Awesome

Obsidian Plugin Update Tracker

• Installation Link
• Features
  • Know when installed plugins have updates
  • View a list of updates
  • Read the release notes to see what's changed
  • Install Plugin Updates
  • Evaluate the riskiness of upgrading
    • Statistics on new versions
    • Wait a few days before showing updates
    • View code changes between versions of a plugin
  • View and install new beta plugin versions
  • Ignore specific plugin updates
  • Customizing plugin appearance
• Using the public API to check for plugin updates
  • API Privacy

Installation

Visit this URL: obsidian://show-plugin?id=obsidian-plugin-update-tracker

Features

Know when installed plugins have updates

Desktop:

This small icon is added to the status bar:

: When 5 plugins have updates

: When all plugins are up-to-date

Mobile/Tablet:

This ribbon action is shown when there's at least one update available:

View a list of updates

When updates are available, click the plugin icon to see the list:

Read the release notes to see what's changed

Release notes are safely rendered as markdown

Install Plugin Updates

Evaluate the riskiness of upgrading

Statistics on new versions

Older versions with more downloads are likely more stable and secure

Wait a few days before showing updates

View code changes between versions of a plugin

Clicking Code Changes will bring you to a page like https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview/compare/0.5.43...0.5.46#files_bucket.

_{⚠️ The code in the git diff may be different than what's installed. Obsidian downloads a separate main.js file from the github release, which the author could add any code to.}

Ignore specific plugin updates

Hide new plugin versions that you don't want to install from the plugin icon count and update list:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17691679/200182586-c0a237ff-3cf4-4693-b1c5-9051b599e1ae.mov

View and install new beta plugin versions

By default, new beta versions of plugins are hidden, but can be shown by changing this setting:

A warning will be shown for beta version updates:

Customizing plugin appearance

Built-in

The following built-in settings exist:

Custom CSS Snippets

Appearance can also be customized using obsidian CSS snippets (Go to Settings > Appearance > CSS Snippets)

The following CSS selectors exist:

• .status-bar-item.plugin-obsidian-plugin-update-tracker: The container of the status bar plugin icon

• .status-bar-item .plugin-update-tracker-icon--loading: Plugin icon container in the loading state (⌛)

• .status-bar-item .plugin-update-tracker-icon--no-updates-available: Plugin icon container when no updates are available (✓)

• .status-bar-item .plugin-update-tracker-icon--updates-available: Plugin icon container when updates are available

• .status-bar-item .plugin-update-tracker-icon--error: Plugin icon container when there's an error checking for updates ()

• .plugin-update-tracker-icon-plug-icon: The plug icon (<img width="14" alt="image" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17691679/211116452-04d72518-4229-4013-88e5-ef4edc0b135c.png"> )

• .plugin-update-tracker-icon-chip: The status icon to the right of the plug icon

Examples

Position the icon at the end of the status bar:

.status-bar-item.plugin-obsidian-plugin-update-tracker {
 order: 101;
}

Position the icon at the beginning of the status bar:

.status-bar-item.plugin-obsidian-plugin-update-tracker {
 order: -1;
}

Using the public API to check for plugin updates

The API used to get plugin version info is free for anyone to use. This could be helpful for alerting your plugin's users about updates in a custom way.

Cacheing + AWS Lambda is used to keep costs low, avoid hitting github rate limits, and scale automatically. Currently, cached values are used for up to Math.ceil(number of requested plugins / 50) * 30 minutes and up to 400 plugins are processed. However, a large number of cache misses can still cause high latency.

Example Request:

POST https://jc5gpa3gs7o2uge6iq5mgjd53q0daomi.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws

{
    "currentPluginVersions": [
        {
            "obsidianPluginId": "dataview",
            "version": "0.5.44"
        },
        {
            "obsidianPluginId": "obsidian-excalidraw-plugin",
            "version": "1.7.25"
        }
    ]
}

Example Response, which contains info on the 10 latest versions of the plugin that are greater than the version requested:

[
    {
        "obsidianPluginId": "dataview",
        "pluginName": "Dataview",
        "pluginRepositoryUrl": "https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview",
        "pluginRepoPath": "blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview",
        "newVersions": [
            {
                "releaseId": 79493021,
                "versionName": "0.5.47",
                "versionNumber": "0.5.47",
                "minObsidianAppVersion": "0.13.11",
                "notes": "# 0.5.47\n\nImproves `date + duration` behavior when either the date or duration are null.\n",
                "areNotesTruncated": false,
                "downloads": 45232,
                "fileAssetIds": {
                    "manifestJson": 80616557,
                    "mainJs": 80616558
                },
                "publishedAt": "2022-10-11T06:24:26Z",
                "updatedAt": "2022-10-11T06:24:26Z"
            },
            {
                "releaseId": 76774596,
                "versionName": "0.5.46",
                "versionNumber": "0.5.46",
                "minObsidianAppVersion": "0.13.11",
                "notes": "# 0.5.46\n\n- Fix #1412: Fix bad `file.cday` and `file.ctime` comparisons due to wrong timezone being set. Ugh.\n",
                "areNotesTruncated": false,
                "downloads": 43628,
                "fileAssetIds": {
                    "manifestJson": 77407853,
                    "mainJs": 77407852
                },
                "publishedAt": "2022-09-10T00:17:38Z",
                "updatedAt": "2022-09-10T00:17:38Z"
            },
            {
                "releaseId": 76553504,
                "versionName": "0.5.45",
                "versionNumber": "0.5.45",
                "minObsidianAppVersion": "0.13.11",
                "notes": "# 0.5.45\n\n- #1400: Properly use the group by field for the group name.\n- Fix bad table highlighting in some themes.\n",
                "areNotesTruncated": false,
                "downloads": 4199,
                "fileAssetIds": {
                    "manifestJson": 77205985,
                    "mainJs": 77205984
                },
                "publishedAt": "2022-09-08T05:24:23Z",
                "updatedAt": "2022-09-08T05:24:23Z"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "obsidianPluginId": "obsidian-excalidraw-plugin",
        "pluginName": "Excalidraw",
        "pluginRepositoryUrl": "https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin",
        "pluginRepoPath": "zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin",
        "newVersions": [
            {
                "releaseId": 80829877,
                "versionName": "Excalidraw 1.7.26",
                "versionNumber": "1.7.26",
                "minObsidianAppVersion": "0.15.6",
                "notes": "## Fixed\r\n- Transcluded block with a parent bullet does not embed sub-bullet [#853](https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin/issues/853)\r\n- Transcluded text will now exclude ^block-references at end of lines\r\n- Phantom duplicates of the drawing appear when \"zoom to fit\" results in a zoom value below 10% and there are many objects on the canvas [#850](https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin/issues/850)\r\n- CTRL+Wheel will increase/decrease zoom in steps of 5% matching the behavior of the \"+\" & \"-\" zoom buttons.\r\n- Latest updates from Excalidarw.com\r\n  - Freedraw flip not scaling correctly [#5752](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/pull/5752)\r\n  - Multiple elements resizing regressions [#5586](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/pull/5586)\r\n\r\n## New - power user features\r\n- Force the embedded image to always scale to 100%. Note: this is a very niche feature with a very particular behavior that I built primarily for myself (even more so than other features in Excalidraw Obsidian - also built primarily for myself 😉)... This will reset your embedded image to 100% size every time you open the Excalidraw drawing, or in case you have embedded an Excalidraw drawing on your canvas inserted using this function, every time you update the embedded drawing, it will be scaled back to 100% size. This means that even if you resize the image on the drawing, it will reset to 100% the next time you open the file or you modify the original embedded object. This feature is useful when you decompose a drawing into separate Excalidraw files, but when combined onto a single canvas you want the individual pieces to maintain their actual sizes. I use this feature to construct Book-on-a-Page summaries from atomic drawings.\r\n- I added an action to the command palette to temporarily disable/enable Excalidraw autosave. When autosave is disabled, Excalidraw will still save your drawing when changing to another Obsidian window, but it will not save every 10 seconds. On a mobile device (but also on a desktop) this can lead to data loss if you terminate Obsidian abruptly (i.e. swipe the application away, or close Obsidian without first closing the drawing). Use this feature if you find Excalidraw laggy.",
                "areNotesTruncated": false,
                "downloads": 877,
                "fileAssetIds": {
                    "manifestJson": 82708877,
                    "mainJs": 82708880
                },
                "publishedAt": "2022-10-29T12:36:26Z",
                "updatedAt": "2022-10-29T12:36:10Z"
            }
        ]
    }
]

API Privacy

The goal is sending the API only information needed for the plugin to function. Currently that's your list of installed plugins and their versions. AWS also automatically collects your IP which I have access to, and have no way of disabling.

Any changes in what's collected will be included in release notes, but it's unlikely to change.