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Bike Outliner: Adds Row Types
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Posted by Amontillado
Aug 10, 2023 at 12:00 PM
Forgot to mention ease of use. Command-K, Escape, and control-command-arrows are the only hot keys needed to do most of what you need from the keyboard.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 11, 2023 at 08:42 AM
Great to hear – thanks, Jesse.
Ah, so that’s what “outlining mode” means! I confess I was slightly baffled by this, even after searching through Bike’s online help. Now that is a really useful feature.
Jesse Grosjean wrote:
> What is it specifically about Bike that makes it useful for lists?
>
>I think all outliners are pretty good at making lists. Press enter,
>type, press enter.
>
>What I think makes Bike different from pretty much any outliner is the
>quality of text editing mode, combined with structured outline editing
>mode. You can see this demonstrated in demo video on website.
>
>Bike’s text editing mode is unconstrained and works just as you would
>expect a plain text editor to work. There are no weird cases where the
>text caret doesn’t act right, or ends up in slightly wrong place… it’s
>a fully functional multiline text editor. Almost no outliners work this
>way, instead they are cell based, you edit one row at a time. And while
>there are ways to move from one cell to another, there are always edge
>cases where it doesn’t quite work right.
>
>With the escape key Bike also has outline editing mode. In this mode
>Bikes commands work like a traditional outliner. Move a row, child rows
>come with it.
>
>This combination is pretty unique, and for me makes it particularly nice
>for editing lists.
>
>> I agree, tagging would be the icing on the cake. Of course you can
>> insert tags and then search for them
>
>Tags are definitely on my todo list.
>
>Big features that I plan to tackle (and start to complete, but probalby
>not all of them for a bit still) this fall are query language,
>filtering, tags, stylesheets. They all sorta depend on each other, so
>I’m puzzling through how exactly I’ll do it. I need query language first
>and have made progress on that. Then will figure.
Posted by Jack Baty
Aug 24, 2023 at 12:22 PM
There’s a hidden preference in DTP that lets you add file extensions that are to treated as plain text.
defaults write com.devon-technologies.think3 AdditionalPlainTextExtensions -string .bike
This fixed the .html problem for me. My notes: https://wiki.baty.net/#2023.07.27%20-%20Using%20.bike%20files%20as%20templates%20in%20DEVONthink
Amontillado wrote:
For a number of reasons it’s nice to make maps of content in Devonthink.
>Bike is probably my new favorite tool for that because it’s quick and
>low friction for editing lists. Devonthink links work fine in Bike
>files, so it can link to DT notes, files, groups, or tags.
>
>Yesterday I found the game changer. Devonthink recognizes links,
>backlinks, and mentions in Bike files.
>
>There is one small wrinkle, not Bike’s fault, and with an easy
>workaround.
>
>Devonthink will open and edit a Bike file. Unfortunately, it changes the
>file type from Bike to HTML and you no longer have a Bike-friendly file
>- but there’s a nice workaround.
>
>Set a smart rule to lock any file with a Bike extension on creation,
>import, or moving into the database.
>
>The lock is just within the context of Devonthink. You can still open a
>“locked” file in Bike and edit to your heart’s content. The only
>limitation is I haven’t found a way to save an empty Bike file as a
>template in Devonthink. Creating a new Bike file from a template results
>in an HTML file, not a Bike file.
>
>I grumble, but I can live with that limitation.
Posted by Amontillado
Aug 24, 2023 at 06:13 PM
Awesome! Works here, too.
Jack Baty wrote:
There’s a hidden preference in DTP that lets you add file extensions
>that are to treated as plain text.
>
>defaults write com.devon-technologies.think3
>AdditionalPlainTextExtensions -string .bike
>
>This fixed the .html problem for me. My notes:
>https://wiki.baty.net/#2023.07.27%20-%20Using%20.bike%20files%20as%20templates%20in%20DEVONthink
>
>
>Amontillado wrote:
>For a number of reasons it’s nice to make maps of content in Devonthink.
>>Bike is probably my new favorite tool for that because it’s quick and
>>low friction for editing lists. Devonthink links work fine in Bike
>>files, so it can link to DT notes, files, groups, or tags.
>>
>>Yesterday I found the game changer. Devonthink recognizes links,
>>backlinks, and mentions in Bike files.
>>
>>There is one small wrinkle, not Bike’s fault, and with an easy
>>workaround.
>>
>>Devonthink will open and edit a Bike file. Unfortunately, it changes
>the
>>file type from Bike to HTML and you no longer have a Bike-friendly file
>>- but there’s a nice workaround.
>>
>>Set a smart rule to lock any file with a Bike extension on creation,
>>import, or moving into the database.
>>
>>The lock is just within the context of Devonthink. You can still open a
>>“locked” file in Bike and edit to your heart’s content. The only
>>limitation is I haven’t found a way to save an empty Bike file as a
>>template in Devonthink. Creating a new Bike file from a template
>results
>>in an HTML file, not a Bike file.
>>
>>I grumble, but I can live with that limitation.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 5, 2024 at 01:38 PM
Just wanted to update this topic to sing out in praise of Jesse’s Bike outliner, which has steadily evolved into one of the most impressive writing tools out there.
I’ve just been revisiting the user guide to update my awareness of what Bike is now capable of, and am so impressed by the many thoughtful little touches that turn Bike into a truly effective tool.
When the app first appeared, I made a little list of new features I’d love to see. Almost all of those features have now been introduced (and reading through the user guide, I’ve discovered a whole lot more). The only things still outstanding on my list are support for images (you can already link to an image, of course; file linking is something Bike does extremely well), support for underlining (but I know it’s not a markdown standard), and support for tags (hash and at).
But as previously remarked, it’s the little touches that make it really stand out – the indicators that show you what codes are in use, the context-sensitive caret, the focus/unfocus arrows… really great stuff.
Plus the ability to link to individual rows (in any Bike file). In fact, the handling of rows (= text blocks) is outstanding.
And the speed, of course.
(I’m still working on my understanding of Outline Paths, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually ;-))
Cheers!
Bill