Default item type is not used for new items inserted after Project/Heading

jonsleepy

I’ve chosen the default item type to be “bullet”. Most of the time it doesn’t work. I’ll hit “Enter” on the keyboard to create a new item and it’s just a blank item. It’s getting really annoying; is this a bug or is there some trick that everyone else already knows about?

Jerud

I’m not aware of a bug with this; there may just be a misunderstood expectation in how the app behaves.

The prefix a new item gets is not always forced to match the default. Off the top of my head, two possible explanations are:

If you are hitting ‘enter’ after an existing (non-blank) item, the new item will take the same prefix (unless it’s a Project or Heading)
If you are in a Pane with a Filter applied, new items are usually auto-formatted so they match the filter. Otherwise, they would disappear immediately.

So if your Pane is, for example, filtered to only show Task-prefix items and your default prefix is Bullet, new items will probably appear as Tasks not Bullets.

Does this happen in all Panes? What about if you use other methods of creating an item such as the “+” button at the top of the Pane or the Alt+N keyboard command?

jonsleepy

I suspect it’s the first of the two bullet points. In my latest example, I’m looking at a project with four items under it (2 bullets and 2 tasks). My two item types that I’m usually adding are bullets and tasks. I want the default to be bullets. I typically choose to insert a new item on the top of the stack.

So in this case, I put the cursor at the end of the line of the project and then hit ‘enter’.

You’ve said that new items don’t inherit the ‘project’ type. Since there is no filter applied, shouldn’t it then revert to the default item type (which in my case is bullet)? I still get a blank item. Is this not a bug? It almost seems like there’s a built-in default to ‘blank’ overriding the default type that I actually configured in the settings. Otherwise, where does the configured default type apply?

Thanks for any insights.

Jerud

Thanks for the extra detail. We see a wide range of use cases here; what makes intuitive sense to some users seems undesirable to others. In some situations, the developer has to just pick something and stick with it.

I do see your point here though. If a new item after a Project does not inherit the Project prefix, it is reasonable to expect its prefix to be the default. That is what “default” means, after all – the one you use when there’s nothing else controlling the decision.

I expect someone will have a different perspective on this but I’m moving and renaming this as a Bug.

In the meantime, I suggest as a workaround that you get comfortable with the keyboard shortcuts to quickly change item prefixes. If you type a - followed by a space at the beginning of a line it will change the prefix to Bullet. Or you can use the hotkey, which I think defaults to ctrl+shift+8.

jonsleepy

Thanks for understanding my point and registering this as a bug. I’m still curious how the default is being used in its current state (if at all).

Your keyboard shortcut makes life easier. As soon as I hit ‘enter’ the cursor is at the right place for me to initiate the type change, obviating the need to use the mouse as I"m currently doing. So it’s a reasonable workaround until someone is able to fix this if that happens some day.

Is there a keyboard shortcut to create a new bullet item in one step?

Thanks for any tips.