Istari
Warm ink, parchment text, restrained gold and Garamond type, set like a well-made book. For notes that hold mathematics, and for readers who write in the margin.
Marginalia
Write an aside as a footnote, and it moves into the margin beside the line that cites it, the way a scholar's note sits beside a printed page.
Begin a note with a question mark and it becomes a query, marked in green, so the open questions in a chapter are easy to find again.
a curve.^[On flat space, keep
the components constant.]
unique.^[? Piecewise curves?]
Works in Reading view and in Live Preview, with the free companion plugin. On a phone, the number opens the note in place.
Theorems, set properly
Callouts for theorem, definition, lemma, proposition, corollary, proof, and more. Each has its own icon and title. Statements of results are set in italics, and every proof ends with a tombstone.
One gold for all of them, so a page full of results stays calm. Only warnings change color, to a pale red.
> [!theorem] Transport is an isometry > If $\nabla$ is compatible with $g$ ...
The small things
Tables in the booktabs style, with horizontal rules only. A small star before each section. A thin gold rule with a diamond for a break. Bold and links in small capitals. Old-style figures in prose, lining figures where numbers must line up.
Vellum
For essays and long reading notes, add one class to a note. The column narrows, the type grows, and the text is justified.
--- cssclasses: vellum ---
In your pocket
On phones and tablets the type and margins shrink so the column is not starved. Controls that appear on hover on a desktop stay visible on touch screens.
A chart of stars
The graph view becomes a star chart in gold on ink. Canvas cards and edges use the same palette, and the ribbon gets hand-drawn icons: a loupe, a codex, a key, an hourglass.
Also included
Fonts built in
EB Garamond, Cormorant Garamond and JetBrains Mono are embedded. Istari makes no network requests and looks the same offline.
Export to PDF
Prints in dark ink on white paper. Headings stay with their text, and callouts and tables do not split across pages.
Live Preview parity
Headings, rules, tables, tags and quotes look the same while you write as when you read.
Quiet properties
Frontmatter becomes small-caps labels and italic values, with no boxes or fills.
Plugin colors
Plugins that use Obsidian's color variables get the muted palette, with no extra setup.
Callout shorthand
With the companion plugin, type THEOREM at the start of a line to make a theorem callout.
The vocabulary
Use the type name in a callout. Add |plain to drop the title prefix: [!theorem|plain] Stokes.
> [!proof] > Metric compatibility gives > $\frac{d}{dt} g(V,W) = 0$.
| Type | Title | Body |
|---|---|---|
theorem · thm | Theorem: | italic |
definition · def | Definition: | upright |
lemma | Lemma: | italic |
proposition | Proposition: | italic |
corollary | Corollary: | italic |
axiom | Axiom: | italic |
conjecture | Conjecture: | italic |
proof | Proof: | upright, ends with ∎ |
example | Example: | upright |
remark | Remark: | upright |
intuition | Intuition: | upright |
exercise | Exercise: | upright |
Install
The theme
- In Obsidian, open Settings → Appearance.
- Under Themes, select Manage.
- Search for Istari, then select Install and use.
Or download theme.css and manifest.json from the latest release into .obsidian/themes/Istari/.
The companion plugin (optional)
- Install the BRAT plugin, choose Add beta plugin, and enter
TheScholium/istari-companion. - Or download
main.js,manifest.jsonandstyles.cssfrom its latest release into.obsidian/plugins/istari-companion/. - Turn it on under Community plugins. It works with any theme.
Adds sidenotes, callout shorthand, and clean untitled callouts.