Interrupted list acts weird

I am trying to create multiple lists within a note, each with short text paragraphs in between (see source on the left in the screenshot).

However, the display is not as expected (see Reading View on the right of the screenshot).

The dates (text lines) are indented and the spaces between the list items are larger than they should be.

Is this an expected behavior or a bug?
What should the source code look like correctly?

The screenshot is from a sandbox vault.

I can’t reproduce that behavior on mobile. Could you please provide the actual markdown used, enclosed in four bacticks before and after, so we can test with the same text?

Sure,

## Lorem Ipsum

30.01.2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

## Lorem Ipsum2

30.01.2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

31.01.2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

01.02.2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

I’m on Windows with Obsidian 1.1.9 btw.

It looks nice, and I can’t see anything wrong with the markup at first glance. Had a little hickup with dates being indented, but it disappeared after the switch to/from reading view.

Have you tried the ancient hack of just restarting Obsidian?

Yes, the problem is persistent in my notes.
At the beginning I was sure it had to do with some plugin or css snippet but it seems to be a vanilla Obsidian thing since it also works that way in the sandbox vault.

Hmmm, I’m kind of at a loss then. What happens if you reduce the first list to two items, and increase one of the last lists to three or four items? Does the behavior change/shift to the list with only two items?

Finally, I get what you say about the sandbox vault, but could you also do the “Show debug info” to tell if you’re running on an old installer or something like that.

Thanks for testing anyway!
Maybe I should post to the bug forum.

This is my debug info

SYSTEM INFO:
	Obsidian version: v1.1.9
	Installer version: v1.1.9
	Operating system: Windows 10 Enterprise 10.0.19043
	Login status: not logged in
	Insider build toggle: off
	Live preview: on
	Legacy editor: off
	Base theme: dark
	Community theme: none
	Snippets enabled: 0
	Restricted mode: off
	Plugins installed: 0
	Plugins enabled: 0

RECOMMENDATIONS:
	none

Did you get any difference when you shifted the number off items around, like I described in previous post?

Unfortunately not. Still the same behaviour. I also checked the markdown file in Notepad++ to see if there are any weird line returns or uneven indents present but that’s also not the case.

Is this the same as this other issue? If so, it depends on OS. But it’s known.

In this other thread, others couldn’t reproduce it either.

It’s a similar issue but not quite the same since I don’t use any checkboxes here.
Can you move the post to bug reports or should I post again there?

Think this is syntactical. Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods, so dates with periods as separators are seen as lists when used to start a line.

As shown below, forward slashes or hyphens work as dividers, and if you put a letter in front of the number it is no longer seen as a list and the formatting parses cleanly.

## Lorem Ipsum

30/01/2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

## Lorem Ipsum2

30/01/2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

31-01-2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

a01.02.2023

- Lorem Ipsum
- Lorem Ipsum

1 Like

holy moly, you’re right.

I should just get in the habit of using only ISO format for dates.

So this isn’t really a bug but just very obscure markdown-parsing.

I still think that a number with a period should only be recognized as a ordered list entry if there is a space following the period, no?

1 Like

Really don’t know, but wish I did. Hopefully the developers will answer.

I am able to reproduce this.

Want to clarify that neither are bugs—they are both cases of intended markdown behaviour. One may call it loose lists, or something else, but definitely not a bug. Thanks @anon63144152 for the explanation. Helps understand the technical better

1 Like

I’m sorry but that doesn’t seem to make sense.

  • Why isn’t the first date after h2 indented? If 31.01.2023 renders as a list item then 30.01.2023 should too.
  • Why does the list under the top h2 behave different than the one beneath? First list is tight, second list is loose.
  • Others in this thread mentioned that it behaves different on mobile? Shouldn’t markdown parsing be consistent across platforms?

Looks buggy to me.

1 Like

I think it is as bug and has been accepted by the developers as being one:

I think the parser is reading the numbers at the start of a line followed by a period and interpreting that as a Markdown list without reading the rest of the line.

I assume this will be fixed with some coding magic. :crossed_fingers:

Or perhaps the developers will say that dates (especially at the start of lines) should use forward slashes or hyphens as separators. :flushed:

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.