[Enhancement] Show contents of focused item

Bike Outliner
1

I have some large items that are collapsed in my main document and when I want to work with them I focus into them. Currently when I focus into a collapsed item it remains collapsed and all I see is the item name. I have to expand it to see anything useful so that’s two clicks: 1) focus into, 2) expand. When I finish working with it again I have to 1) focus out, 2) collapse.

I think it would make sense to automatically show contents of item that is currently focused into. It would almost be like a separate document inside the larger structure that you open (focus in) and close (focus out).

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2

Perhaps your workflow maps better to multiple .bike files in a single folder ?

What is the problem which you aim to solve by using a large single file rather than a folder ?

Is it something to do with search ?

3

I don’t like switching between Finder and separate documents. Previously I used Apple Notes where related notes were all in a sidebar. But I’ve grown to like an outline more.

It’s very natural. A document/task might start as a single bullet point “Prepare Product Presentation”. And after a while you start adding points under it, eventually working on presentation text inside it with the ability to focus on it entirely.

From Wikipedia page about outliners:

So rather than being arranged by document, information is arranged by topic or content. An outline in an outliner may contain as many topics as desired. This eliminates the need to have separate documents, as outlines easily include other outlines just by adding to the tree.

4

I agree this would be nice, this is how my previous app TaskPaper worked. This feature is on my todo list. I expect to eventually add, but not working on it right now.

3 Likes
5

Thanks! This is a great suggestion and it would make Bike a bit more intuitive/frictionless to use (at least for me). Already works nicely, but this would be a great & useful addition.

1 Like