Add ability to select entire list item by clicking to left of item number

Use case or problem

Deleting list items requires clicking the mouse to the left of the item number and then dragging to the end of the line. It is easy to click on the first character of the item (following the item number) and then drag. If your goal is to delete the line, not having selected the entire line (i.e. including the item number) will not produce the expected result.

Additionally, selecting the entire line is a slow process.

Proposed solution

Simply clicking to the left of the item number can select the entire line. This is common behavior is most editors.

Click here:

obsidian1

And this is the result:

obsidian2

Here are some alternative ways to delete a line, or select an entire line:

  • Use the “Delete paragraph” command. (basically the same as a line). I think this is default mapped to Ctrl-D and you can remap it.
  • Triple click selects the whole line.
  • Type Home twice (once goes to the right of a bullet. Twice to the beginning of the line), then hold Shift and type End twice. Selects the whole line.
  • Bonus: with Vim bindings enabled, you can type dd to delete a line. Or V to visual-select a line.

Semi-related FR that asks to move the cursor by clicking in the left margin: Clicking in the margins of the edit pane doesn't enable editing - #6 by Geffrey

These FRs would conflict with each other. For selecting a whole line, I personally think you’d probably still want to double-click, or drag in the margin, so a single click just moves the cursor into place.

As one example, VS Code clicking in the margin moves the cursor. Clicking on the line number gutter selects the entire line. But you have the best of both worlds I guess.

Sometimes it takes 4 clicks, I assume because of Obsidian’s funkiness under the surface. Or maybe you only need 4 clicks to include the newline at the end, I forget.

When I Google:

Obsidian AND “triple click”

the only hits I get are in forum.obsidian.md. Where is this officially documented?

It’s not Obsidian-specific. It works in most any app on Mac, iOS, and the Linuxes I’ve used. I think it works on Android and Windows, too.

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