The Shortcut Bar

At the bottom of every Obsidian window in the Celestial Vault sits a status bar of context-aware shortcuts. It changes depending on what kind of note you're looking at — and every binding is rebindable.

(Desktop only. The bar displays keyboard hints, so on mobile it simply doesn't appear.)

What You'll See

The shortcut bar lives in the bottom-left of the Obsidian window, pixel-aligned to the workspace edge (it follows the sidebar as you resize or collapse).

On launch, the bar waits for the workspace to finish laying out, then breathes in with a soft fade. It never pops in abruptly or flashes at the wrong position while Obsidian is still booting.

When you're on a vault note (any non-temporal note), the bar shows:

new note · daily · template

When you open a daily note, it shifts:

alias | new note · monthly · dreamline · yearly

When you open a monthly note:

alias · summarize · wheel | new note · daily · dreamline · yearly

When you open a yearly note:

alias · summarize · ask | new note · daily · monthly · dreamline

When you open a Dreamline (quarterly note):

prev · next | new note · daily · monthly · yearly

The Logic

Each hint is a clickable shortcut — click it to fire its action without touching the keyboard. The hints split into two groups, separated by a |:

• Note-specific actions on the left (e.g., AI summarize, AI alias, navigate prev/next)
• General navigation on the right (jump to today's daily, this month's monthly, etc.)

The shortcut bar is rebuilt every time you navigate. It reads the current note's path, infers the note type, and renders the right hints automatically.

The Vault Dock

The shortcut bar has a twin on the other side of the sidebar divider. The vault profile in the bottom-left corner of the window (your vault's name, the vault switcher, and the settings gear) is restyled into a vault dock: a mirror of the shortcut bar with the same height, the same surface, and the same typography.

The two bars sit back-to-back against the sidebar divider, the dock growing leftward and the shortcut bar growing rightward, so they read as one continuous strip along the bottom of the window. A few deliberate choices:

• The dock is always visible, instead of fading in only when you hover the corner
• The free end is rounded, the divider end square, matching the shortcut bar's silhouette
• The calendar above it keeps real bottom clearance, so its day grid never sits squished behind the vault controls

You don't configure any of this. Open the left sidebar and the dock is simply there, behaving like part of the same instrument panel as the shortcut bar.

It Adapts To Your Theme

Both bars adjust to whatever theme is active. The Celestial theme floats the workspace panes with a small gap along the window edge, so the shortcut bar and vault dock lift slightly to ride that gap. On any other community theme (or stock Obsidian), where the workspace runs to the very bottom, they sit flush against the window edge instead.

The adjustment is live: switch themes and both bars reposition immediately, nothing to toggle. The Celestial Vault's UX layer is built to coexist with other community themes, not fight them.

The Default Bindings (Mac)

On Windows / Linux, Alt + Shift replaces ⌥⇧. The shortcut bar automatically renders the right symbols for your platform.

Why Mac Alt+Shift Needs Special Handling

You don't need to know this to use the shortcuts. But it's why they reliably work on Mac when other plugins fall over.

Rebinding Shortcuts

Don't like the defaults? Every shortcut is rebindable.

1. Open Settings → Celestial Plugin
2. Scroll to Shortcut bindings
3. Find the binding you want to change (12 capturable rows)
4. Click the binding (e.g., the current key shown next to "Open daily note")
5. The label changes to "Press a key…"
6. Press your new key combo (any modifier + key). The new binding saves immediately.

Each row also has a small revert button to restore that one row's default. There's a Reset all button at the bottom of the section that restores every default at once.

(Full breakdown: Customizing Shortcuts.)

Turning The Bar Off

If you find the shortcut bar visually noisy:

Settings → Celestial Plugin → Polish & atmosphere → Dynamic shortcut status bar → toggle off.

The bar disappears. Your shortcuts still work — they're still bound — you just won't see hints. Toggling it back on restores the bar instantly.

When Sidebar Resize Breaks Alignment

Rarely, after dragging a sidebar to a new width, the shortcut bar's alignment can lag behind for a frame or two. Click anywhere in the workspace and it re-aligns.

If alignment seems persistently off, a quick Cmd/Ctrl + P → Reload app without saving is the cleanest fix.

Up Next

• Customizing Shortcuts — full settings walkthrough
• The Four Veils — what plays when you actually use these shortcuts
• Atmosphere & Polish Toggles — turning various UI elements on/off