README file from
GithubScriptorium
A quiet desk for long thoughts.
A warm, minimal Obsidian theme for long-form reading and writing.
Scriptorium keeps the writing surface primary: soft paper tones, restrained contrast, quiet workspace chrome, flatter tags and callouts, and typography tuned for mixed CJK and Latin notes.
Paper, light and connections: Scriptorium shares quiet shapes and a visual rhythm with Desk Lamp, Skill Switchboard and Collate. Each product works independently; the theme does not require any of the plugins.
[!NOTE] Scriptorium is a personal aesthetic. With the optional Style Settings plugin, four reading controls appear: reading line width, prose line height, paragraph spacing, and the heading typeface. Everything else lives in the token contract (see snippet-example.css) and in per-file helper classes.
Install
- Search for
Scriptoriumin Obsidian Community Themes. - Click Install and use.
Manual install: copy theme.css and manifest.json into .obsidian/themes/Scriptorium/, then select Scriptorium in Appearance -> Themes.
Design
- Scriptorium is drawn in the IBM Plex family — install IBM Plex Sans, IBM Plex Serif and IBM Plex Mono (or the full IBM Plex release) and they apply automatically.
- Set a different font in Appearance and your choice leads the stack; IBM Plex and the CJK fallbacks follow.
- On mobile, installed fonts don't travel — the system fonts lead the stack and the reading stays comfortable on them.
- Document surfaces stay light: texture, shadow, and accent color are deliberately restrained.
- Navigation, search, menus, tags, callouts, and embeds stay quiet so prose remains central.
- The theme ships as a single
theme.csswith no external dependencies. - Interface chrome icons (quick switcher, graph, calendar, canvas, database, settings, search and more) and callout icons are drawn in the Phosphor line language; same-shape icons, plugin icons and directional glyphs stay native.
Design Principles
Guidelines the theme is edited against, kept for future maintenance:
- Keep the warm paper palette restrained.
- Keep the surface clean enough that texture supports the page instead of competing with it.
- Prefer typographic hierarchy over heavy chrome.
- Keep auto-hide behavior limited, predictable, and easy to ignore when reading.
- Use accent colors carefully when they carry semantic meaning in body-sized text.
- Keep callouts, embeds, and floating UI aligned with the same material language, but avoid making routine operational UI feel like stacked cards.
- Keep tags quiet enough to annotate prose without competing with headings or links.
- Treat reading comfort as more important than decorative novelty.
Customization
Two opt-in surfaces and a small settings panel — notes render identically without them. With the Style Settings plugin installed, four reading-critical controls appear: reading line width, prose line height, paragraph spacing, and the heading typeface. Everything else adjustable lives in the token contract; snippet-example.css is the annotated tour.
Per-file helper classes go in the cssClasses frontmatter key and compose:
| Class | Effect |
|---|---|
cards |
Dataview tables become card grids (cards-cols-1/3/4 fixes columns) |
row-lines / col-lines / table-lines |
Cell borders: rows, columns, full grid |
row-alt |
Striped table rows |
table-tabular |
Tabular figures for numeric columns |
table-nowrap |
No wrapping in cells |
table-fixed |
Equalized column widths |
table-compact |
Smaller, tighter tables |
wide |
Wider page and line measure — for wide tables, diagrams, and long code |
plain |
Drops the paper frame, its shadow, and the editorial rules under titles |
[!] [?] [>] [-] in tasks |
Semantic task markers: amber, green, copper, and struck-muted chips, each with its own glyph (! ? > and an empty box) — in reading and live preview |
Plugin support
Structural styling only — panes and cards from Dataview and Quiet Outline inherit the theme's surfaces and borders. No plugin is re-colored or re-laid-out.
For theme builders
Everything adjustable hangs off the token contract at the top of src/theme.css; snippet-example.css is the annotated tour of the safe override tiers. New colors land as tokens and pass the contrast audit — npm run audit:contrast resolves both mode chains and fails under WCAG thresholds (the syntax palette in 0.20.0 shipped this way). Code-face selectors are written as pairs — CodeMirror .cm-* and Prism .token.* over the same tokens; copy that shape when adding a surface.
Development
The readable source lives in src/theme.css. Edit it, then run npm run build — esbuild minifies it into the shipped theme.css, which keeps the file lean for the community-store size check. npm run lint runs stylelint against the source, and npm run audit:contrast resolves the token graph in both modes and fails when a text/surface pair drops under its WCAG threshold.
Personal adjustments go through CSS snippets — snippet-example.css is a commented tour of the tokens a snippet may safely touch, with the palette ramps and the override tiers explained.