Ah, yes; excellent point.
See below.
Hereās what makes most sense to me
Numbered lists should stay the way they are
To be more specificā¦
ā¦ a ānumberlistā property on an item makes its direct descendants (not all descendants) numbered.
The alternative solution is confusing
The alternative solution is for the ānumberlistā property to make just the item itself numbered. But what happens in situations like this?
1. Foo ā numberlist
* Bar ā not a numberlist
X. Baz ā numberlist
Should X be 1 or 2 or 3? Thereās no clear answer.
Checklists should behave like completion
To be more specificā¦
The āchecklistā property of an item makes it have a checkboxāas simple as that. Descendants are not affected.
For why, see the lede and this post.
Whatās the alternative solution?
The most sensible alternative solution is to make the āchecklistā property make its direct descendants checkable.
Only ādirect descendantsā and not āall descendantsā because of this Trello card.
Only ādirect descendantsā and not ādirect descendants plus the itemā itself because of this point that @Erica makes:
The alternative solution is less flexible
i.e. it supports a strict subset of working styles with marginal increased convenience for any working style. See this post.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I think both solutions make sense; one just makes more sense to me than the other.
The solution I favor would indeed make the checklist functionality different from the numbered list functionality, but I think itās worth it and not confusing if the wording is changed:
Instead of āMake/unmake Checklist,ā the option could read āShow/hide checkboxā or āMake/unmake checkable.ā
(To make the transition without affecting the way existing lists look, I guess all the descendants of lists with the āchecklistā option currently should get assigned the āchecklistā property as well, and then switch for the UI change can be flipped.)