Can you disable markdown list auto-completion?

[PathogenDavid]

GitHub recently added support for automatically extending markdown lists when you create a new line.

Is there a way to disable this functionality? In general I dislike these sort of editor assistance features where things I didn’t type or commit are added for me. For example, I disable things like brace completion in all my IDEs and text editors. This feature is more annoying than helpful for me.

I know I’m weird, but I’m fighting against 20+ years of muscle memory. I’ve tried to get over it in the past, but at this point I’ve accepted these sort of features and my brain will never jive.

[logankilpatrick]

At this time, it is not a setting available to toggle. You can do what the blog post linked above mentioned though:

If you’re at the end of your list, use shift + enter to skip the autocomplete and continue writing on the next line.

[jaydorsey]

I’m in the same boat and would like a native option to disable this feature

It changes the default behavior of a textarea field which has behaved a certain way for many years.

If it was enabled for the custom list/checkboxes only that would totally make sense (because those are extra typing) but I make a lot of sub-lists and the auto-complete just gets in the way

This has been my day for the past week 🤣:

• Create my first bullet point, press enter
  • creates a new line/list item
• Press tab, because hey they’re creating a list item for me. Maybe they intercepted the tab/shift tab to indent easily
  • focus shifts to next element
• Press shift-tab
  • focus shifts back into the text area
• Backspace twice
  • deletes the -
• Press space 3 times, and -
• Carry on with my typing

[jaydorsey]

jaydorsey:

would like a native option to disable this feature

I wrote something that I’m using with tampermonkey to disable this feature that seems to work OK:

gist.github.com

https://gist.github.com/jaydorsey/d1c54ef5fa48668833851423341fbf6f

disable_github_list.js

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Disable Github List Completion
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      0.1
// @description  Disables the behavior described in https://github.blog/changelog/2020-12-15-markdown-list-syntax-now-autocompleted/
// @author       Jay Dorsey
// @match        https://*.github.com/*
// @grant        window.focus
// ==/UserScript==

This file has been truncated. show original

I just guessed that the behavior was bound to a class name (I didn’t look at any of the JS itself), so I’m not sure what other behavior this might break. Please feel free to let me know if there’s a better solution

[ferdnyc]

It doesn’t annoy me enough to turn it off (or attempt to) yet, but I do find it kind of irksome only because it autoincrements the numeral each time.

I always write my Markdown lists in

1. Thing
1. Next thing
1. Another thing

form, so I can reorder the list at any time. Github’s editor is now fighting against my norms (or causing me to fight against it).

[moorepants]

Just another vote to disable this. Autocomplete features should be optional and opt in.

[PathogenDavid]

Thanks a lot, Jay! I finally got around to installing that workaround and it works great so far.

Barring an official solution I’ll accept that as a solution for now.

[conroywhitney]

Another vote for being able to toggle this. It’s like when Slack introduced WYSIWYG instead of letting us use markdown – but they finally added a toggle (thank goodness). The point is, some random PM/engineer’s decision to make things pretty ends up making my life harder. If you’re gonna mess with people’s workflows, give them the option to disagree with your opinion on what’s “best”.

[markd2]

+1 for letting us disable. I have a very 1:1 correlation between what I type to what my mental model contains. Editors “helpfully” inserting cause my mental model to get out of sync, leading to frustration and less joy when using the tools.

[tedg]

Yes I don’t like this functionality and would prefer to turn it off. When I create task lists in my PRs I would like to be able to copy the entirety of the line (e.g. - [ ] Test Case 1), press enter, and immediately paste it and be able to start editing the new todo item.

Since this feature has been released, when I do that workflow the new todo item looks like
- [ ] - [ ] Test Case 1, so I have more work to do editing it. Please let us turn off this new feature.

[indignant]

I would also like to be able to turn this feature off. The “shift + enter” idea seemed like it would be a good temporary solution, but unfortunately it still indents on sub-lists.

[reknock]

Has this problem not been solved yet?

[ferdnyc]

I don't get the impression that GitHub considers it a problem, so you shouldn't expect a solution from them, ever.

[jamespharaoh]

I agree, this is super annoying and should be something you can disable, please.