My feeling is that they will make a lot of sense for any iOS iPadOS version that might emerge in the future, but that at the same time I particularly appreciate being able to work on macOS (even some of the time on iPadOS) in a:
keyboard-only used
only user data visible
mode, in which nothing functionally redundant impinges on the eye. I think it’s always been a strength of your designs.
( So I would personally feel some relief if the arrows became optional,
but, of course, I’m just one data point : -)
Yes! I just un-plugged my MacBook from my 1920x1080 vertically rotated monitor, now on the native MacBook Air screen the arrows are far more tastefully sized!
one more thing I noticed: When I un-fold a row, I think the fact that the “left-triangle” turns the same colour as the left-triangle on a child-less row makes me think it’s no longer clickable to re-fold again. Even though it rotates and points down, I noticed my brain for a moment go “wait can I click on that same triangle and it’ll re-fold?” and felt like I discovered something hidden when it worked, instead of intuitively knowing that I could just do that in the first place.
I think when the ‘child-less row’ triangle is the same colour as both the ‘re-fold this row’ triangle + the ‘focus-in here’ down arrow (I can’t believe I still haven’t learned the correct terminology), it makes me think I can additionally click on the triangle next to rows that have no children.
Oh my god sorry one more thing, I just clicked on “Home” at the top on the navigation bar and it blew my mind! I’ve been using bike for 3h+ each day for a few months and I have no idea when that was added.
Also I love the new look of the navigation bar, even though I have no idea what changed. It just feels better?
I love the new focus arrows and don’t find them distracting at all. In fact, they are super-helpful as I can never seem to remember the keyboard combo for focus. The arrow serves as a visual cue (NB: I nearly always use the mouse in my workflow)
Yes, the handles don’t follow normal button conventions in this regard, but I think it’s a worthwhile break from convention. Otherwise I was just seeing too many dark handles everywhere.
This was just added in previous 1.12 preview release. It’s pretty new!
I think the goal of reducing visual clutter is bang on, however I’m left trying to figure out if there’s a visually simple way to show at a glance “there’s lots of stuff collapsed in this row” vs “there’s almost nothing in this other row”.
I’ve noticed myself wishing for maybe a little word-count widget to float in the left space beside the ‘folding-triangle’ of a row-with-children to help me differentiate between two that have different contents. The user could see that one row has 400w, but that the one below that has 15,000w. Tastefully faint, using some of the space afforded by the column-wrapping. Or something.
Though I know you’ve talked about future plans with improving general navigation, just had the thought and wanted to share
@jessegrosjean I also have a big arrow problem, but I mainly use Bike on my external monitor. Any way to solve this problem?
Also, even with normal arrow size on my Mac screen, I still find it somewhat distracting, but it is useful for sure. Maybe I need some time to get used to it.
I wonder whether a future style system might make it possible to separately allocate background and focus arrow colors ?
i.e. rather than make focus arrow display optional, make it possible to work with styles which mapped their color to the background color (for those who find them a distraction from the text, and prefer to keep hands on the keyboard)
I agree with finding it scattered everywhere somewhat distracting, though I’ve noticed I like the upwards “un-focus” dark arrow when you’re inside a row. It draws the eye nicely to “click this to un-focus”, while communicating that you’re “focused”.
I think a big issue for me is actually the colour choices. If I can make the argument, I think light-gray should indicate that you can’t interact with it, and that dark-grey should indicate that you can.
For example, previously I understood the light-grey row-starting triangles to indicate:
a) This is a standalone, child-less row, and
b) clicking it will do you no good.
Previously a dark-grey row-starting triangle meant:
a) this row has children, and
b) clicking it will unfold and reveal them.
I like the new upwards dark-gray arrow focused-in arrow because it follows this trend and lets you know a) you’re focused into a row, and b) if you click me I’ll un-focus.
However, while the new light-gray row-ending down arrows help communicate that a row has children, if I follow the previous logic it also tells me that
a) you shouldn’t be able to click me, but
b) since I’m on the end of the line, maybe you can?
Same with the new row-start light-gray arrow that appears on the left when you unfold a row, it tells me again a) you shouldn’t be able to click me, but b) you probably just did so you probably can.
Don’t have much to say except I’m enjoying the new look. For me the difference in color between text (black) and arrows of various sorts (light gray) is big enough that I’m not distracted at all.
I’m normally a keyboard only person, but with navigating more complicated outlines the extra benefit of these light gray arrows (up and out) are useful for me.
I think this would be difficult to do without generating a bunch more visual distraction. Maybe an option someday, but right now I think the cost wouldn’t justify the value.
I do think ways to momentarily “peek” at your outline structure could fit well with Bike, but I don’t expect anything to fancy for a while yet. Bike is still working at getting fundamentals right for a while I think.
This will certainly be possible, but I still want to see if we can come up with a good default behavior.
I keep coming back to the idea that folding and focusing are the fundamental outlining tools and should have equal weight in the UI. It could even be argued that focusing is more important, many modern outliers default to focusing over folding when you click bullet.
I know it’s hard to tell without trying, but what if I add an option to hide all these controls (folding and focusing) when you start typing? Same as the mouse cursor is hidden when you start typing. That might actually provide less overall distraction than what we have in Bike 1.11.1, since folding controls would also be hidden.
The behavior would be the all controls that are not indicating hidden rows are hidden. So for example a collapsed row handle would still be shown. And the back arrow of the focused row would still be show… but all the lighter grey controls would hide.
What you say is correct, this change breaks standard button expectations and can cause some initial confusion when people first encounter them.
This change also makes it easier to know when rows are hidden in your outline. Now folded rows are easier to spot, if you see dark handle that now means somethings hidden. It is a tradeoff, but I feel like it’s a worthwhile one for an outliner where it can be very important and useful to stop folded rows.
Thanks for spending some of it thinking about Bike!
That’s a good point I hadn’t considered. Part of me still hopes there’s a way to get that benefit without muddying the users understanding of whether a row can re-fold its children.
Perhaps my confusion is just that on my screen the faint light-grey icons are all a little tough to see, and when you can eventually customize colours/styles I’ll be able to make all light-grey buttons darker = more readable.
Perhaps it’s enough of a distinction for the triangle to turn downwards when I un-fold a row, and that instead it’s just difficult for me to see the difference between “downwards clickable re-fold triangle” and “right-pointing unclickable child-less triangle” because the light-grey colour is too faint on my screens and for my eyes.
That sounds a really interesting idea – my personal preference happens to be to see only the text itself wherever possible, so hiding the folding apparatus too (at least while typing) would be perfect.
Ugh! I like the arrows MUCH better they way they are spaced now. Very simple and clear. In your example it’s almost like they are in a different column. I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that it’s ugly to me and I’d use those arrows a LOT LESS in actual practice.
