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Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

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Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#91

Post by soapdog »

jessegrosjean wrote: post #36
soapdog wrote: post #32

This is a great outliner. I'm quite impressed by how fluid it is. Great work! quick question: why you chose to go with HTML instead of making OPML the default file format? I'm not judging, I'm just curious.

I want more structure in the file format. OPML is perfect for plain text outliners. But if you want to support rich text then you need to encode the HTML as plain text. This means it's all of the sudden harder to process with web tools like xpath. Also (not sure this will happen, but I plan to try) I expect to add different node types. For example right now every node is a paragraph. In future might have ... A HEADIN…

I understand, thanks for sharing. I've seen some outliners using node attributes to change how the content is interpreted in OPML and thus being able to use them for things beyond plain-text. I'm quite partial to OPML, but HTML is cool too and easier to reuse.

Anyway, congratulations on the impressive first public release. The more outliners the better in my opinion.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#92

Post by jessegrosjean »

kall wrote: post #88

This is an impressively well stripped down app. It's all I ever wanted from OmniOutliner (remember when it shipped with OS X?). Unfortunately, I've been drawn in by the linking functionality in Roam/Logseq and cannot go back to a simple outliner, though this makes me want to. I don't think I'm a fan of the animated cursor while typing. It somehow makes the typing feel slower, like it takes some physical effort for th…

It can feel that way for some people. Seems different per user, there's a preference to change the speed in settings.

Also yet need to remember that you don't need to wait for it, sometimes you might just get mesmerized by it and then it feels slow, but if you just type it will keep up with you. It's only ever the "last" animation that fully completes if you are typing fast.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#93

Post by ask_b123 »

dchest wrote: post #79
elcapitan wrote: post #57

I watched the movie on the linked website, but I really don't get what "fluid" editing is supposed to be and what problem it solves? (I've been using OmniOutliner for years and never missed something like described there)

I made a tiny screencast showing the big difference: https://imgur.com/a/u1QTns6 OmniOutliner feels like it has a separate text field for each node. Bike feels like a text editor when you're editing a document with nodes, which to me is more natural.

I'd recommend using KeyCastr to show the keystrokes while recording.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#94

Post by criddell »

jessegrosjean wrote: post #30
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac native I get. But what is "fluidity"? The other two are just as "fluid".

"fluidity" is a made up marketing term (by me) to mean animation. But I think this animation is important. Bike is a "tool for thought". I think the way that it "feels/animation" is important. Bike's build built from the ground up to support this. Check out the movie or better yet try the download. Typing feels a bit smoother, text slides into place. And yes it can be turned off. And no it doesn't slow you down, anim…

> text slides into place

I don't have a Mac to try this on, but slides into place sounds like what Microsoft does in Outlook and I ended up turning it off.

Maybe it's not the same thing though. In Outlook (and some other Office programs) as you type the text seems to appear a little more slowly and the cursor glides to the right. To me, it always felt laggy and so I turned it off.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#95

Post by sh1mmer »

This looks great.

One small suggestion would be to add a "collapse parent" keyboard shortcut since this is something I imagine using a lot after scanning one or more items in a list. Perhaps Shift-Command-0 might be a good fit for that.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#96

Post by stinos »

_zzaw wrote: post #61
smoldesu wrote: post #11

Why would I buy this over Obsidian or Logseq, both of which are free and support more platforms?

I think the quote on the app page says it all: bikes, not aircraft carriers. I use Obsidian, and really like it, but it’s an aircraft carrier. Bike is, well, a bike. I might, after using it, find that it’s just too simple and I need an aircraft carrier after all, but my impression right now is that the Obsidian-vs-Bike comparison is not 1:1 enough to be fair.

but it’s an aircraft carrier.

A cargo bike perhaps, but if you call Obsidian an aircraft carrier already then there aren't much metaphores left for software which does way more and is (feels) slower than Obsidian.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#97

Post by dchest »

ask_b123 wrote: post #93
dchest wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a tiny screencast showing the big difference: https://imgur.com/a/u1QTns6 OmniOutliner feels like it has a separate text field for each node. Bike feels like a text editor when you're editing a document with nodes, which to me is more natural.

I'd recommend using KeyCastr to show the keystrokes while recording.

Yeah, sorry for the lack of keystokes. I usually use ScreenFlow which also has this feature, but for this one I used LICEcap.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#100

Post by selykg »

iaresee wrote: post #81
selykg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bonus is that Mindnode has a built in outliner view as well. I use Mindnode for this type of thing 99% of the time.

Another long time MindNode user here. I know the nested lists and map views are essentially two visualizations of the same structured data but my brain just finds the maps less thought-constraining. I end up with more creative paths in map view when I use it to plan. Horses for courses I guess. Bike looks neat though.

I'm generally in agreement, but when I need to share something, the outline tends to be easiest to share with others. I'm really happy it's there. Maps for me, outline for others.
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