There is a new new App from Hogbay software, Bike, which is perfect for this forum to discuss.

It is part text editor and part outliner.

https://hogbaysoftware.netlify.app/bike/

Ah! Jesse Grosjean does it again... The guy who created and killed Mori, Plaintext, Folding Text, Taskpaper for IOS, SimpleText, QuickCursor. I have lost count of how many apps he created and dumped (along with his customers).
I won't be fooled this time

$32 for that offer?
Jesse has always priced it hot....!
I loved taskpaper! except the syncing..
I loved Foldingtext, but for the endless quibling about node structures..

This doesn't have a Unique Proposition of any kind as yet... so, yeah, nah.

Yet another outliner only for Mac. This guy Jesse's a genius...

MacSE wrote:

Ah! Jesse Grosjean does it again... The guy who created and killed Mori,
Plaintext, Folding Text, Taskpaper for IOS, SimpleText, QuickCursor. I
have lost count of how many apps he created and dumped (along with his
customers).
I won't be fooled this time

I hope the app flowers into something useful for people, but given the VERY checkered or spotty development history of other apps by Jesse I don't think he's getting my money. He's already equivocating on Twitter, saying the "code is setup" for an iOS version "but will still be a lot of work. Will have to see how Bike goes and what features users want."

So Bike seems really an early beta for sale, with changes subject to user request. Yet those who know the history of his app development should not expect much (or much quickly).

Terrible rollout too - a preview (and sale) page without screenshots. The only one I saw was a preliminary screenshot he posted to Twitter last week.

https://twitter.com/jessegrosjean/status/1513582156035014656

satis wrote:

Terrible rollout too - a preview (and sale) page without screenshots.
The only one I saw was a preliminary screenshot he posted to Twitter
last week.

https://twitter.com/jessegrosjean/status/1513582156035014656

There's a short intro movie here:

https://hogbaysoftware.netlify.app/bike/

Warning: the background "music" is so annoying that the movie is bearable only with volume muted.

I have to admit my reaction was, I wonder how long until Jesse abandons Bike.

As I recall he was supposed to be working on a new editor for Folding Text (or was it one of his other projects). My guess is that he got as far as this outliner functionality and gave up making it work for the existing app. But whatever happened, I don't see betting my money on his ability to stick it out. Which is too bad, because he is a very creative developer.

Steve Z.

Anyone who wants a Mac-based single-pane outliner should look at OutlineEdit:

https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/9722/0/outlineedit-3-released

I think you left WriteRoom off this list. It is still for sale through the Mac App Store, but hasn't been updated in 9 years.

MacSE wrote:

Ah! Jesse Grosjean does it again... The guy who created and killed Mori,
Plaintext, Folding Text, Taskpaper for IOS, SimpleText, QuickCursor. I
have lost count of how many apps he created and dumped (along with his
customers).
I won't be fooled this time

Hi, I own it too ; I did not leave it out, considering it is still (very moderately) active, but you'e right, 9 years is a long time...

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I think you left WriteRoom off this list. It is still for sale through
the Mac App Store, but hasn't been updated in 9 years.

MacSE wrote:
Ah! Jesse Grosjean does it again... The guy who created and killed Mori,
>Plaintext, Folding Text, Taskpaper for IOS, SimpleText, QuickCursor. I
>have lost count of how many apps he created and dumped (along with his
>customers).
>I won't be fooled this time

And Bike is a significant comedown on FoldingText: no rich text, no search function... I'm not sure why he's bothered, to be honest.

Thanks a lot for the recommendation Stephen! Always makes me happy to hear when OutlineEdit is received well, after working on it for so many years now. Also keep an eye on the OutlineEdit 3 thread, there is a 3.1 update with some nice improvements, coming soon.

(And, as always, I encourage anyone to send me further feedback, over in the thread or via email.)

Robin

MadaboutDana wrote:

And Bike is a significant comedown on FoldingText: no rich text, no
search function...

When I first read the app’s intro page I thought it touted its search. I don’t see it now, so I’m not sure if I misremembered or if the text was changed.

MacSE wrote:

Ah! Jesse Grosjean does it again... The guy who created and killed Mori,
Plaintext, Folding Text, Taskpaper for IOS, SimpleText, QuickCursor. I
have lost count of how many apps he created and dumped (along with his
customers).
I won't be fooled this time

You've been quoted!

http://bicycleforyourmind.com/bike_a_bicycle_for_your_outlines

Heh, bravo MacSE.

As it stands, Bike is quite nice. But that's it. It's a text outliner.

FoldingText was amazing – still is amazing, actually. But no longer developed or even mentioned by Hog Bay. And never had an iOS app, despite Jesse's vague muttering.

TaskPaper is also amazing, but no longer really under any kind of serious development. And still no iOS app (no, please, don't talk to me about the desperate attempts by third parties).

So how does Bike inspire any more confidence than any number of other outliners currently under development?

Apps with vastly more impressive features (including e.g. support for Markdown). Including just for starters Workflowy, DynaList, Zavala as well as other less well-known solutions (Cloud Outliner, Effie, SpringNotes, Dashword and other apps that are being actively developed).

I respect Jesse's work, but have, like many others here, become profoundly wary of his releasing a brand-new app with minimal features and charging USD 35 for it. Give us a roadmap, Jesse. Promise a cross-platform solution. Maybe at that point I'd invest.

Jesse needs to work for a company where he can be the mad-scientist genius, and someone else makes sure the product gets the constant grooming and development it needs to stick around for a while.

Received an email from HogBay yesterday with the official Bike announcement and it included a limited time 20%-off coupon of BIKEINTRO making the final price $26

If you just need a Mac outliner (and accept the promise of continued developement, plugin architecture etc) it might be worth it. But currently there are a number of nice free & free-tier apps in this space (eg Zavala, CloudOutliner), and its list-price is the same as OutlineEdit 3.

Well quite.

Oh, yes, I'd forgotten OutlineEdit – another excellent and powerful app.

Not to mention entertaining outriders like NoteTaker!

Who needs yet another mildly entertaining but decidedly underpowered outrider?

satis wrote:

Received an email from HogBay yesterday with the official Bike
announcement and it included a limited time 20%-off coupon of BIKEINTRO
making the final price $26

If you just need a Mac outliner (and accept the promise of continued
developement, plugin architecture etc) it might be worth it. But
currently there are a number of nice free & free-tier apps in this space
(eg Zavala, CloudOutliner), and its list-price is the same as
OutlineEdit 3.

... although Bike does have a search function after all, and it works quite well.

Yeah-but, no-but...

I was checking through Hog Bay's posts, of which there are (currently) only two, and found the "Moby Dick" files Jesse uses to test the speed of, yes, you guessed it, Bike (and other apps).

And just for a laugh, I opened the markdown version of the file (1.2 MB in size) in various markdown apps. Here's how they all did:

Bear – imported, opened, scrolled like a rocket; no pauses at all.
iaWriter – ditto (with a very nice instant markdown preview, too)
FSNotes – ditto
Highland 2 – ditto (including list of chapter headings)
MacJournal – ditto (and backed it up in seconds, as it automatically does)
MWeb Pro – ditto
Nota – ditto (nice app, this; can easily handle large folders full of markdown files)
Notebooks – ditto (and displayed it very nicely in markdown preview)
Taio – ditto
Typora – ditto (including list of chapter headings)
Zettlr – after a few seconds' pause, loosened up and scrolled as fast as any of the others, with list of chapter headings

Now granted I'm running these apps on a new MacBook Pro 14 (base-level configuration), which is really quite fast – even so, I am reassured by the speed and quality of all the above-mentioned apps, and slightly baffled by Jesse's obsessive emphasis on the ability to load and scroll through a very large document. I mean, you don't have to slim down your app to the point of having no real features at all to benefit from fast loading and scrolling (and editing, for that matter). So what's his point? In short, what's the point of Bike (I've got some very large outlines in Dynalist, and they don't slow down noticeably in any of the apps – even though they're markdown-compatible)?

Sigh.

That's pretty interesting. In the past many text/word apps *would* choke on large files so I understand that metric, though it may be time to retire it.

Going back decades for me the king of all apps for handling big files has been BBEdit. I've never had a text file it couldn't open, edit or scroll.

Some apps still have practical limits. Eighteen months ago I had to split up a Ulysses sheet of ~130,000 words into several sheets because although it scrolled quickly typing in the file was excruciatingly slow. Subsequent Ulysses updates improved editing dramatically and I just copy-pasted that document - which has now grown to 250,000 words in numerous sheets - into its own single sheet and it scrolls like a dream and editing the mega-sheet is no problem.

In order to get a file size for the document I needed to export the sheet to a text file (in the process learning it was a 2.4Mb, or two Moby Dicks), and unfortunately Ulysses froze after successfully exporting, and I had to Force-Quit the app.

Very interesting. Maybe that reflects on Ulysses's decision to use a database as the back end? I must say I do prefer apps that handle their files "externally", as it were. It's so much easier to prevent proprietary lock-in.

A nice, balanced review of Bike's strengths and weaknesses has just appeared on MacStories (by John Vorhees): https://www.macstories.net/reviews/bike-an-elegant-outliner-for-mac-focused-workflows/

Elegant and speedy, yes. Too pared-down? Also yes.

Cheers!
Bill

And just for a laugh, I opened the markdown version of the file (1.2 MB
in size) in various markdown apps. Here's how they all did:

...

Now granted I'm running these apps on a new MacBook Pro 14

This is interesting, but not my experience at all.

I'm on a 2015 iMac 27, maybe that's making a big difference, but generally it still feels very fast.

I think you may not be doing the full set of tests...

Scrolling top to bottom, yes most apps can handle that OK. This is because it gives the text system time pre-render and pre-layout. Same thing if you resize the window or edit at the start of the document.

The problem, in my experience, comes when you scroll down into the middle of the document and try things. I've just retested (macOS 12.3.1) and I still see major problems:

1. Bear (good) – Best that I tested. I think they might also be using a custom built text view. Maybe it doesn't matter for your use-case, but I can't figure out how to really resize the window text dynamically. Line width is fixed. Yes you can change global preference, but that's not really what I mean when I say resize window. Also if you do change that global preference while viewing test file you'll find it very slow to update. Anyway I would say Bear passes test well, but its text presentation is less flexible them I would like for a text editor.

2. ia Writer. I scroll half way down... I resize the window: It's very rough, screen only updates maybe once a second. I type: There's a noticeable delay. I type and there's a noticeable delay. I don't think it passes, but it's better the next apps (for this particular test)

3. Nota. I start wonder if we are doing the same tests. Forget window resize (which is the hard thing) if I type in the middle of a nota Moby Dick document it takes multiple seconds before any text shows up.

4. Taio. Same story as nota. Typing is pretty much impossible in the middle of the document.

I encourage a couple of other people to try these tests. Maybe my computer really is just to slow, but I know when I do these things in Bike on my computer things are instant.

Generally I use TextEdit to compare Bike against the default text system. It performs better than the listed apps that I've tried (except for Bear), but still has major problems. For example scroll to middle of test document and resize window. For me that often loses my place. The window resize also effects scroll position and I'm lost. Or other times it saves my place, until the first time I click anyway to place my cursor, then it scrolls off into nowhere land.

You don't have to slim own your app to the
point of having no real features at all to benefit
from fast loading and scrolling (and editing, for that matter).

Bikes editor speed is independent from feature design choices.

So what's his point? In short, what's the point of Bike (I've got some very
large outlines in Dynalist, and they don't slow down noticeably in any
of the apps – even though they're markdown-compatible)?

My point is that I think outliners and text editors can be better than they are. So I try to imagine it and then I try to build it.

slightly baffled by Jesse’s obsessive emphasis on the ability to load and scroll through a very large document.

And in my reply I forgot my original claim...

"Bike is small, but designed for real work. It’s fast. It can handle big outlines that break other outliners. Bike's also fast at the basics–opening files, scrolling views, and resizing windows. Bike won’t slow your Mac down"

These (the apps you tested) are all text editors with no structure or outliner features, at least the ones I could test.

Bike is an outliner. It's pretty cool that (for this particular test) it's faster than most macOS text editors (on my computer anyway), but there are many programmers text editors that are faster/more scalable than Bike.

That's because Bike is designed as an outliner. Please try the same test on some outliner apps with the provided .opml file too. Make sure to expand everything then try to use. Most I can't use. And when I can I look at Activity monitor and see they are taking GB of RAM... Bike has been open all afternoon for me, I just opened the test file, and now Bike it's using ~50mb in main process in Activity Monitor.

My intention is not to say these other apps are bad. Moby Dick is big, generally you don't need to handle that much text. But you ask why I even bother and this is why.

It appears to me that Bike is just a chunk of code from FoldingText. It is neither better nor faster than it. I was also amazed when I received the invitation..I see no reason to buy Bike, really.

I also tried MobyDick.markdown on my old mac (Macbook Pro, early 2011).

FoldingText: opened in a flash
Fsnotes: same speed to FoldingText
Typora: same; very fast
BBEdit: very fast
Sublimetext: only appear to be slowed down by it a bit: took it about 1 or 2 seconds to open it.