Link bug … just noticed a detected link bug. Seems detected links work when at stat of line, but not when there is non-link text in front of them. Oop. Will fix in next release.
From the (slightly parochial or narrowly focused ) perspective of scripting, that would seem to imply that a scripter gathering a list of links in a document might need:
To collect the <a> tag hrefs and label texts, and
Scan all <p> tags for content that resembles a link
(2 seems perhaps quite difficult ?)
Might it be possible to automatically re-write (on drag-drop link detection) from:
Bike has explicit links, those you create through the “Add Link” popover GUI, and detected links where the link is recognized based on plain text content.
Detected links are only stored in the view layer and are only calculated as rows become visible on screen … they are part of the same system that detects spelling errors, etc.
Currently when you drag and drop a file onto Bike it just inserts the URL text. And that creates this second kind of “detected” link. I should probably make this an option, in normal Bike documents it probably makes more sense to insert a “real” Bike link… though for .opml and .txt documents (where I don’t support rich text attributes) then I will always insert just the link text.
I guess one approach I could take for scripting is to add a new html detected content read only property to row. That would allow you to read those links without having to parse them, and give access to other attributes like spelling. Do you think that would do the trick?
Maybe I should also be highlighting these two link types differently, I’m not sure. Does that seem like it would be helpful?
Also, you can convert from detected to explicit link by:
Click detected link button
Click edit
Click Save Link
Once you do that then you can edit the formally detected link text and the underlying URL won’t change.
I remember using a popular code editor that had an interaction where hyperlinks in code comments would become clickable if you held down cmd and were otherwise editable as plain text. I haven’t found the small click target in Bike to be an issue, but this could be a way to make the full link clickable if that’s something you decide to do (via cmd+click) .
it is OK.
And now, paste non-URL text on selected text to create link, too.
Is it OK?
(Ordinary Mac apps simply remove the selection and paste it there.)
That might be an option that I add, but I feel like double-click (without having to hold down Option key) is easier then single-click with option key held down … so at the moment I would rather just direct people to double-click.
Also note that if any clicking is difficult I have also added a Format > Open Link menu item that you can bind a custom shortcut to.
I thought about that, but I think the only way would be to delay the initial click, and that doesn’t seem desirable. I guess one option would be to show a split button, one half with current icon, the other half with a popup disclosure icon, but that would take up a lot of space. I’m open to suggestions.
It seems more than good enough as it is – at least for moment.
(If significant numbers turn out to mention it as a distraction, then I guess it might be worth giving more thought to, but in the meanwhile, it’s probably one of those small and initially unexpected things which soon recede into familiar background, or serve as a reminder of available GUI)
As a non-standard GUI and manner…
How about popping up the [open link] button over the [link] button?
After the 1 click, the pointer is on the [open link] button, and next clicking will open the link.
(It’s okay if you get used to the UI and the click interval becomes as short as possible!)
Fig. Left is now. Right is one idea.
I don’t think the current icon serves as a good indicator that the button will edit the link. The current button looks like a link, not a button.
I’d rather see a command-click or control-click go to the edit UI. I’m imagining holding down control, mousing over the arrow icon and having it change to a pencil.