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:

vim: set tw=80 sw=4 ts=4 sts=0 et ft=outlaw:
=== 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.

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 work with most (sensible) combinations of 'shiftwidth', 'tabstop', 'softtabstop' and 'smarttab' (I'll tell you if I don't like your settings).

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).

Notes are just plain text, but you may use ~~~ tags to embed any configured filetype (see g:outlaw_fenced_filetypes). If you don't like ~~~, the tag may be changed, too (see g:outlaw_fenced_tag).

I let you jump through 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 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 :h outlaw.txt. Ah, I require Vim 7.4.984 or later.