Date Helpers

An Obsidian plugin that centralizes date-related tools with keyboard-first interaction, natural language parsing, and full internationalization support.

Pre-1.0 notice: The settings API may still evolve before reaching 1.0. See CHANGELOG.md for what changed between releases.

Installation

Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Obsidian Settings
2. Navigate to Community Plugins and disable Safe Mode if needed
3. Click Browse and search for "Date Helpers"
4. Click Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release
2. Create folder .obsidian/plugins/date-helpers/ in your vault
3. Copy both files into the folder
4. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community Plugins

Using BRAT

For beta testing with automatic updates:

1. Install BRAT plugin
2. Add beta plugin: patrice-bour/obsidian-date-helpers
3. Enable Date Helpers in Settings → Community Plugins

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Quick Start

Insert Dates with the Unified Picker

Via Trigger Character:

1. Type @@ anywhere in your note
2. Choose an action tab (Insert Text / Insert Daily Note / Open Note)
3. Navigate the calendar or use natural language
4. Press Enter to confirm

Via Command Palette (Cmd/Ctrl+P):

• Insert date as text (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+T)
• Insert Daily Note link (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+D)
• Open Daily Note (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+O)

Use Natural Language

Type expressions in the NLP field:

• "tomorrow", "next Monday", "3 days ago"
• "demain", "lundi prochain" (French)
• "morgen", "nächsten Montag" (German)

Convert Existing Text

1. Select date text in your note (e.g., "tomorrow" or "2025-11-11")
2. Run command: Convert selection to date
3. Confirm to replace with formatted date or wikilink

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Actions

The plugin provides three flexible actions:

Action	Description	Output Example
Insert Date as Text	Insert formatted plain text	2025-11-11 or November 11, 2025
Insert Daily Note Link	Create wikilink to Daily Note	[[Journal/2025-11-11|November 11, 2025]]
Open Daily Note	Navigate to Daily Note	Opens/creates the note

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Language Support

Natural Language Parsing

Language	Code	Status	Examples
English	en	Full support	"tomorrow", "next Monday", "3 days ago"
French	fr	Full support	"demain", "lundi prochain", "dans 3 jours"
German	de	Basic support	"morgen", "nächsten Montag"
Japanese	ja	Basic support	Via chrono-node
Portuguese	pt	Basic support	Via chrono-node
Dutch	nl	Basic support	Via chrono-node

Date Formatting

Date formatting supports all locales via Luxon:

• Locale-aware month/day names
• Regional date order (DD/MM vs MM/DD)
• Configurable week start day

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Configuration

Settings Overview

Category	Options
General	Locale, week start day
Date Picker	Enable/disable, trigger characters
NLP	Enable/disable, auto-detect language, parsing mode
Daily Notes	Alias format, auto-create missing notes
Formats	Default presets for date/time/datetime

Configuration Examples

French Journaler:

• Locale: fr-FR
• Week starts: Monday
• Daily Notes alias: Locale Long → [[2025-11-11|11 novembre 2025]]

Developer (ISO dates):

• Default format: ISO 8601
• NLP: Disabled
• Output: 2025-11-11

Multilingual:

• Auto-detect language: Enabled
• NLP languages: EN, FR, DE
• Understands: "tomorrow", "demain", "morgen"

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Format Presets

Date Formats

Preset	Example
ISO 8601	2025-11-02
Locale Short	11/2/2025 or 2/11/2025
Locale Long	November 2, 2025
Verbose	Monday 3 November 2025
Short Month	Nov 2, 2025

Time Formats

Preset	Example
24-hour	14:30
12-hour	2:30 PM
24-hour with seconds	14:30:45

DateTime Formats

Preset	Example
ISO DateTime	2025-11-02T14:30:45
Readable	Nov 2, 2025 14:30
Standard	2025-11-02 14:30:45

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Date Picker Navigation

Key	Action
← → ↑ ↓	Navigate days
Cmd/Ctrl + ←/→	Navigate months
Cmd/Ctrl + ↑/↓	Navigate years
Enter	Confirm selection
Escape	Cancel

Default Commands

Command	Default Shortcut
Insert date as text	Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+T
Insert Daily Note link	Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+D
Open Daily Note	Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+O

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Troubleshooting

Natural language not working

1. Check Enable NLP is ON in settings
2. Verify your language is supported (EN, FR, DE, JA, PT, NL)
3. Try enabling Auto-detect language

Wrong week start day

Change Week starts on in Settings → General Settings

Daily Notes links broken

1. Enable Daily Notes core plugin
2. Verify folder path matches your Daily Notes configuration
3. Check date format compatibility

Format selector not visible

• Insert Text / Insert Daily Note: Format selector visible
• Open Daily Note: Format selector hidden (navigation only)

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Support

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions
• Community Portal: date-helpers on community.obsidian.md

Documentation

• User Guide — detailed workflows, examples, and configuration tips
• Architecture Overview — technical design for contributors

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines, and the Code of Conduct.

License

MIT

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history.