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Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

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Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#151

Post by chipotle_coyote »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #119
aosaigh wrote: 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.

While I’m sympathetic to that, I’ve (somewhat) come around on the notion of “subscription apps” if the developers are responsible with it. I’ve found that in most cases, new features that would probably be held for major version releases (e.g., “this is a feature that would entice you to pay for the upgrade”) just come out when they’re ready; it’s essentially shifting the app to a rolling release model. The traditional commercial model of “buy the new major version and get free updates until the next major version that makes you buy it again, hopefully at a discount” does always give you the option of not upgrading if you don’t want the new features, to be sure, but if you are a regular user and tend to buy upgrades as they come out, the price difference tends to be minimal.

Having said that, I’m not sure a subscription model makes sense for an app like MindNode, since I’d bet a majority of its users only work on mind maps sporadically That’s conjecture on my part, of course, and I could be absolutely wrong, but I suspect people who do everything with mind maps are fairly few and far between. Paying annually for Ulysses, a writing app I really do use every day, is one thing; paying for MindNode, which I use maybe once a quarter, is a big ask.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#152

Post by mjturner »

bsg75 wrote: post #138

Running the last gen Mac Mini Server which Apple decided to not support past Catalina. As a fan of TaskPaper, this appears to be the point where Apple obsolesce hits me because macOS 11 is needed for Bike and some other new apps I have tried this month. With 16GB RAM, and the HDDs replaced with SSDs it is a perfectly capable desktop. I would upgrade macOS if I could, but it may be time to move it to Fedora. That won'…

I have a Mini of the same generation and it runs Monterey very well via OpenCore Legacy Patcher - https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/. Worth considering if you haven't looked at it before.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#153

Post by jessegrosjean »

billbrown wrote: post #128

I have been in the market for an outliner that outputs to open formats so I am absolutely your audience. (My current top contender is OutlineEdit, and I was days away taking the plunge so thank you!) Two things I would love to see in any outliner: 1) Support Harvard and other outline format. I grew up outlining in Harvard and this bullet list stuff is maddening. The developer told me that OutlineEdit will not support…

Unlikely to be built directly into Bike editor.

I have thoughts (no plans yet) about plugin API that can use web view as output layer. The idea being that an outliner can be used for many things. For example you can create a calendar where the hierarchy is year/month/day. Neat, but not really a perfect solution for a calendar. So the idea with plugin API + Web View is that you could use that outliner calendar data to generate a nicer view. This keeps the outliner simple and uniform, but also gives you data specific view.

I think that same solution might work for Tree style view, or Harvard bullet list view. It would be sorta like a markdown app, content on one side (the outliner), generated polished result on the other.

No promises, but that's how I think I would implement those features in Bike.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#155

Post by bsg75 »

mjturner wrote: post #152
bsg75 wrote: post #138

Running the last gen Mac Mini Server which Apple decided to not support past Catalina. As a fan of TaskPaper, this appears to be the point where Apple obsolesce hits me because macOS 11 is needed for Bike and some other new apps I have tried this month. With 16GB RAM, and the HDDs replaced with SSDs it is a perfectly capable desktop. I would upgrade macOS if I could, but it may be time to move it to Fedora. That won'…

I have a Mini of the same generation and it runs Monterey very well via OpenCore Legacy Patcher - https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/ . Worth considering if you haven't looked at it before.

I did not know this existed. Definitely giving it a shot.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#158

Post by jb1991 »

johnknowles wrote: post #150
jb1991 wrote: post #84

Regarding the website: having a video embedded with zero control to mute or change it's audio volume is really insensitive UX. The annoying background music is not even necessary to actually get meaning from the video.

Strong disagree to both of these points. Nothing "insensitive", save your comment. Devices have audio controls, no need to repeat them in a video player-especially not one on a landing page for a product. Background music for promotional material is standard, and all too necessary.

> Devices have audio controls, no need to repeat them in a video player

You assume that the web page is the only source of audio happening on a device. If someone is listening to something on their machine while browsing articles and then needs to stop whatever is playing because the website is taking over the audio, that's very poor UX and is indeed insensitive to the user.

Suppose you have a screen reader and now you cannot hear it because a video is unnecessarily blaring music that you can't hide. 99.99% of all websites offer the user individual audio control over playing content -- for a reason.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#159

Post by lwn »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #119
aosaigh wrote: 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.

I've been using the free version for years. Never needed any of the premium features to create a useful mindmap.

Re: Show HN: Bike – macOS Native Outliner

#160

Post by jessegrosjean »

alephnan wrote: post #157

What are your thoughts on this data structure? https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2018/03/23/text-buffer-r...

I've read that article a number of times, it's of course a great data structure, though I haven't ever used it myself. I think I like b+tree/rope better though for indexing lists of things efficiently.

I did a lot work using b+tree in a bigger project that I could never quite finish. Finally gave up a year ago and grabbed leftover code to make Bike. Bike is using a pretty dumb data structure, but good enough for now. Hope one day to add back the more performant b+tree stuff.

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