Shouldn't all bullets in all lists be selected when I select any of them? Where have I gone wrong?
I'm not really an expert on this--Writer's lists can be difficult to understand and to work with.
The answer to your question is: "it depends". It depends on exactly how you created the lists and entered or distributed the items.
Try this:
- Open my sample document
- Click in the left margin next to item #1 at the top
You should see both items highlighted because they belong to the same list & level
- Press Home, then Shift+End, to select the line
- Copy to clipboard
- Move the cursor to the end of any item in the long list; press Enter
You should see a new, empty item for that list.
- Paste the numbered list item
You should now have a new list item, but it belongs to the numbered list, not to the bulleted list: it has #3. Click to the left of it: the number will highlight along with items #1, 2 above.
Weird, huh?
I think of the list items being "tagged" with a list ID. When you create a list, each item is tagged as belonging to this list. The item will always belong to the list it was originally tagged with, no matter where the item appears in the document--even in the middle of some other list!
Whenever you manipulate an existing list, you run the risk of splitting list items off and yet they will still remain part of the original list.
The only way that I know of to change the tag on a list item is to convert it to plain text (i.e. not part of any list), and then either re-configure it as a new list, or add the text item to an existing list.
E.g. take the "orphaned" item #3 from the example above. Move the cursor to the end of the line before the numbered item. Press Delete (delete-forward) to merge the orphan onto the end of the previous bulleted item. Press Enter, and now the orphaned item is part of the bulleted list.