The Journal Widget
The Journal Widget tracks your streak in a perfect square in the sidebar. Configurable images, counter modes, and a celebratory burst.
In the left sidebar of the Celestial Vault sits a perfect square — your Journal Widget. It's a quiet, custom-built piece of UX that tracks your journaling consistency and gives you a small visual identity for your vault.
What It Shows
By default, the widget displays:
- A looping image as the widget's background (an autumn-light webp by default)
- A counter in gradient text — your current streak, in days
- A streak overlay image that swaps in when your streak is active
Click the widget and it refreshes / animates a small burst.
Counter Modes
The number on the widget can show one of two things:
| Mode | What it means |
|---|---|
| Streak (default) | Number of consecutive days with a daily note |
| Total | Total number of days you've ever journaled |
Choose your mode in Settings → Celestial Vault → Journal Widget → Counter mode. The widget updates live — no reload needed.
Why streak vs total matters.
Streak is great when you're trying to build the habit and want the reward of not breaking the chain. Total is great when you're past the habit-building phase and want to see how much you've actually written over the years.
Switching from streak → total when you eventually break a streak (life happens) is a healthier move than starting over from zero. The widget supports both for that reason.
Counter Icon
The small icon next to the streak number is configurable. By default it's a star (star).
You can swap it for any Lucide icon name — flame, sparkles, trophy, feather, moon, cloud-rain, whatever fits your vibe. Set it in Settings → Celestial Vault → Journal Widget → Counter icon, type the icon name, hit Enter.
The widget updates live.
Customizing The Widget Image
The widget background is a regular image file (a .webp, .gif, .png, or .jpg). You can swap it for anything you like.
Swap the vault-mode image (no active streak):
Settings → Celestial Vault → Journal Widget → Vault mode image
Click "Browse" and pick any image from your vault. Recommended: square or near-square images, animated GIFs / WebPs work great.
Swap the streak overlay image (active streak):
Same section, Streak background overlay.
The streak overlay is what shows when your streak is active — a way to give your widget a visual reward when you're on a roll.
The bundled images are starting points.
Celestial ships with 18 widget images in Time Garden/06 Templates/Images/Widget Images/ — looping GIFs and WebPs of various atmospheres (sunrays, sky animations, ambient loops). Browse them, pick favorites, or drop in your own.
The Burst Animation
When your streak increments (i.e., you create a new daily note that extends your streak), the widget plays a brief burst animation — a small celebratory pulse + sparkle effect.
This is gated by the master Animations toggle in settings. If you've disabled animations globally, the burst doesn't play. (See Atmosphere & Polish Toggles.)
Resetting Onboarding (Hidden Feature)
The widget area in settings has a Reset onboarding button. Click it to:
- Clear the
celestialWelcomeCompleteflag - Clear the
firstDailyHintShownflag (so the first-launch shimmer fires again)
Useful if you want to demo the welcome flow to someone, or relive the first-launch experience.
The Streak Logic
Streaks count consecutive days with a daily note. The plugin tracks:
- A
history: { "YYYY-MM-DD": true }map of every day you've journaled - A
streak: <number>counter - A
lastStreakDate: <date>— the most recent day in your streak
If today's date is the day after lastStreakDate, your streak increments by one when you create today's daily note. If you skip a day, the streak resets to 0.
Backfilling old days won't restore a streak.
If you skipped Tuesday and create a Tuesday daily note on Wednesday, the streak treats Wednesday as a new run starting at 1 — not a 2-day streak. This is intentional. Streaks reward real-time consistency, not retroactive bookkeeping.
When The Widget Doesn't Appear
If the Journal Widget isn't visible in your sidebar:
- Check the sidebar layout. It lives in the left sidebar. Make sure the left sidebar is open (
Cmd/Ctrl + B). - Check the workspace. The shipping vault layout puts the widget at ~38% of the left sidebar height. If you've rearranged the sidebar, the widget might be hidden behind another pane.
- Reload Obsidian. Sometimes the widget doesn't render on initial mount; a quick
Cmd/Ctrl + P→ "Reload app without saving" fixes it.
If it's still missing, see Welcome and Onboarding Issues.
Up Next
- The Shortcut Bar — the context-aware bar at the bottom
- The Four Veils — animated transitions between notes
- Identity & Greeting — where the nickname for your widget comes from