Count Words and Time

An Obsidian plugin for tracking the current writing session: typed units, writing time, idle time, total time, average speed, and focus rate.

The plugin is designed to work on both Obsidian desktop and mobile. It uses Obsidian APIs, DOM APIs, TypeScript, and browser timers only.

Features

• Counts newly typed text units during the current session.
• Supports character count, Chinese character count, and English word count.
• Deleting text does not reduce the session count.
• Typing and deleting both count as writing activity for timing.
• Supports Chinese and English interface languages.
• Tracks idle time after a configurable inactivity threshold.
• Shows total time as writing time plus idle time.
• Calculates average speed from a recent 60-second sliding window.
• Supports per-hour and per-minute speed display based on the selected count unit.
• Supports two speed modes: total speed and writing speed.
• Shows focus rate as a progress bar.
• Provides pause/resume and start-new-session controls.
• Supports optional hh:mm time display without seconds.

Sidebar

The writing stats sidebar shows:

• Count for the selected unit
• Average speed
• Writing time
• Idle time
• Total time
• Focus rate progress bar
• Pause/Resume button
• Start new session button

Open it from the ribbon icon or the command palette. The command name follows the selected interface language.

Settings

• Interface language:
  • Follow Obsidian.
  • Chinese.
  • English.
• Idle threshold: 5, 10, 20, 30, or 60 seconds.
• Average speed mode:
  • Total speed: word count divided by total time.
  • Writing speed: word count divided by writing time.
• Speed display unit:
  • Per hour.
  • Per minute.
• Speed sampling window: the latest 60 seconds. Before the first 60 seconds have elapsed, the plugin uses the elapsed session time so far.
• Count unit:
  • Characters, ignoring whitespace.
  • Chinese characters.
  • English words.
• Ignore seconds: display times as hh:mm instead of hh:mm:ss.
• Auto-open sidebar when the plugin starts.
• Auto-start tracking when the plugin starts.

Privacy

This plugin does not upload, transmit, or store your note content outside Obsidian.

It does not depend on external services. Session statistics are calculated locally from editor content changes and browser timers.

Compatibility

• Supports Obsidian desktop and mobile.
• manifest.json sets isDesktopOnly to false.
• Runtime code does not use Node.js, Electron, fs, path, or other desktop-only APIs.

Manual Installation

1. Download or build the plugin files.

2. Create this folder inside your vault:

   .obsidian/plugins/count-words-and-time/
   

3. Copy these files into that folder:

   manifest.json
   main.js
   styles.css
   

4. Restart Obsidian or reload plugins.

5. Enable Count Words and Time from Settings -> Community plugins.

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run tests:

npm test

Run TypeScript checks:

npm run typecheck

Build the plugin:

npm run build

During development, use:

npm run dev

Release Files

For a GitHub release, attach:

manifest.json
main.js
styles.css

The source repository should include the TypeScript source files, configuration files, tests, package.json, and package-lock.json. Do not commit node_modules/.

Sample