Checkvist Structural Operations

Programs that support tree structure are, for example, OmniOutliner and Mindjet MindManager. And of course IDEs like oXygen and IntelliJ IDEA.

There are many possibilities to support structure:
(1) creating and editing tasks
(2) navigating and moving tasks
(3) selecting tasks and performing actions

The following list is a starter to think about this topic.

creating and editing tasks
+ add a task before/after current position (already works in Checkvist)
+ add a subtask at first/last position
+ group tasks under a new parent task
+ split a task at cursor position
+ merge selected tasks into one

Note that OmniOutliner has five creation options. oXygen provides 'append child', 'insert before', 'insert after'. Mindjet can parse a task to detect an enumeration and split it into several tasks or subtasks.

navigating and moving tasks
+ go one level up (without collapsing)
+ go to the first/last task (within the current parent, not globally)
+ move task to the first/last position (within the current parent, not globally)
+ go to the previous/next sibling (also when subtasks are expanded)
+ move task to the previous/next sibling

Note that all those "go/move to sibling" actions should also work in hoist mode (cf. Evernote presentation mode, where it is possible to navigate to the next/previous note)

selecting tasks and performing actions
Multiple selection is the basis for doing something on a set of items instead of doing it one by one. Hence it is the basis for efficiently maintaining lists. The following are taken from Mindjet:
+ select all siblings
+ select all siblings above only
+ select all siblings below only
+ select all subtopics (on next level only)
+ select topic and all descendants (all levels)

Frequently I move a task inside another by pressing tab. This creates a subtask at the last position, but I often want it at the first position. Therefore, sometimes I create a dummy task above the target task, add the subtask there and move it down with strg+down or strg+j. Could be easier. Note that cut and paste seems to be a lot faster recently, so that's an option.

All actions need to be checked for consistent behavior when working in the three contexts: whole list, single task, multiple selected tasks. E. g. ec should work on the selection and not always on the whole list. Or focus/hoist should work with multiple selected tasks (with some constraints, of course). Where should alt+enter add the new task: above all selected tasks, or above the current (last selected) task?