Vim Outlaw: The Wanted Outliner!

Hi, I am Outlaw, and I am wanted.

I am wanted because I am an outliner, and although many outliners are already available for Vim, I am different. Striving for the same minimalist philosophy followed by plugins like Commentary, Dirvish or Sneak, I do not try to reinvent the wheel. The price on my head is about 250 LoC.

Here is a very simple outline which you may start playing with. Open Vim with vim beauregard.outlaw and start typing:

=== My biography
    The secret of a long life is trying not to shorten it.
    === Travel to the East
        === The telegram
            === Meeting with Nobody
            === The bomb
        === Searching for a brother
            === The Wild Bunch

=== Things to do
    [x] Clean boots
    [ ] Brush the horse
        You may lead him to the water if you want, but don't
        expect him to drink.
    [ ] Wear the sheriff's badge

I interpret lines starting with ===, [x], [-] or [ ], followed by a space, as topics. Each topic must be on a single line. The pattern defining a topic may be fully customized by setting g:outlaw_topic_mark, shouldn't you like my admittedly biased choice.

If you are the task-oriented kind of guy, you may prefer the TaskPaper format, rather than the above. I can't blame you. Just save your document with a .taskpaper suffix and I will format each topic as a project or task.

Whatever patterns you adopt, topics may be indented to form a hierarchy or outline. I support up to nineteen levels (ten are highlighted by default, see g:outlaw_levels). I don't care whether 'expandtab' is set or not. You only need to set your preferred indentation level with g:outlaw_indent (if you don't define that variable in your vimrc I will use the current value of 'shiftwidth').

For me, everything that does not look like a topic (including blank lines) is body text (notes). I couldn't care less about the format or indentation of your notes (although I can help you aligning them with :OutlawAlignNotes): each block of body text always belongs to the topic immediately before it. But don't call it a son of a topic: you'd better think of body text as being at the same level as the topic it belongs to (it is possible to fold notes independently, though: see g:outlaw_note_fold_level and gy).

Notes are just Normal text, but lines starting with > or | are highlighted (use > for quotations and | for verbatim text or code). Words preceded by @ are highlighted as tags anywhere. You may also use ~~~ or ``` tags to embed any configured filetype (see g:outlaw_fenced_filetypes). The delimiters may be changed, if you want (see g:outlaw_fenced_tag). Hyperlinks are highlighted, too.

I let you jump over topics quickly: to the previous or next topic (<up> and <down>), to the previous or next sibling/cousin (<left> and <right>), parent or uncle (- and +). Press <enter> in Normal mode to quickly add a new sibling below the current topic, or <c-k> to add a new sibling above the current topic. Use <c-j> to make a new child.

Besides, I help you move pieces of your outline around using the arrow keys in Visual mode (they accept a count, of course). Fix the indentation with the usual mappings (=, ==, …) if necessary (your notes will be unaffected).

Folding and unfolding are performed using Vim's default mappings and controlled using Vim's options (see :h fold-options). In addition, I provide gl to set the fold level according to the level of the current topic (so that all subtopics are closed), and g:outlaw_auto_close (toggled with gA) as a better suited alternative to setting 'foldclose'.

There's not much else you need to know about me. But if you want to know all the details, see :help outlaw.txt. Ah, I require Vim 7.4.984 or later.

Tips from Nobody

• Hyperlinks should be underlined (if they are not, blame your color scheme): put the cursor over a link and type gx to open it, usually in your browser (requires Vim's Netrw).

• You may easily use me to build a wiki. Put each “wiki” page in a separate text file (with a .outl, .outlaw or .txt suffix) and keep the files in the same folder. Now, say you want to link A.outlaw from B.outlaw: just write ./A.outlaw or even just A or @A somewhere inside B.outlaw: then, when you put the cursor over A and type gf you will jump to A.outlaw. Jump back and forth with CTRL-O and CTRL-I.

• Never underestimate how much you can accomplish using only Vim core features.