working with large vaults, containing multiple notes, in Obsidian:

Features

1. Remember Cursor Position in Files

   • The plugin remembers the exact cursor position in the previous file when you navigate to another file.
   • When you return to the same file, it automatically scrolls back to the position where you left off, saving you time and effort.

2. Cursor History Navigation

   • The plugin keeps a history of your cursor positions across files.
   • Use customizable shortcuts to:
     • Go Back: Jump to the previous cursor position in the history.
     • Go Forward: Return to the next cursor position in the history.
   • This feature is perfect for quickly navigating between different parts of your notes without losing context.

Why Use This Plugin?

With this plugin, you'll never lose your place again when switching between notes, and you'll have complete control over your navigation history.

• Stay focused and avoid losing track of where you were working.
• Quickly navigate between related sections of your notes or across different files.
• Ideal for researchers, writers, or anyone who frequently switches between notes.

How is this different from Obsidian's built-in "Navigate back / forward"?

Obsidian's core navigation only moves between files: going back re-opens the previous note, but not necessarily at the place where you were working in it. This plugin works on the level of cursor positions:

• Going back takes you to the exact line where your cursor was.
• Jumping around within a single long file is part of the history as well.
• When you open a note, you land where you left off, regardless of how you opened it (file explorer, quick switcher, search, ...). Links which target a specific heading or block keep scrolling to their target.

Hotkeys

The plugin adds two commands, which you can find in the command palette:

No hotkeys are assigned by default (to avoid conflicts with your existing hotkeys). To assign them:

1. Open Settings → Hotkeys.
2. Search for "Cursor Position History".
3. Click the + next to each command and press the key combination you want to use.

A common choice is to mirror the "back / forward" hotkeys of your IDE or browser (e.g. Alt + ← / Alt + →). If Obsidian reports a conflict, check whether the combination is already used by another command (e.g. Obsidian's own "Navigate back / forward").

The history is kept in memory only: it is cleared when Obsidian is restarted. The last cursor position within each note (used to restore your place when re-opening a note), on the other hand, is saved to disk and survives restarts.

Installation

From Obsidian (recommended)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins and make sure Restricted mode is off.
2. Click Browse and search for "Cursor Position History".
3. Click Install, then Enable.

Manually

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css (if present) from the Github Repository.
2. Create a folder named cursor-position-history inside your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory and place the downloaded files there.
3. Reload Obsidian, then enable the plugin under Settings → Community plugins.

Contributing

Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for how to report issues and set up a development environment.

Acknowledgements

This plugin draws inspiration from the following Obsidian plugins, and I would like to thank their authors for their excellent work:

• Navigate Cursor History by heycalmdown
• Remember Cursor Position by dy-sh