Allow starting numbered lists with arbitrary numbers without empty line before list

ux
1

This came up a number of years back, but was filed as a bug Bug with Numbered List. I’m fine with the classification of it not being a bug, but it would still be useful if lists could be started at arbitrary numbers/continued after writing something in between, e.g.

Top Prio:
1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item 3

Medium Prio:
4. Item 4
5. Item 5

Low Prio:
6. Item 6

Edit:
The original request was to allow numbered lists that start with a number different from 1. But it turns out, this works (see below). However, it only works with an empty line before the numbering for numbers other than 1. So the suggestion would be to either handle other numbers similar to 1, i.e. render the list even if there is no empty line before it, or to adapt the behavior for lists starting with 1 to match that of the other numbers.

2

It seems like this is currently possible:

List 1: (starting at arbitrary numbers)

  1. Red
  2. Yellow
  3. Blue

List 2: (skipping numbers)

  1. Green
  2. Purple

List 3: (continuing previous numbering)

  1. Orange

In case there’s any difference in how the markdown is being interpreted, this is how my post looks on my screen:

image
image608×636 56.8 KB

2 Likes
3

Interesting!

Indeed it seems that it works correctly, if there is an empty line after the heading. But if there is none, it only works with 1., but not other numbers.

List starting at 1 (no space)

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3

List starting at 4 (no space):
4. Item 4
5. Item 5

List starting at 4 (space)

  1. Item 6

So it seems that it’s more of a UX problem than a missing feature.

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