Obsidian 1.15 Brings Faster Mermaid Diagrams and Accent-Blind Search
The note-taking app swaps in a new diagram renderer, lets you reorder Bases filters and finds "café" when you type "cafe".
David FischerAnyone who has ever typed "cafe" into a search box and watched it ignore their note about the café knows the small frustration that Obsidian 1.15 sets out to cure. The popular note-taking app ships a pile of quality-of-life changes this time, with a rebuilt diagram engine as the star.
Obsidian's interface (UpdateStar screenshot; it may show an earlier version).
Diagrams and search that finally understand you
Mermaid diagrams now render with a new library called Pele. According to the release notes it draws faster, follows your theme, scales to the width of the note and lets you zoom and pan. The old setting to show Mermaid diagrams is gone. Search ignores accents in link suggestions, the quick switcher, the command palette and Bases, so "cafe" matches "café".
Bases and commands
Filters in Bases can be reordered by dragging, and each filter has a menu to move it between "All views" and "This view". When a result limit hides matches, Bases search now says so. New URI and CLI commands add content to the start or end of a heading, with control over line breaks, which should please anyone who feeds notes from scripts.
Smoother writing
Smart lists move nested items along with their parent when you indent or reorder them, and Live Preview keeps your caret in place relative to the list text when you move up or down. Vim mode gained new commands and fixes. Tooltips only show up when text is actually cut off, reordered items animate into place and community plugins load faster at startup. The release also includes numerous bug fixes and developer API changes tied to Pele, search and syntax-tree node names.
Our verdict
Heavy Mermaid users and anyone with notes in French, German, Spanish or another accented language should update right away. Plugin collectors will enjoy the faster start. If your vault is plain text and you never draw a diagram, 1.15 is still a pleasant, low-risk step up.
Get it on UpdateStar
- Obsidian on UpdateStar
- Alternatives to Obsidian, including Joplin, Microsoft OneNote and Evernote
About Author
David Fischer
I am a technology writer for UpdateStar, covering software, security, and privacy as well as research and innovation in information security. I worked as an editor for German computer magazines for more than a decade before starting to be a team member at UpdateStar.