Is it possible to create an indented outline w markdown/drafts?

Software
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1

Is it possible to create an indented outline w markdown/drafts?

2

Yes, use cmd+] and cmd+[ to change indentation of your lines. If you’re asking if there’s support for alphanumeric, there’s not. It just highlights whatever you type at the start of each line.

3

I do this all of the time both in Drafts and in Obsidian. I just start my first line with a list item and with every press of return my editor creates a new list item on the next line. As mentioned by @cornchip, I “use cmd+] and cmd+[ to change indentation,” which is the important bit. Before I realized I could do that, I would move the cursor to the beginning of the line and use tab/backspace. But with cmd+] and cmd+[ the cursor can be anywhere on the line.

One word of warning, not all Markdown editors are created equal. Annoyingly, some do not indent soft wrapped lines of a long list item. For example:

- This is a long item that goes on for a while and 
wraps to the next line.
  - This is a nested items which also goes on for
a while and wraps to the next line.

Now contrast that with this:

- This is a long item that goes on for a while and 
  wraps to the next line.
  - This is a nested items which also goes on for
    a while and wraps to the next line.

Obviously, the second example above is easier to read as secondary lines get properly indented. I always insist that my editor does that automatically.

Some text editors which I know do this correctly include Drafts, Obsidian and BB Edit (BB Edit requires a setting change; search the user manual for “Soft Wrapping with Indentation”; there are many optional behaviors to choose from). There may be other editors which support indenting soft-wrapped lines, but in my experience, most general purpose text/code editors do not support this must-have feature.

There are two glaring differences between using a text editor for outlines compared to a proper outliner app.

  1. With an outliner, pressing return always creates a new empty line immediately after the current line. With a text editor, that only works if the cursor is on the end of the line. When it is not, then anything after the cursor gets moved to the new item. In reading reviews of outliners, people who use them seem to prefer the outliner behavior. Personally, I prefer the text editor behavior. YMMV.
  2. In an outliner, changing the indent of an item moves all child items with it. However, in a text editor, only the current line is moved. You need to manually change the indent of each child line. This is the one feature I miss on the few rare occasions when I need it.
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4

In BBEdit you can select multiple lines and use ⌘-[ and ⌘-] (or use the menu options under the Text menu) to shift the entire set of lines left or right respectively.

5

You can indent all selected lines with the shortcut in Drafts, too. And in Pages/Word etc. They’ve copied basic outliner features.

6

Yes, you can indent multiple lines if you select them all. However, if you are just leaving the cursor on a line (without making a selection), then only the current line will change indent, which is different than any outliner apps I’ve used.

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