Atmosphere & Polish Toggles
The polish controls that gate the Celestial Vault’s atmospheric layer: theme appearance, animations and their speed, status bar, note lock, journal frontmatter.
The Celestial Vault's visual / experiential layer is rich, and not everyone wants every piece of it on at the same time. The Polish & atmosphere section of settings holds the master controls for the most experiential parts of the vault.
Where The Toggles Live
Settings → Celestial Plugin → Polish & atmosphere
The lineup, top to bottom:
- Theme appearance (a button that jumps to the theme's full visual catalog)
- Animations (master switch)
- Animation speed
- Dynamic shortcut status bar (desktop only)
- Note Lock, plus its password and locked-category settings
- Show journal frontmatter
Each one applies live, no reload needed.
Looking for the empty-tab toggles?
The empty-tab scene has its own settings section: Empty tab & launch animation, directly above Polish & atmosphere. The black hole, stardust, starfield, action pills, and the launch intro are all covered on The Empty-Tab Atmosphere.
1. Theme Appearance
Not a toggle: a doorway. The Open theme settings button jumps straight to Style Settings → Celestial, where every visual control of the Celestial theme lives. As of v1.3 that catalog is extensive: colors, fonts, sidebars, tabs, headings, tables, callouts, and much more, organized into Essentials, Colors, Interface, and Editor sections.
Two things to know before you wander in:
- The vault ships pre-calibrated. Every control defaults to the shipped look, so changing nothing changes nothing. Everything in there is optional fine-tuning.
- Every control has a reset arrow back to the calibrated default, so you can experiment freely.
The full tour of what's customizable lives on The Celestial Theme.
2. Animations (Master Switch)
What it controls: all four veil animations (Creation, Deletion, Navigation, Graph) plus the journal widget burst, the launch intro, and the black hole's click pulse.
On (default): every transition plays its full animation. Note creation feels ceremonial. Navigation feels weighty. Streak increments celebrate.
Off: every transition is instant. No veils. No widget burst. No launch intro. The vault still works exactly the same, just without animation polish.
When to turn off.
- Battery-conscious — the cost is real but small
- Distracting in some workflows (e.g., creating 10 notes in rapid succession when you don't want a flourish each time)
- You prefer minimalism aesthetically
Some users keep animations on for daily writing and turn them off during template-editing or batch-creation sessions, then turn them back on.
3. Animation Speed
What it controls: the pacing of the veils when animations are on.
Three options:
| Option | Feel |
|---|---|
| Fast | Trims the hold time; transitions become a quick flourish |
| Normal (default) | The shipping pacing |
| Slow | Lets the veils linger; maximum ceremony |
If you love the veils but find them a beat too long during rapid navigation, Fast is the setting you're looking for; it keeps the beauty and returns the milliseconds.
4. Dynamic Shortcut Status Bar
What it controls: the context-aware shortcut bar at the bottom of the window.
On (default): the bottom of the window shows clickable hint chips that change based on what kind of note you're in.
Off: no shortcut bar visible. The shortcuts themselves still work — they're still bound — you just can't click hint chips to fire them.
When to turn off.
- You've fully memorized the shortcuts and the bar feels redundant
- You want maximum vertical writing space
- You're recording a screen tutorial and want a cleaner UI
Toggling back on instantly restores the bar.
(The toggle only appears on desktop. On mobile there's no status bar to show, so there's nothing to toggle.)
5. Note Lock
What it controls: the password gate on *Locked* notes.
On (default): notes with *Locked* in their categories show a password prompt instead of their content (once a password is set; until then, locked notes stay open and show a gentle reminder).
Off: locked notes become readable without a password.
When to turn off temporarily.
- You've forgotten your password and need to access a locked note (you can disable the lock to read it, then re-enable)
- You're demoing the vault to someone and don't want a password gate showing up unexpectedly
Re-enabling restores the password requirement (and your existing password — you don't have to re-set).
Two companion settings sit right below the toggle: Note Lock password (set, replace, or clear your password; stored only as a hash) and Locked category (which category page marks a note as locked; default Locked). Both are covered in detail on Note Lock.
6. Show Journal Frontmatter
What it controls: whether the normally-hidden properties on journal notes (banner crops, ratings, journal plumbing) are visible.
Off (default): journal notes show only their content. The metadata that powers banners and charts stays out of sight.
On: the properties appear at the top of journal notes, ready for inspection or hand-editing. Toggle off again and they vanish.
It follows Obsidian's properties mode automatically.
Obsidian can render properties as a table or as raw text, depending on the "Properties in document" setting. The toggle detects the current mode and applies the matching treatment by itself, so you never have to dig through CSS snippets to peek under the hood.
What's Not In Here
The Polish & atmosphere section covers the major experiential toggles. A few related but separate settings live elsewhere:
| Setting | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| The empty-tab scene and launch intro | Empty tab & launch animation, the section directly above; see The Empty-Tab Atmosphere |
| The Celestial theme's visual controls (colors, interface, editor) | The Theme appearance button above, or Settings → Style Settings → Celestial; see The Celestial Theme |
| Individual CSS snippets | Appearance → CSS snippets |
| Banner system positioning | Per-note frontmatter — see Custom Banners |
| Font choices | Appearance → Font (always wins), or per-role in Style Settings → Celestial → Essentials |
Combining Toggles For Different Modes
A few setups that work well:
"Clean Writing Mode"
- Empty-tab layers (in Empty tab & launch animation): off
- Animations: off
- Dynamic shortcut status bar: off
- Note Lock: on
A near-vanilla Obsidian feel with the categorical structure intact. Useful for long writing sessions where the polish becomes friction.
"Default Mode"
- Everything: on
The shipping default. Best for typical journaling and reflection days.
"Demo Mode"
- All atmospheric toggles: on
- Note Lock: off
Maximum visual impact, no surprise password prompts. Good for screen recordings, demos to friends, or when you want the vault to show off.
"Battery Mode"
- Empty-tab layers (in Empty tab & launch animation): off
- Animations: off
- Dynamic shortcut status bar: on (small cost)
- Note Lock: on
Lightweight when traveling.
A Note On Persistence
Toggle states are stored in .obsidian/plugins/celestial-plugin/data.json. They sync between devices if your .obsidian/ folder syncs. They survive Celestial updates.
If you ever want to reset the polish and empty-tab toggles to defaults: open the data.json file and set these keys to their shipping values:
"animationsEnabled": true,
"animationSpeed": "normal",
"shortcutStatusBar": true,
"noteLockEnabled": true,
"showJournalFrontmatter": false,
"introEnabled": true,
"emptyStateBlackHole": true,
"emptyStateDust": true,
"emptyStateAtmosphere": true,
"emptyStateHints": true,Save, then reload Obsidian.
Up Next
- The Empty-Tab Atmosphere: the scene behind the Empty tab & launch animation section
- The Celestial Theme: everything behind the Theme appearance button
- The Four Veils — what the animations toggle gates
- The Shortcut Bar — what the shortcut bar toggle controls
- Note Lock — what the lock toggle gates