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Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

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111–120 of 243 posts

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#111
This seems very similar to Workflowy, which is meant as a compliment.

Scriptability is a huge feature here, and something that WF users have been asking about for a long time.

If you could offer this on multiple devices & OSes, and provide a sync feature, then I'd be very interested in switching.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#112
post #12

Very cool and congrats on what you’ve built! This is something I’ve been looking for. Any plans to do iCloud syncing and maybe a mobile app?

I think basic iCloud syncing between Macs should already work, just as part of the fact that Bike saves your outlines to some Mac OS file (not database). I know I need to do iOS support, as long as I stay financially viable I will do iOS support. But I still need to work on a few more basics in the macOS app first. Bike will also read/write .opml files. You should be able to share with iOS outliner that way I think.

Very well done. An iOS app would be great, since people often do outlining/thinking in the nature.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#113

A killer feature for me that might sound silly, would be a "distraction free" mode - which would just require being able to center the content in the window in fullscreen mode. I have an ultrawide, and if I could work in this app full screen and centered with just a click or two, it would be pretty great.

I made WriteRoom which coined "Distraction free writing". Good fullscreen mode for Bike is on my list for sure.

I bought WriteRoom :) It gave me a lifelong appreciation for "distraction free" computing.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#114
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you considered using the org format? I'm not saying it'll be good (I've not seen an implementation outside emacs that really gets it) but org-mode has been the best outliner I've personally used.

I haven't looked too much into it. If someone really wanted it and was motivated to help write I would (might, contact me first) support, but generally the existing formats are what I will focus on.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#115
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why not to use markdown formatting? For example, Dynalist use this idea for their files And node itself is heading, while when they need paragraph with heading they create _note="" attribute into element

Markdown is great and I build another app, FoldingText, around it.

But for my own use I over time realized that was a mistake. All the parsing and formatting adds complexity. I think rich text (which to be clear Bike does not yet have, though I will add soon) is a simpler way to work from user perspective. Just issue commands instead of remember and see formatting rules. It's cleaner and simpler for my uses.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#116
post #74

In particular I love these features: - "respects your computer's memory and battery" - "uses open file formats" - "is scriptable" Feels like we should also think about these kinds of things when we think about "organic" software. Kudos to the developer for these.

Jesse is certainly one of the patron saints of open formats in the Apple world given he invented TaskPaper.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#118
Surprised nobody has mentioned org-mode yet. It does everything shown in the video: collapse/expand nodes, focus on subtrees, ability to highlight across rows/nodes, etc.

That said, the fluid animations in Bike look great, and the video was very slick! Nice work.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#119
post #43

This looks cool. I just started using MindNode yesterday [0] which is a similar tool (although it takes a very different approach - it's more visual). I wasn't sure of the effectiveness of these sort of tools as I usually just use text files + Notability sketches but I have to say they are very useful in helping to structure thoughts better. I'm interested to try this. [0] https://www.mindnode.com/

Oh cool, I've been looking for a mindmap app. Oh wait - it is a subscription? Why? That makes zero sense.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#120
post #90
post #74

In particular I love these features: - "respects your computer's memory and battery" - "uses open file formats" - "is scriptable" Feels like we should also think about these kinds of things when we think about "organic" software. Kudos to the developer for these.

How much memory and battery do all the animation use?

CALayer is part of the OS toolkit, so probably not much. It’s the same system the OS itself uses, so probably a shared lib, and it’s heavily optimised. Similar to animating your web page with only CSS animations. It’s all baked into the existing rendering system already.
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