Daily Notes... again!

Let me try this again… For some reason I felt like deleting my post last night, but now I wish I could undo that!

Anyways, how do you all use Bike for daily notes? I’ve been dumping everything into one file and focusing in on each days bullet point. I was wondering if anyone had a different system, or leveraged links to keep a “journal” file with links to each of your daily notes?

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I have a pretty disorganized “dump” file. It’s organized more by project then by date.

If you did want a system to organize more by date your could try this “today” script and see if that helps:

I have a similar Shortcut action … hears a copy:

Today.shortcut.zip (13.2 KB)

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I have been using the Today script for close to a year now and it works wonderfully for me, especially with the new navigation bar. I tried the Shortcuts version, but it doesn’t integrate with the Scripts version of dates I started with (puts the dates in a different place). I’ve been thinking that at the end of my academic year, I switch my journaling to the Shortcuts version.

This version of the Today shortcut should be compatible. The script and shortcut were just using different generated ID’s.

Today.shortcut.zip (13.2 KB)

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Nice work Jesse. This shortcuts version of Today integrates perfectly with the year’s worth of dated journals I’ve been working with in Bike. Now I’ll be able to abandon the script version in my daily set up and rely solely on Shortcuts, which I prefer because it’s more intuitive for non-programmers like myself. Thank you. Do you ultimately plan to integrate this Today shortcut into the Bike app page in shortcuts or will it remain separate?

Good idea, I’ve just updated that one.

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And I forgot to add that the time stamp was a nice addition :+1:t3:

I’ve already worked through a morning’s worth of projects in Bike (I like to compose in Bike and then move the work to wherever it needs to go, often just leaving it in Bike to return to on another day. I keep 4-5 project tabs open and have made a habit of copying row link from the journal into the project tab to keep track of files (I’ll also use hookmark for the more important projects. It’s a nice workflow.

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I have a daily log that utilizes the logic of the Today shortcut, which is to track row IDs to place each new date in the right place in the outline.

My problem is that I start the log on macOS and finish that log in the evening when I’m on iOS, so I can’t use .bike files. I use plain text, but each time I edit and save the log document in an app other than Bike, the row IDs break and the shortcut adds new dates to a separate section in the outline.

Is there a viable workaround for this?

Your best bet is to find an iOS editor that works with OPML, that should preserve the IDs. A list of ones that I know about are here, but I haven’t really given any of them a big round trip test with Bike: Bike Compatible Apps - Bike

FWIW, I just tried with Zavala and Carbon Finn Outliner on iOS. Unfortunately, same issue. Taking a look at the resulting OPML files, both apps seem to delete the outline ID property in the OPML file upon save. I can’t find a feature in the settings that would preserve outline IDs.

At first glance, it seems that OmniOutliner is the only one that works, but for some reason I can only open the OPML files from iOS Files and not from OO’s file browser (WTF?). I’m not sure that the free version of OO supports preservation of IDs because they show up as separate columns in the Pro version, which the free version does not support. Removing that column from the outline in OO breaks the row IDs. That, and OO’s UI feels like 2012.

I think my best bet now is just to swallow the fact that I will have to do cleanup each time I run the script. Probably less time consuming than searching for a solution until Bike for iOS comes along :wink:

did you try iCloud Outliner? both Mac and iOs…

Yes. Cloud outliner works with its own database, which means import/export, which I am not willing to do. Besides, it doesn’t support automation through shortcuts. On top of that, it also breaks Bike’s row IDs.

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I succeed ClOut with OPML… of course save and reopen, not sync

I’m not understanding that abbreviation, can you link to the app?

Cloud Outliner

Thanks, I’m adding a link to the Bike Compatible Apps page.

So you’re saying that you can run the Today shortcut in Bike, save file as OPML, open that and edit that same file in Cloud Outliner, save it and reopen in Bike and the Today shortcut still works?

not exactly

I can’t reproduce the same result.

Here’s a screenshot of my outline. This is what the Today shortcut generates.
Screenshot 2023-08-21 at 20.44.39

This is the OPML code from the file generated by Bike. Notice the “outine ID” properties.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<opml>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8"/>
  </head>
  <body id="ducJpx2j">
    <outline id="2023/00/00" text="2023">
      <outline id="2023/08/00" text="August, 2023">
        <outline id="2023/08/21" text="August 21, 2023">
          <outline id="nG" text="20:44"/>

This file is then opened in Cloud Outliner on iOS (iOS Files → Share → Cloud Outliner). Here’s a screenshot of that:

Now if I export the OPML from Cloud Outliner, here’s the OPML code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<opml version="1.0">
	<head>
		<title>(null)</title>
		<expansionState>0,1,2</expansionState>
	</head>
	<body>
		<outline text="2023">
			<outline text="August, 2023">
				<outline text="August 21, 2023">
					<outline text="20:44" />

The outline ID properties are gone. Which leads to Bike doing this (the Today shortcut is creating a whole new set of date entries).

Can you clarify what you mean by save and reopen? I don’t see any other way to save a file in Cloud Outliner other than export as OPML (on iOS).

I did it only from Mac…
If you want me to check please send me your file…