Getting Started

Getting Started

Install

Editorialist is not yet in the Obsidian Community Plugins directory (that's planned). Until then, install manually:

1. Download manifest.json, main.js, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/editorialist/ and place the three files inside.
3. In Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Installed plugins, enable Editorialist.

If you also use Radial Timeline, Editorialist will detect it automatically and scope itself to your active book. It is optional — everything below works without it.

The three commands

Editorialist registers three commands in the command palette:

Command	What it does
Open review launcher	Opens the launcher modal to import a review batch or start a pending-edits review
Open review panel	Opens the Review Panel in the sidebar
Review pending edits in active book	Starts the pending-edits review flow across the active book

Editorialist ships no default hotkeys — assign your own under Settings → Hotkeys if you want them.

Your first review sweep

A five-minute walkthrough of the core loop:

1. Copy the template

Run Open review launcher and click Copy formatting instructions. This copies the full review format — instructions, both templates, and (with Radial Timeline) your book's actual scene IDs — to the clipboard.

2. Get suggestions

Paste the template into a conversation with whoever is reviewing — an AI chat, or as instructions to a human editor or beta reader — along with the prose to review. They reply with suggestions in the review block format.

3. Import the batch

Copy the reviewer's reply and run Open review launcher again. The launcher detects the batch on your clipboard — one click imports it. (If detection misses, paste manually; validation runs as you type.) The suggestions are written into the targeted scene notes as review blocks. Nothing has been applied to your prose yet.

4. Walk the sweep

The Review Panel opens a guided sweep: each suggestion is highlighted in the editor with a toolbar — apply it, reject it, rewrite it yourself, defer it for later, or back the text up to a cut file first. The sweep advances scene by scene through the batch.

5. Finish

When every suggestion is resolved, the sweep completes and the batch is recorded: per-scene polish state, contributor stats, and revision history all update. The Core settings tab shows your progress across the whole book — see the Settings Reference.

Where things live in your vault

Path	What it is
Your scene notes	Review blocks are injected here on import, removed on cleanup
Editorialist/<Book>/	Editorialism structural guidance documents
<book-source-folder>/Cut/	Per-scene cut files (default location; configurable)