Bike 1.0 (38) Preview

Bike Outliner Releases
1

Spent last week and a half on website stuff getting ready for making Bike more public. End result is surprisingly similar to what was already there, but at least I’m more confident about it. Do let me know if you see where I can improve things.

I also released a few changes for Bike 30:

  • Scale guide and drop indicator lines with font size
  • Foreground/Background color settings require a license
  • Fixed Focus In/Out animations to animate text caret correctly
  • Fixed problems where pasting from Bike into other applications wasn’t working

User guide is still a mess. Once I get that in a better state then will make Bike forum public so anyone can try Bike out. Will address any problems that come up and hopefully be ready for 1.0 soon after that.

Here’s current website: https://hogbaysoftware.netlify.app

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2

Overall, it feels like it is coming together nicely.

3

The only thing that is bugging me:

On items with no sub-item, there is a tinted triangle:

Screen Shot 2022-04-12 at 12.13.25 PM

I would prefer that triangle to be a dash: — or even a “L” shaped line.

I can’t explain it well but the triangle (even a tinted one) makes me think & feel that the item should contain a sub-item. A line would be better, IMHO.

4

I like the script interface developments too :slight_smile:

5

Ha, yeah I needed some for scripting demo video. Been a long time since I working on an AppleScript dictionary, easier than I remember. Will likely change everything a few times before AppleScript support settles down. But I am considering adding supported (AppleScript) scripting support for 1.0.

“Real” scripting API will still be javascript based (run in app context) and released after 1.0.

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6

You are probably right, but I’m going to wait until I have theme system in place so these sorts of visual tests are easier to iterate on. Abstractly I still like it as it is, but hard to say for sure since I haven’t tested other views.

1 Like
7

I personally like the cognitive economy of just one shape, with two angles and saturations.

Adding an extra glyph might feel more cluttered, I think.

And we clearly need something to quietly distinguish the start of a new node from folded lines:

Screenshot 2022-04-12 at 20.33.07
Screenshot 2022-04-12 at 20.33.07932×318 30.6 KB

8

I vote for clarity over clutter. :slight_smile:

Horizontal dash becomes bold or longer or angles or turns vertically?

9

This is increasing my desire for the theme customization implementation.

10

I personally find that the current design is working pretty well …

( The structure is visible at a glance, and attention is not distracted from text itself by too many extras )

11

It is bugging me enough that I have went back to doing my outlining in TaskPaper.

12

Here’s script to play with if anyone’s interested. Bike Into Automation Script.zip (2.9 KB)

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13

Thanks !

I wondered how you had done that : -)

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14

selection range of window

is working well.

For the moment, FWIW, I’m seeing an apple event error here with:

focus range of window

(macOS 11.6.5, Bike Preview 38)

15

Yeah, AppleScript support is very half baked at moment. Only setting colors is really well tested since that’s what I needed for demo video.

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