Working with headers: late reply

[Dor]

@midas0441

afaics relatively few users work with long markdown files where header navigation and management is important. But I do.

How do I:

• move up/down headers in a way that carries the entire >block with it, including sub-headers

I tried Outliner Plugin .
But, it seems to do the above things for nested bullets, but not for nested headers.

The core Outline Plugin will now do this.

How do I:

• indent/outdent headers, with sub-headers appropriately adjusting their indent level?

I cheat. Very few markdown editors excel in header management or navigation, and Obsidian isn’t one of them (though the new capability of the Outline plugin puts it well ahead of most).

So I use Workflowy. (Other outliners and mindmappers will work too.)
Convert the md file to opml; import the opml to Workflowy; export to opml; convert the opml back to md.

The conversion treats headers as bullets. The text under a header become a note beneath the bullet.

I will admit that I wouldn’t do this simply to indent or outdent headers. Easier to add or remove a # or two.
But it is certainly easier to see and change the structure of a document in the outliner. Though that wouldn’t usually be enough for me either.

Mostly I do it for the kanban view of the whole document - which can be focused on any level - which view might help me decide whether I want to change any part of the structure.

The one issue I would mention is that this works perfectly well if you write in paragraphs, but lines can be concatenated when moving a file backwards and forwards.

[Taozina]

Friend, I also study by the outliner method. Once I started putting together my information structure, everything became clearer, more coherent, and easier for long-term memorization. I’m in love with Obsidian! I really like the community, plugins and especially the interface. But unfortunately they do not pay attention to this mode.

I’ve already tried the outliner plugin, indental guider and others. But there are always simple bugs, but they never resolve (I’m not a programmer, so I don’t know if it’s easy to fix).

So I’m using Syuan program. He is very good, but he lacks in some things. I’ve used RemNote and Workflowy. But Siyan, for me, is better.

I would love Obsidian’s attention to this method as well. I would definitely use Obsidian if it were easier to organize ideas using the outliner method.

[Dor]

In general, I’m not keen on outlining. I like the file based of approach of Obsidian.

The issue for an outlining mode is that it’s a fundamentally different way of organising notes. It requires a hierarchy. Obsidian makes no assumptions: you can have all your files in nested folders or everything in one. You can use links, tags or folders. Most people use short notes, I use very long (it’s at least as easy to put many atomic notes into a big file as it is to make them separate notes in a folder). It’s because I use very long notes, that I have the option of seeing and using them as a markdown file with a huge number of headers, an outline, a kanban or a mindmap. Outliners are better at managing the structural connections between notes (emphasis on header/bullet) and Obsidian is better at managing the content of notes.

@Taozina

I would definitely use Obsidian if it were easier to organize ideas using the outliner method.

Obsidian notes can contain outlines (most of the outliner plugins for Obsidian relate to this use). And it would be entirely possible to use this an outliner mode in Obsidian.
One MOC note, made entirely of bullets. Each bullet a link to a note. In Dynalist/Workflowy terms that MOC note would be the equivalent of the whole bullet database and the linked notes would be the equivalent of the notes below each bullet.

Of course, the full functionality of the plugins isn’t yet available in Live Preview, but I’m sure most will be updated once developers get on top of CM6. I fully anticipate that there will be improved file management in core Obsidian at some point. But I don’t see it being an outliner in the forseeable future.

[GLight]

I think my reply may not solve your problem. But relax, Obsidian is NOT the only tool you have to use for every task. It is the best in some aspects, but it also has drawbacks in some other aspects.

What i do is: making the Obsidian as the connector of all tasks, and using the best tool to finish a specific task, and then within the obsidian, making a connection between the task and its result or output.