Quick Lists

The term 'quick list' describes Tinderbox's ability to recognise certain characters—as the first characters in paragraphs—in $Text as indicating an HTML list when exported.

Making unordered (bullet) lists

Unordered, i.e. bulleted, HTML lists can be indicated using either an asterisk (*) or a bullet (•). Thus Tinderbox recognises as unordered lists paragraphs that begin with one or more asterisks or bullets:

   * like this example

      ** use two or more asterisks to embed lists within lists

The above gives this sort of HTML output :

• like this example
  • use two or more asterisks to embed lists within lists
• like this example
  • use two or more asterisks to embed lists within lists

Making ordered (numbered) lists

Ordered, i.e. numbered, HTML lists can be indicated by using a hash symbol (#). So, those paragraphs that begin with one or more hash marks:

   # like this example

      ## use two or more hashes to embed lists within lists

The above gives this sort of HTML output:

1. like this example
   1. use two or more hashes to embed lists within lists.

List types can be mixed. For instance:

   * like this example

      ## use hashes to get numbered lists

      ## numbered lists can be in bulleted lists

   * and so on

That gives:

• like this example
  1. use hashes to get numbered lists
  2. numbered lists can be in bulleted lists
• and so on

Configuring quick lists

Tinderbox will indent whole paragraphs beginning with an asterisk or hash, by one tab-width per quick list symbol. A quick list item starting with 3 asterisks will show in TB as a paragraph indented 3 tab-widths.

Several attributes and preferences control quick list handling in note windows and at export:

• If the $HTMLListItemStart and $HTMLListItemEnd attributes are empty, all quick lists, as defined by lines starting with an * or a #, are disabled and content is exported verbatim (i.e. including the * or # markers).
• Outputting text using ^value($Text)^ ignores quick list markup at the source notes $Text is exported verbatim, without HTML processing.
• If $HTMLMarkupText is set to false (the non-default setting), all list indenting is turned off and all mark-up for export, including quick lists, is disabled e.g. paragraph tags, HTML entities, etc. This choice is useful if exporting notes holding code (CS, JavaScript) which must be exported verbatim; the export template would still just use ^text^ but the note's $Text would be inserted into the output verbatim, without any modification.
  • Note that in Tinderbox v6+ there is rarely the need to alter $HTMLMarkupText given the possibility of ^value($Text)^ as described above
• If $IsTemplate is true, the effect is the same as setting $HTMLMarkupText to false, effectively overwriting the latter's current setting to ensure templates perform as expected.

Suppressing default quick list behaviour

To stop a quick list character at the start of a line from being interpreted as quick list markup, either:

• Place an Option+space character at the start of the line.
• Use the HTML encoded symbol for that character, e.g. replace '#' with '#', or '*' with '*' etc.