My favorite little Markdown feature: reordering ordered lists
In short: in Markdown, you can write 1.
for every list item instead of 1.
, 2.
, 3.
, etc.
Markdown lets you make ordered lists, like so:
- First list item
- Second list item
- Third list item
I often find myself reordering these lists as I write. What was previously item #3 is now item #2.
Good news: Markdown makes this easy, even for numbered lists!
From the CommonMark spec:
The start number of an ordered list is determined by the list number of its initial list item. The numbers of subsequent list items are disregarded.
That means I can just start every list item with 1.
and I don’t have to worry about reordering things myself.
In other words, the following Markdown:
1. One
1. Two
1. Three
Renders like this:
- One
- Two
- Three
This is a small thing but it saves me time, and that’s why it’s my favorite little feature.