Set hotkeys for creating unordered lists, ordered lists, and task lists

[Dxnc]

If I could request or influence just one change, this would be it: the ability to convert a selection of text to a list (- before each line) and vice versa with a hotkey or menu selection. I used this feature constantly in previous notes platforms. I’m fairly new to Obsidian (first forum post), so forgive me if this has already been implemented in some way.

[mrks]

I really need this feature. I often edit my notes into lists and it’s cumbersome even with repeated tapping a keyboard shortcut.

In other editors (and even on this forum) it’s a build in feature to turn a marked selection into a list.

[I-d-as]

My suggestion may be off base, but if you don’t mind the list having checkboxes, you can select multiple lines and press ctrl+enter.

[argentum]

I’m not sure if this implements things exactly as you guys were hoping for, but here’s a small plugin I use for my own hotkeys: https://github.com/argenos/hotkeysplus-obsidian

[juan]

Use case or problem

To format the current line as a list item I need to manually type a “-” or a “*” character, but I frequently find out that I want the current line to be a list item after I have started typing and the cursor is halfway across the screen. Having to move the cursor to the beginning type the “-” and then going back is significantly more disruptive to my thinking (the editor gets in the way) than typing a shortcut where the cursor doesn’t move.

Proposed solution

Add a shortcut for “Toggle unordered list item” that will add / remove a “-” (or a "" if the previous line starts with "[any amount of whitespace] "), and if we do this, then it would probably also make sense to add a shortcut for “Toggle ordered list item”.

This solution would also make the set of shortcuts more self-consistent (why do we have shortcuts for Bold, Italic, Highlight but not for List items?) and more consistent with other editors which do have this shortcut (Bear, Google Docs, Office, etc).

Current workaround (optional)

Move the cursor to the beginning of the line and type the character.

[Ward]

Hi Juan. That is a great idea. I did make a textexpander snippet that adds - [ ] for chackmark lists. But I need to do this manuallly. And for 20 items it is time consumming. Adding a feature like this for lists and checklit would be great. SimpleNote has thi feature. That is open source. Maybe DEV can use the code?

[ryanjamurphy]

cmd/ctrl+enter is the default hotkey for converting the current line to a todo (and completing it, if it is a todo already). You can customize this in preferences→hotkeys.

Also note that there is a third-party plugin for toggling lists. I forget what it’s called at the moment.

Moving this thread to the existing feature request for Obsidian core to enable toggling lists.

[Ward]

Hi. Super. Thanx. That shortcut is gold. That is a perfect workaround. Also thanx for adding it to feature request.

You could also test “The Hotkeysplus” community plugin. Ctrl + M Toggle between checkmarks. And it can do other things. You can select a complete list and make it todo check boxen and a second CTRL+M will check the unchecked. Perfect. I will use this everyday.

[juan]

Thanks for the tips Ward, Ryan.

Hotkeys++ does what I needed in the meantime.