Toggle Inconsistency, Heading vs Indented Bullets, Edit vs Preview, Rest of Page fold-up

Help
#1

Things I have tried

Online search, in-app testing, watched outlining in Obsidian video tutorial.

What I’m trying to do

I’m noticing an inconsistency, and hoping someone can explain I’m doing something wrong.

> If I'm typing in the body of my doc, and I want to make a list, I indent and use bullets like this:
     - line 1
     - line 2

New text line. Lorem Ipsum...

A toggle (depicted above by “>”) appears next to “When”, but only when the text underneath is indented (can I create a toggle w/o the indent?). However, in preview mode, there’s no toggle anymore (I have both toggle settings on in the settings).

When I use a heading instead, like this:

> ### Heading
- Line 1
- Line 2

New text line. Lorem Ipsum...

A toggle appears no matter the indent level of the items below, and it works in preview. However, when I do want an indent, the text turns red. Why is this?

Additionally, in the first example, any text in the body of the doc that follows my toggle, where it says, “New text line. Lorem Ipsum…”, doesn’t get folded up with the indented line items above it. This is good cause I’m starting a new paragraph… but in the 2nd example, the entire rest of the page folds up unless I start another heading, which then toggles the entire rest of the page, which I don’t want… so “New text line. Lorem Ipsum…” gets folded up with the heading items, but I also dont want a new heading there.

In general, coming from Roam, I’m finding the toggles a bit clunky, but maybe I’m not understanding how it works… I want to quickly outline, but feel like I’m always stumbling on how it should function.

#2

I’d like to add another little issue is that sometimes when I have an indented outline. Eg.

  1. Topic 1

    • Subtopic 1

      • item 1
      • item 2

      -Subtopic 2

      • item 1
      • item 2
  2. Topic 2

    • Subtopic 1

      • item 1
      • item 2

      -Subtopic 2

      • item 1
      • item 2
  3. This next item will start over with 1. I’ve tried everything but cannot get it to continue with 3.

Or all my lines start with 1.

#3

Hi @romebot,

Obsidian isn’t really designed to be an outliner; instead, the syntax follows the Markdown spec. I can see why your confused by the behavior in the first example; there is a fold indicator where there probably shouldn’t be. Obsidian really only understands folds on lists and headings.

So for your first example, the first line would need to be a list element for the folding behavior to be consistent:

- If I'm typing in the body of my doc, and I want to make a list, I indent and use bullets like this:
     - line 1
     - line 2

However, when I do want an indent, the text turns red. Why is this?

It sounds like you created a code block. Any lines that are indented with 4 spaces (or a tab) without a list indicator (- or *) will be treated as a code block.

in the 2nd example, the entire rest of the page folds up unless I start another heading

This is unfortunately another side effect of following the markdown spec. Markdown doesn’t have a way to “break-out” of sections. All text under a heading belongs to that heading until the parser encounters another heading of equal or greater magnitude.

This next item will start over with 1. I’ve tried everything but cannot get it to continue with 3.

My guess is that one of your bullet points is missing a space after the - which is causing the parser to get confused.

The following text worked for me:

1. Topic 1
	- Subtopic 1
		- item 1
		- item 2
	- Subtopic 2
		- item 1
		- item 2
1. Topic 2
	- Subtopic 1
		- item 1
		- item 2
	- Subtopic 2
		- item 1
		- item 2
1. This next item will start over with 1. I’ve tried everything but cannot get it to continue with 3.

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