Vim has a plugin for outlines, clearly described here. Create a file with the extension otl, and you’ll get some visual help in managing an outline.
Whitespace denotes indentation level, colons mark text content. It builds on the vim folding commands:
- zc: collapse hierarchy
- zo: expand hierarchy one level
- zO: expand hierarchy all the way
- [z: move to header (]z move to next header]
There are also some commands specific to vimoutliner. these are introduced with a double comma, and listed in the documentation
Finally, it’s possibe to get ascii checkbox functionality, a little like emacs org-mode. This requires installing a plugin-for-the-plugin, and I’ve not yet tried it. Details in :help vimoutliner
The real get out of my head command is this perfect incarnation of my own notation for marking tasks as done:
,,T normal Pre-pend timestamp (HH:MM:SS) to heading