Feature Request: move child nodes when parents are moved

Feedback
1

I would LOVE if Agenda added a feature to maintain parent-child relationships when moving parent bullets around (either up/down, dragging, or indenting/outdenting). I’ve heard this called logical outdenting in Logseq, or perhaps structural editing. I know that Agenda is not an outliner per se, but for me, this would give it many of the organizational benefits that I love about outliners, and also just makes a lot more sense for my brain. Currently, moving around nested child bullets seems to require selecting them all and dragging or copy-pasting.

Secondarily: My workaround on Mac is to select multiple lines and move them with the “Move text up/down” commands, BUT every time you use that command, it de-selects all of the lines, which means you can really only meaningfully use that command to move multiple lines up or down once (after which, you have to re-select them, which kinda defeats the whole point). If the lines remained selected, it would be much easier to quickly move multiple lines up and down (plus, it would be easier to visually track what’s moving and changing while you’re doing it.

Thanks for your consideration!

2 Likes
2

I am pretty sure we did add this, but only in a specific case, namely, if you “fold” the parent item to hide the nested items.

Easiest way: Hold option as you click the little dot to the left of the item you hover over. It should fold the list (collapse it).

Once it is collapsed, you should be able to drag it and it should keep the children with the parent.

If it goes wrong, undo and let me know.

3

Hi Drew,

Yes this does work if the bullet is folded, so then I’d like to clarify my ask is for this feature to work when the bullets are not folded as well. I personally don’t fold bullets much (I like to see what’s there usually), so it would be useful to have this be the default behavior (or at least have the option for this the be the behavior).

Is that something you’d consider?

1 Like
4

Yes. I don’t think it should be the default, but perhaps you can do it by holding in option as you drag. What do you think?

5

If half of the actions and commands had options or default settings, Agenda would look like drafts!

6

I second this request (as an occasional Workflowy user). Although I think of Option+drag being used for copy. Maybe Command-drag if that’s available?

Then for keyboard shortcuts it could be:

⇧⌃ ↑ Move Text Up
⇧⌃ ↓ Move Text Down
⇧⌃ ↑⌘ Move Section Up
⇧⌃ ↓⌘ Move Section Down

Maybe there’s a better term than section, but I’m thinking this could apply not just to list items and their children, but to Headings and their enclosed contents.

3 Likes
7

+1 to @patrickrushton ‘s suggestion! My use case is definitely focused on the keyboard shortcuts, not dragging and dropping, so I could get used to just using an extra modifier key whenever moving text like this. And +1 to having it apply to headings hierarchy as well!

My dream would be for a way to put a button for this into the iOS keyboard toolbar as well, so I could tap a couple times to move sections up and down rather than hold and drag. But, this would be “nice to have” for me, after the Mac (and hopefully iPad) keyboard shortcuts.

1 Like
8

Thanks for the extra thoughts! I think Command-drag could work, good suggestion. And yes, extending it to headings and their contents makes sense too.

We will take it all along. Cannot promise a timeline, but the feedback helps prioritize. Thanks!

3 Likes